21–30 of 173 posts
From the speed of spread of covid, it was clear that it was airborne. I don't need a PHD in epidemiology to not mislead the public.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is bit charitable, to say the least. Long before Obama the "US-led international order" was also screwing up on Global Warming. Only Hitler could unite most the rest of the world, and only then because that was near the peak of colonialism so world power had never been so concentrated.
Just because the US' leadership is absent in one area does not preclude it from being present and effective somewhere else. Similarly, just because the US' leadership is both absent and therefore ineffective in an area does not imply that were the US' leadership present, it would still be ineffective. Certainly, per the parent comment, we have examples of the US' past leadership in this context leading to a very diff…
Second, yes Trump accelerated some things, but deep changes that caused Trump more than they were caused by Trump have been having more effect on international relations far long. Don't forget all the same complaints about not funding the state department were made in the Bush years.
Trump is a bad, don't get me wrong, but this seems like trite hawk Democrat thinking to me. It's precisely the nature of the US-led order in recent years that free trade agreements, IP laws, etc. etc. were more easily done than tackling issues of high global importance like global warming and Covid.
Objectively, Covid-19 was a preventable disaster. From all around the world, the issue was governmental competence. Almost every government in the world did not treat the issue with the due amount of urgency. Almost every government in the world screwed up on airborne transmission for a good while. Almost every government downright minimized the issued and wasted precious months of time that could have been used to r…
And if it does turn out that gain of function research in WIV, potentially funded by the US, led to the leak of an extra infectious coronavirus, that will have been another way in which COVID-19 was a preventable disaster. And for some reason the WHO’s delegation to visit Wuhan included Peter Daszak, despite very obvious conflicts of interest (https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/02/world-health-organization...), so we may never get a trustworthy answer on that possibility.
This report mentions exactly none of that. It is a ridiculous farce, and the WHO is not to be trusted when it comes to a global retrospective on what went wrong.
Man, all the WHO bashing comments are getting downvoted pretty quickly, except: - WHO took a _long_ time to declare a pandemic when member countries were asking for it. - WHO actively discouraged international border closures for containment. - WHO took way too long to declare aerosol transmission even when countries had identified it. In a global scale event like this, there's no individual country who should have b…
However given what we now know for sure we can safely say that border closures without an eradication policy (strict lockdowns and mass testing until the cases are undetectable followed by contact tracing) would not have changed anything.
Which is what the models that WHO epidemiologists had used to give the guidance that airport closures would not be very effective used as premises and found.
We know that by the time the border closures were suggested the virus was already definitely already in every country. From then on an extra five or six cases a month don't really affect the trajectory of the epidemic much at all.
Unless you go for an eradication strategy. But in Western states that waited until deaths started mounting to lockdown and then opened back up mostly before they went to zero we can confidently say that airport closures would not have been a factor in avoiding the disaster.
“‘Global political leadership was absent,’ the independent experts said.” When has global political leadership ever not been “absent”? These are experts?
I think generally US has carried that role in past until 2016. Either by partnerships or by holding a gun to other people’s head, US has exercised a self preservation strategy which had some effect on remaining world. For eg. Obama admin had narrowed down Ebola and contained it[1]. That indirectly was beneficial for rest of the world. Unfortunately the last administration deserted from these responsibilities thereby…
Yeah, just don't do GoF research. Or don't let it escape from a lab. Or, don't lie about it when it does. Or, contain it if it does. Or shut down travel outside the country if it does. Or, don't cripple Australia with a trade war if they suggest an investigation into the origins of the disease are warranted. Or don't cancel people if they wonder if maybe it didn't come from nature. Or, do the audits to verify the lab…
Objectively, Covid-19 was a preventable disaster. From all around the world, the issue was governmental competence. Almost every government in the world did not treat the issue with the due amount of urgency. Almost every government in the world screwed up on airborne transmission for a good while. Almost every government downright minimized the issued and wasted precious months of time that could have been used to r…
"Why is it that governments are so competent when it comes to mass surveillance and repression" Are they? It seems alot of it is just ordering competent companies to do it for them
Man, all the WHO bashing comments are getting downvoted pretty quickly, except: - WHO took a _long_ time to declare a pandemic when member countries were asking for it. - WHO actively discouraged international border closures for containment. - WHO took way too long to declare aerosol transmission even when countries had identified it. In a global scale event like this, there's no individual country who should have b…
The WHO absolutely did take a long time to declare a pandemic and certainly did fumble the ball on aerosol transmission. However given what we now know for sure we can safely say that border closures without an eradication policy (strict lockdowns and mass testing until the cases are undetectable followed by contact tracing) would not have changed anything. Which is what the models that WHO epidemiologists had used t…
How do you make the conclusion that without a policy reducing travel wouldn’t have helped? That doesn’t even make sense.
Man, all the WHO bashing comments are getting downvoted pretty quickly, except: - WHO took a _long_ time to declare a pandemic when member countries were asking for it. - WHO actively discouraged international border closures for containment. - WHO took way too long to declare aerosol transmission even when countries had identified it. In a global scale event like this, there's no individual country who should have b…
Given conflicting reports, underreporting, unknowns, denials, how this virus transmits, this could only be handled better with crisis policies.
The world didn't operate in crisis mode until now.