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> the more they created a vocal minority who heavily drank the coolaid loosing the ability to even consider that the god like apparatus could be wrong. They’re

by simonh 5y ago

> the more they created a vocal minority who heavily drank the coolaid loosing the ability to even consider that the god like apparatus could be wrong. They’re are small vocal minorities all over the spectrum that say all sorts of crap. The WHO isn’t the only voice of “the system” though and plenty of other services and agencies recognised covid was airborne as soon as the evidence was out. Overall I think at least here in the UK the system worked very well, health services were severely tested but the lockdowns were effective, and now the vaccines and other proven therapies have returned life pretty much to normal. As for the WHO, they’re a weak politically compromised organisation that was all over the map in their covid response. Being a political football is by design though, as a UN agency. The governments that hold power over it want to be able to kick it around and they do. Even so, they are also an incredibly important resource for dozens of developing countries that heavily rely on their technical expertise and resources. IMHO the answer is to strengthen them and make them more independent and capable of fending off political pressure, but unfortunately their (frankly deserved) credibility hit probably makes that impossible, so they’ll become even more bent out of shape by interference. We do need a credible, well resourced, at least somewhat independent global health organisation though.

willyt 5y ago
I don’t think Britain was very successful in our public health mesures. We were far too slow to lock down and recommend masks and as a result we had twice as many deaths as comparable countries like Germany and France. Our health care system was very efficient at distributing the vaccine though and this was a great success.
- simonh 5y ago
  UK deaths per million were 2,400, France was 2,000 which is comparable. Especialy in the early phases random events like super spreaders made a big difference to individual countries impact. Germany was 1,500 but that's an outlier, it helps do mass testing and targeted lockdowns early if your country is one of the global centres for the medical testing industry. You're quite right we should have locked down a few weeks earlier in the first phases. What I'm saying is the lockdowns and mask mandates worked. You're saying we needed more aggressive lockdowns and more masks, and I won't argue with you, yes. We could have done with even more of these measures, but the measures clearly did what they were supposed to do. That's just saying we needed more of the system not that the system failed in the way I think OP meant. If anything Germany's success was because they were even more tightly integrated into the system.
rvanlaar 5y ago
Respectfully disagree. A lot of people who looked into COVID were saying this doesn't add up. They were were framed to be in the 'small vocal minorities that say all sorts of crap'. "the system" was all pointing and looking at each other. Big tech censored content that was deemed misinformation by the standards du jour. "the system" failed what it said it would do, follow the science. And the WHO has been a major part of that system.
- simonh 5y ago
  It depends what you mean by add up. There really were lots of small vocal groups saying all sorts of utter rubbish, and still are. Also of course in the early days there were lots of things nobody knew, and people were making the best guess or estimate they could based on limited data, and refining on that as more information became available.

by simonh 5y ago

willyt 5y ago

I don’t think Britain was very successful in our public health mesures. We were far too slow to lock down and recommend masks and as a result we had twice as many deaths as comparable countries like Germany and France. Our health care system was very efficient at distributing the vaccine though and this was a great success.

simonh 5y ago
UK deaths per million were 2,400, France was 2,000 which is comparable. Especialy in the early phases random events like super spreaders made a big difference to individual countries impact. Germany was 1,500 but that's an outlier, it helps do mass testing and targeted lockdowns early if your country is one of the global centres for the medical testing industry. You're quite right we should have locked down a few weeks earlier in the first phases. What I'm saying is the lockdowns and mask mandates worked. You're saying we needed more aggressive lockdowns and more masks, and I won't argue with you, yes. We could have done with even more of these measures, but the measures clearly did what they were supposed to do. That's just saying we needed more of the system not that the system failed in the way I think OP meant. If anything Germany's success was because they were even more tightly integrated into the system.

rvanlaar 5y ago

Respectfully disagree. A lot of people who looked into COVID were saying this doesn't add up. They were were framed to be in the 'small vocal minorities that say all sorts of crap'. "the system" was all pointing and looking at each other. Big tech censored content that was deemed misinformation by the standards du jour. "the system" failed what it said it would do, follow the science. And the WHO has been a major part of that system.

simonh 5y ago
It depends what you mean by add up. There really were lots of small vocal groups saying all sorts of utter rubbish, and still are. Also of course in the early days there were lots of things nobody knew, and people were making the best guess or estimate they could based on limited data, and refining on that as more information became available.