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I'm not a conspiracy theorist either but I do have considerably less respect for the WHO than I did before the pandemic. They seem more interested in playing po

by tjpnz 4y ago

I'm not a conspiracy theorist either but I do have considerably less respect for the WHO than I did before the pandemic. They seem more interested in playing politics and appeasing authoritarian regimes than putting out concrete policy on things which might actually help. Their back and forth on masking was an utter shambles, their stance on Taiwan a disgrace, their "fact finding" missions to China pointless and their Secretary General would often behave like an unhinged lunatic during press conferences. I don't much care for his politics but David Cameron has some interesting ideas on how we can do better: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-shows-new-global-virus-surveillance-needed-david-cameron https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-shows-new-global-virus-... .

jacquesm 4y ago
Large institution makes mistakes in face of unprecedented crisis, news at 11. All those standing by the sidelines and criticizing those in the hot seat would no doubt have done a much better job at managing this. I'm all for learning the lessons (such as the link you posted) but I'm categorically against assigning blame against those that worked their asses off to help mitigate this, as long as the lessons stay learned and we do much better next time. Obviously not every move deserved the beauty prize but you have to take into account that the WHO does not have the power required to demand that parties follow up on their advice, which makes theirs a highwire act somewhere between medicine and politics. Which means there are bound to be compromises and degrees of supplication that are ultimately not perfect but that at least move the needle (pun intended) in the right direction. Contrast that with the disinformation barrage that had only one purpose (to destabilize and undermine as much as possible the effort to contain COVID-19). It's pretty easy to criticize, very, very hard to do better.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  >which makes theirs a highwire act somewhere between medicine and politics. Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid, and certainly justifies the decline in trust. Maybe they could rebrand as World Health And Politics Organization.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid That would be hopelessly naive then. We do not have a 'world government', every government has complete autonomy on how they deal with healthcare issues, something that I believed to be well known. That's why each government has their own ministry of health and their own way of dealing with health insurance, budgets and so on. The degree to which these things are organized is impressive but in the end if the WHO publishes a guideline you'd be stupid to ignore it but you can if you want. And plenty of countries did. And no, it should not result in a decline of trust in the WHO who clearly advocated for moving as fast as possible while governments the world over with some very rare exceptions took a 'let's wait and see' approach. If anything it should reduce the confidence that you can solve global issues with local policies.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      It's ironic that people who are nominally against the existence of a world government were demanding that the WHO act as if it's part of one: the WHO doesn't have an army or a police force. Do folk think a hostile showdown between WHO and a Great Power host country will result in anything besides deportation or the arrest of WHO envoys at point of entry?
- whodidntante 4y ago
  "Large institution makes mistakes in face of unprecedented crisis, news at 11. " There are different categories of "mistakes". In the face of an unprecedented crisis it is understandable that there will be uncertainty in what courses of actions to take, and mistakes will be made. However, how Taiwan was treated, or declarations by people who have a clear self-interest that the virus could not possibly be a lab leak when it was simply impossible at that time to have done the necessary due diligence one way or abnother were clearly pre-meditated and political in nature and should make any thinking person think twice about what comes out of the WHO/CDC. These are two of the many CYA and/or turf protecting situations that happened that have significanlty wekend trust in these organizations.

by tjpnz 4y ago

jacquesm 4y ago

Large institution makes mistakes in face of unprecedented crisis, news at 11. All those standing by the sidelines and criticizing those in the hot seat would no doubt have done a much better job at managing this. I'm all for learning the lessons (such as the link you posted) but I'm categorically against assigning blame against those that worked their asses off to help mitigate this, as long as the lessons stay learned and we do much better next time. Obviously not every move deserved the beauty prize but you have to take into account that the WHO does not have the power required to demand that parties follow up on their advice, which makes theirs a highwire act somewhere between medicine and politics. Which means there are bound to be compromises and degrees of supplication that are ultimately not perfect but that at least move the needle (pun intended) in the right direction. Contrast that with the disinformation barrage that had only one purpose (to destabilize and undermine as much as possible the effort to contain COVID-19). It's pretty easy to criticize, very, very hard to do better.

WillPostForFood 4y ago
>which makes theirs a highwire act somewhere between medicine and politics. Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid, and certainly justifies the decline in trust. Maybe they could rebrand as World Health And Politics Organization.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid That would be hopelessly naive then. We do not have a 'world government', every government has complete autonomy on how they deal with healthcare issues, something that I believed to be well known. That's why each government has their own ministry of health and their own way of dealing with health insurance, budgets and so on. The degree to which these things are organized is impressive but in the end if the WHO publishes a guideline you'd be stupid to ignore it but you can if you want. And plenty of countries did. And no, it should not result in a decline of trust in the WHO who clearly advocated for moving as fast as possible while governments the world over with some very rare exceptions took a 'let's wait and see' approach. If anything it should reduce the confidence that you can solve global issues with local policies.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    It's ironic that people who are nominally against the existence of a world government were demanding that the WHO act as if it's part of one: the WHO doesn't have an army or a police force. Do folk think a hostile showdown between WHO and a Great Power host country will result in anything besides deportation or the arrest of WHO envoys at point of entry?
whodidntante 4y ago
"Large institution makes mistakes in face of unprecedented crisis, news at 11. " There are different categories of "mistakes". In the face of an unprecedented crisis it is understandable that there will be uncertainty in what courses of actions to take, and mistakes will be made. However, how Taiwan was treated, or declarations by people who have a clear self-interest that the virus could not possibly be a lab leak when it was simply impossible at that time to have done the necessary due diligence one way or abnother were clearly pre-meditated and political in nature and should make any thinking person think twice about what comes out of the WHO/CDC. These are two of the many CYA and/or turf protecting situations that happened that have significanlty wekend trust in these organizations.