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The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

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Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#61

Post by throwawaysea »

ethbr0 wrote: post #6
nynx wrote: post #2

I hope this happens. The world needs more collaboration, especially in pandemic response.

Of all the problems international cooperation could tackle, pandemics seem like they should be the easiest. Either you are dealing with one, or you aren't. Pretty stark contrast. So should make countries more comfortable ceding sovereignty, knowing it's going to be only in exceptional circumstances. Coupled with the fact that SARS-CoV-2 has proven that even the most stringent border lockdowns fail in the face of high…

> Coupled with the fact that SARS-CoV-2 has proven that even the most stringent border lockdowns fail in the face of highly transmissible, asymptomatic threats. Which makes this an "everyone" problem instead of a "head in the sand is okay" one.

The “most stringent border lockdowns” didn’t happen, at least not in a timely way. The WHO is one reason why - even at the end of January 2020 they recommended against countries taking measures like border closures. The US travel ban didn’t get implemented until February 2020, and it still had various exemptions and tens of thousands of travelers from Hubei continued to pour into the US. What really should have happened is that China should have voluntarily shut down all their international ports in mid-December 2019. Unfortunately even though China shut down some domestic flights in January 2020, they didn’t shut international flights until March 2020 (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/Whathappensif/how...), following a call between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#62

Post by dirtyid »

philliphaydon wrote: post #49
dirtyid wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They really botched early covid. Except they didn't. Enough countries managed to largely contain covid pre-delta based on WHO information that was provide by PRC. Information that was timely relative to how slow many countres implemented basic epidemiologic containment strategies after the fact. Some despite having capability to implement such strategies, and many who unfortunately never had the capability but simpl…

A lot of asia did well in the beginning by ignoring the WHO. Even NZ ignored the WHO and managed to keep it under control for a long time. If the CCP spent more time being open and honest and less time arresting people for talking about covid and documenting it this would probably have ended up better than they are now. Even now the CCP propaganda is still trying to convince Twitter and Facebook users that covid star…

Countries that did well responsibly implemented WHOs basic epidemiologic principes of test, trace, isolate to contain spread - 101 epidemiological strategy WHO recommended. Including NZ. Import statistic numbers of covid cases oringated from PRC has demosntrated it was managable because PRC never allowed it to get bad in the first place via draconian lock downs. CCP quarantined entire province of Wuhan, they did more than enough to buy time for any country with capability to execute competent containment. Which BTW was also early CCP propaganda... literally telling countries to take covid19 seriously by locking down but was instead met with lockdown skepticism. CCP, like WHO, did enough.

>Even now the CCP propaganda is still trying to convince Twitter and Facebook users that covid started with deer in the US.

And? Of course CCP is going to tit-for-tat origin propaganda started by US. This treaty will no doubt attempt tackle the politicization of pandemics in the future, but likely to no avail.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#63

Post by jacquesm »

philliphaydon wrote: post #52
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The WHO is politically controlled by China The nonsense in this thread is really painful to read. No, the WHO is not politically controlled by China.

China called it the Wuhan Virus. When the world called it the Wuhan Virus. State run media and the CCP called it racist. Then the WHO bent over and changed it. When the “India variant” happened, the WHO didn’t batter an eyelid. China spent ages blocking Taiwan from the discussion and succeeded as the WHO had to appease the CCP. Seems like chinas influence on the WHO is a lot.

The reason the WHO changed it is because they did not want to have the politics of directly connecting the virus to China become a hindrance in their work. See also: "The Spanish Flu", the "Mexican Swine Flu" and others, associating a virus outbreak in name with a particular country allows for politicization which in turn can hinder doing something about it.

Only very few countries tried to do this (with specifically calling this a Chinese Virus) but that did quite a bit of damage to the WHOs mission of trying to help curb the pandemic.

You can accuse the WHO of a lot of things (for instance: not calling a pandemic early enough and not being far more pro-active in calling for governments to curb the spread), but the problem there is that they can't sound the alarm too often too early before people will start to ignore them, which is just one more variation of the prevention paradox.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#64

Post by echelon »

jacquesm wrote: post #50
ei8htyfi5e wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organizations are driven by incentives. The incentives haven’t changed, therefore organizations haven’t learned their lesson. Second, nations exist to serve their populations. Think xenophobia and racism are bad now? Wait until it’s life or death and a decision is now directly attributable to the deaths of those around you. “Sorry Aunt Edna, you have to die. A factory worker in Mexico got your vaccine so they can mak…

> The WHO is politically controlled by China The nonsense in this thread is really painful to read. No, the WHO is not politically controlled by China.

This interview was pretty awkward for the WHO:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#65

Post by jacquesm »

throwawaysea wrote: post #56
tablespoon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop with the globalism > Nations should handle their borders-- that's the point and root of a nation: to be born in a specifically territory. And obviously, there are giant classes of problems that cannot be addressed effectively (or at all) with that outlook. For instance: a nation focused solely on its own territory will be unable to prevent a pandemic disease from affecting it if its neighbor manages to cover i…

> For instance: a nation focused solely on its own territory will be unable to prevent a pandemic disease from affecting it if its neighbor manages to cover it up long enough for it spread across the boarder. Isn’t this what happened with COVID-19 anyways in the present situation with globalism? There were scientists from WIV that were hospitalized in November. A lab leak still seems like the most likely origin theor…

> A lab leak still seems like the most likely origin theory.

No, it only seems that way to ignoramuses who have zero clue about how often zoonotic jumps take place, it is the default assumption, not the 'last resort' after all theories about man made plagues have finally been put to bed. Absent hard evidence a lab leak is not the null hypothesis, but merely a (remote) possibility.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#66

Post by jacquesm »

echelon wrote: post #64
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The WHO is politically controlled by China The nonsense in this thread is really painful to read. No, the WHO is not politically controlled by China.

