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Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

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Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#31

Post by belltaco »

throwawaysea wrote: post #24

Yes it was preventable. If China didn’t suppress early reports of the virus ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation_by_C... ), or if they didn’t downplay the severity of COVID-19 ( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavi... ), or if they voluntarily shut down their international ports ( https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-china-us-flights-4300... ), then a global disaster wou…

>or if they voluntarily shut down their international ports

Huh, isn't that unprecedented and would mean involuntary detention of non-citizens by preventing them from leaving?

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#32

Post by Nasrudith »

sudosysgen wrote: post #28
thatguy0900 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

Well, you're definitely right that competent companies help a lot, but the government still does a lot of technical work in Five Eyes countries and in countries like China and Russia that have very strong mass surveillance too the government does a lot of the job.

I think the answer is different - the reason is because it is an 'Industrial Complex' regardless of any actual industry. Essentially if it works in a feedback loop of some sort whether it is 'more draconian security theater to help their career' or funneling money to donors then utility is irrelevant. If it is an end to itself then it is always 'competently done' even if it is a millstone around the neck of a nation.

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#33

Post by cudgy »

x86ARMsRace wrote: post #9
cudgy wrote: post #3

“‘Global political leadership was absent,’ the independent experts said.” When has global political leadership ever not been “absent”? These are experts?

> When has global political leadership ever not been “absent” Plenty of times in history. Consider the 20th century. Almost all of it was defined by global political leadership.

If your definition of global leadership consists of 2 world wars, several pan-Asian conflicts, war and conflict in areas like the entire Middle East, much of Africa, and large chunks of Central and South America for practically the entire 20th century, then it is clear that our definition of leadership differs greatly.

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#34

Post by sudosysgen »

kortilla wrote: post #29
sudosysgen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. How do you make the conclusion that without a policy reducing travel wouldn’t have helped? That doesn’t even make sense.

I don't know how your government handled things, but here they waited until it was clear that the healthcare system was going to implode if nothing was done to implement serious restrictions.

If we had stopped travel, we would have hit that point maybe a week or two later. Travel is linear while community spread is exponential.

In the end, given the incredible efficacy of lockdowns, the total amounts of deaths and infected would have been the same or thereabouts, because the point at which it was clear a lockdown was going to happen would just have come sooner.

If you base your public health measures on number of infections, and if community spread is exponential, then adding a dozen cases from travel doesn't change the point at which cases start to decrease, because the cases decreasing is contingent with them reaching a certain amount to begin with.

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#35

Post by rzz3 »

top_post wrote: post #19

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…

Also WHO told people not to wear masks and that it could actually make it more likely to get covid (CDC echoed this as well). “But it was justified lying to protect the mask supply!”—some people already had masks, and didn’t wear them because of this. I had someone literally get mad at me and block me because I said wearing a mask was obviously a good idea, and an N95 is more likely to protect you than a cloth mask.

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#36

Post by throwawaysea »

_y5hn wrote: post #27
bourgwaletariat wrote: post #12

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…

Bioweapon? A new strain of virus that can mutate to unknown properties, and to which virtually nobody have immunity?

Chinese scientists discussed weaponizing SARS in 2015 (https://www.ibtimes.com/explosive-report-says-chinese-scient...).

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#37

Post by cratermoon »

sudosysgen wrote: post #20

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

$ 7,919,196,000 – CDC FY 2020 total funding

$13,316,000,000 – CVN-78, USS Gerald R. Ford

$62,000,000,000 – National Intelligence Program FY 2020

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#38

Post by Nasrudith »

belltaco wrote: post #31
throwawaysea wrote: post #24

Yes it was preventable. If China didn’t suppress early reports of the virus ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation_by_C... ), or if they didn’t downplay the severity of COVID-19 ( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/world/asia/china-coronavi... ), or if they voluntarily shut down their international ports ( https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-china-us-flights-4300... ), then a global disaster wou…

>or if they voluntarily shut down their international ports Huh, isn't that unprecedented and would mean involuntary detention of non-citizens by preventing them from leaving?

Well it isn't unprecedented, especially not anymore. For one they could technically fly in Iceland but with the ash in the air it was dangerous to do so. While people were certainly annoyed nobody tried to call it a crime or denied its necessity.

In practice it is more "Send them to their home country's embassy and it is their nation's job to take them back safely. They'll likely be a bit cross but if they mess up and infect themselves repatriating without proper quarantine procedures you can't blame us."

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#39

Post by jbandela1 »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #4
cudgy wrote: post #3

“‘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…

> For eg. Obama admin had narrowed down Ebola and contained it[1].

It was great that they contained Ebola. But, containing a disease that makes you literally bleed from your eyes and requires bodily fluid contact and has an outbreak that starts in a low-density area of Africa, is much different than containing a disease where people who have the disease may only have a fever, and has airborne transmission, and the outbreak starts in a heavily populated city in China.

Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says

#40

Post by mroche »

disabled wrote: post #17
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #16

repost top level link, dunno what this WBUR stuff is https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0...

Thank you for the link. I am the original submitter of this topic. WBUR is Boston’s NPR station, which has a huge listener base, and I say this as a west coast person.

90.9 WBUR, that phrase will forever be stuck in my head. NPR is a go-to whenever I'm driving (I'm from MA), the catalog of shows and their content is great.

Been catching more of the business and economic study breakdown the past few weeks, I've learned a lot more than I was anticipating.

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