This interview was pretty awkward for the WHO: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

Agreed, the WHO has to walk a fine line between trying to further its mission and not raising the stakes politically. I'm sure that each and every one of the members of the various committees has their own views on this but at the end of the day what matters is whether or not they can perform their mission. You see the same with sports, where the athletes may or may not care about the political situation they are in at all, but their participation, protest or lack thereof will be taken as a sign by all of those involved.

But ultimately, that is not a WHO problem, but a UN problem (parent of the WHO) and one that we will sooner or later have to take care of. Similar nonsense surrounds various other countries in the world with everybody tiptoeing around the problem.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#67

Post by philliphaydon »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
philliphaydon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China called it the Wuhan Virus. When the world called it the Wuhan Virus. State run media and the CCP called it racist. Then the WHO bent over and changed it. When the “India variant” happened, the WHO didn’t batter an eyelid. China spent ages blocking Taiwan from the discussion and succeeded as the WHO had to appease the CCP. Seems like chinas influence on the WHO is a lot.

The reason the WHO changed it is because they did not want to have the politics of directly connecting the virus to China become a hindrance in their work. See also: "The Spanish Flu", the "Mexican Swine Flu" and others, associating a virus outbreak in name with a particular country allows for politicization which in turn can hinder doing something about it. Only very few countries tried to do this (with specifically…

> not calling a pandemic early enough and not being far more pro-active in calling for governments to curb the spread

I'm not sure if I agree that they did or didn't call it early enough. But lying to the public is what rubs me the wrong way. The WHO should not contain any politics, but that's exactly what it has done the entire time. They spent more time pandering to the CCP than being a /World Health Organization/.

While china was telling the world it's racist for calling it the Wuhan Virus or Wuhan Flu, it's own state run media was continuing to call it that despite the WHO giving it a name.

When we knew it was human transmissible, the WHO was parroting the CCP telling us it's not. When countries were stopping flights. The WHO was telling everyone not to stop flights. China was stopping flights while telling America it's racist for stopping flights.

At some point we need to ignore the child throwing its toys out of the cot and focus on the actual issue.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#68

Post by jacquesm »

philliphaydon wrote: post #67
jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason the WHO changed it is because they did not want to have the politics of directly connecting the virus to China become a hindrance in their work. See also: "The Spanish Flu", the "Mexican Swine Flu" and others, associating a virus outbreak in name with a particular country allows for politicization which in turn can hinder doing something about it. Only very few countries tried to do this (with specifically…

> not calling a pandemic early enough and not being far more pro-active in calling for governments to curb the spread I'm not sure if I agree that they did or didn't call it early enough. But lying to the public is what rubs me the wrong way. The WHO should not contain any politics, but that's exactly what it has done the entire time. They spent more time pandering to the CCP than being a /World Health Organization/.…

> They spent more time pandering to the CCP than being a /World Health Organization/.

Where do you even get this nonsense? Seriously, do you really believe that the WHO spent more time pandering to the CCP than to being a World Health Organization? If you do then I am really at a loss on how to get you out of that because it is so far from what I've seen that I suspect you are looking at this through some kind of lens that magnifies the relatively insignificant first two weeks or so relative to the remainder of what is now almost two years of non-stop effort to help curb this pandemic.

They certainly aren't perfect, but at least they are trying and the bulk of the people that are - unsuccessfully - trying to link this to some kind of shadowy Chinese control are typically found on the extremes of the spectrum trying hard to assign blame for all this rather than to get it resolved.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#69

Post by jacquesm »

throwawaysea wrote: post #42
nscalf wrote: post #12

An honest question, how do you feel about the WHO? I personally have severe distrust in them, at least the leadership. They have show they are heavily influenced by China, and that should be enough to remove them. They really botched early covid.

I share that distrust for a few reasons: 1. They blindly repeated the CCP’s claims that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t seem to exhibit human to human transmission, as late as mid-January 2020. Remember, there were widespread reports of a pneuomonia-like illness in Wuhan in December. We later learned that scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalized as early as November. China’s own formal notice to WHO of the…

In the beginning of any outbreak of a new disease there is a scarcity of information and mistakes are always going to be made. You can already write part of the story here for the next pandemic in case you are so inclined.

That's pretty easy to criticize from the sidelines. At the same time: if the pandemic had been much milder you would be here ranting about how the WHO got it all wrong again and they cried wolf for no particular reason if only to grab more power, make money for big pharma with unused vaccines and managed to scare us all for nothing.

They can't do it right, it's always going to be too much or too little, and it's always the same groups complaining about this.

Re: The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics

#70

Post by topkai22 »

garmaine wrote: post #51
topkai22 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flawed, but better than not having a WHO. IMO China’s influence is more because they did a great job at committing hard to diplomacy and working relationships at WHO at the exact same time the US pulled away. It turns out diplomacy and leadership matter. In my limited experience, the WHO, like many NGOs/multi-lateral bodies, is full of intelligent, motivated people dedicated to their mission. Those people aren’t moti…

The WHO did measurable damage throughout the pandemic, but particularly in the beginning. They played down covid, were against travel bans, was anti-mask, and have hindered investigation into the origins of covid. They also did good, like getting PCR testing available worldwide on a compressed timescale. But let’s not pretend that the good didn’t come with a healthy helping of truly terrible decisions along the way.…

I agree we should be skeptical of the WHO, but they are valuable as a coordination mechanism. I don’t see a scenario where we can restart a truly global health agency from scratch, and I don’t think a series of bilateral or multi-lateral arrangements will work as well.
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