Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#171

Post by wutangflan » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:20 AM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #170

lobochrome wrote: post #82

It is rather interesting to consider that many countries in Asia (China / Japan / Taiwan / Vietnam / Malaysia that I am aware of) happily ignored the WHO on masks and, with regards to Japan, actively promoted the airborne nature of COVID-19 early on. I remember seeing specials on NHK visualising the spread from a sneezing person in a room in March 2020. There were also a lot of helpful PSAs like the 3C model [0] and…

> Doesn't China supposedly have a significant influence on the WHO? This is evidence that China in fact doesn't have as big influence as people believe. "China has taken over WHO" is just a dishonest, evidence-free narrative by people who politicize the issue because they don't want to accept the WHO having anything good to say about China.

Quite the opposite, this implies their man inside fed and intel.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#172

Post by statop » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:22 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #61

jeffbee wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is the fact that the majority of infected individuals didn't suffer from it does not mean it is not a serious disease. Hardly anyone was paralyzed by polio, but we view it as an extremely serious disease.

We never locked down society for 2 years because of polio.

We didn’t lock down society for 2 years because of Covid either.

You can’t even call the US response a lock down. My friends abroad had to register with the government to leave their homes to visit a neighborhood market.

We didn’t have anything like that.

The US had a more coordinated and stricter response to BLM protests, sending the national guard in to enforce curfews and shooting paint rounds at citizens sitting on their suburban porches.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#173

Post by throwntoday » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:27 AM UTC

shapefrog wrote: post #123

throwntoday wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many do you think are scared of becoming pariahs by saying anything counter to popular narrative? I'd say it's a significant number. Wouldn't want to lose the chance to ever get a research project funded again.

I would go with a negative number - by definition every scientific discovery is replacing the null hypothesis or as you say - "popular narrative" (wtf does that mean anyway? is this like 'main stream media' or some other made up dog whistle?).

You seem confused. Popular narrative is not driven by scientist, it's driven by saber rattling morons who will crucify anyone that speaks against them.

For example, what the scientific community understood about efficacy of masks, and how utterly useless cloth masks are, disappeared overnight with covid. Perhaps your memory is failing you but I can recall people being chastised for even suggesting they might be useless. And don't even bother trying to spin some bullshit about it's better than nothing. Attaching a cloth to your face and exposing it to warm/wet air all day is a great way to start a personal mold culture you can breathe in later. And before you try to say "well you should wash them after each use", how many people do you think actually do that?

And if you wanna get real spicy, let's talk about the "science" behind transgenderism. Discovered by your favorite tumblr user, and beaten into pop culture by the woke mob.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#174

Post by ls15 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

divbzero wrote: post #148

ls15 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I understand the frustration with mandates and wish we didn’t have them, but also think the vaccines are sound from a medical and public health standpoint. > the vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission The vaccine does actually prevent infection, very well against the initial virus and moderately well against recent variants. > It was claimed for a good year that the vaccines "protect you and the ones you…

I don't attack the vaccines as a useful tool in many cases, but the way in that they are/were marketed and mandated and the way in that sceptics are/were treated, as well as the way in that concerns about adverse reactions are treated.

> That’s because the vaccines did a great job of preventing infection for a good year or so until newer variants came in. Protection against infection with two doses of the mRNA vaccine has dropped from something like >90% in the original trials to But wasn't that to be expected, because viruses mutate? It was surely mentioned by many when it started, but that did not stop the discrimination.

> First, the spike protein produced from mRNA vaccines is not a pathogen.

If it is not the spike protein, then what is most likely causing post-mRNA myocarditis?

> Second, mRNA vaccines do not reproduce or replicate.

That's not what I claimed, but that even after 8 weeks new spike protein can be produced. If spike protein is likely to cause myocarditis and potentially other adverse reactions and spike protein is still produced 8 weeks after injection, then delayed reactions seem reasonable. Public claims were that spike protein only gets produced for a very short amount of time, while there were never actual numbers. Because nobody knew, I guess.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#175

Post by tzs » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:30 AM UTC

lobochrome wrote: post #82

It is rather interesting to consider that many countries in Asia (China / Japan / Taiwan / Vietnam / Malaysia that I am aware of) happily ignored the WHO on masks and, with regards to Japan, actively promoted the airborne nature of COVID-19 early on. I remember seeing specials on NHK visualising the spread from a sneezing person in a room in March 2020. There were also a lot of helpful PSAs like the 3C model [0] and…

> There were also a lot of helpful PSAs like the 3C model [0] and comparing the potential aerosol spread of the virus to cigarette smoke (when you would smell the smoker - he could also infect you with the virus)

Early on when people were still often forgetting to stay farther away from strangers I seriously considered switching to doing my grocery shopping between my morning workout and my morning shower to discourage people from getting too close.

I did switch to doing my grocery shopping early in the morning and it turned out there were so few people shopping then that it was easy to avoid them, except sometimes at checkout when the person behind me in line might stand too close.

That was easy to deal with by simply standing in front of my shopping cart when in line instead of behind it. That way I could decide how close to stand to the person in front of me, and the person behind me had to at least stay a shopping cart's length back.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#176

Post by simonh » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

willyt wrote: post #147

simonh wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

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.

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.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#177

Post by statop » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #18

danamit wrote: post #8

Super interesting how /r/coronavirus and 4chan were more accurate in their conclusions about Covid. Also it seem that institutions are deemed to feel, just how I used to hear "religions are good but religious institutions are bad", it seem to start to apply to science now. It was disgusting how rabid were liberals about the whole Covid thing.

It was disgusting how many people became totally close-minded, hateful authoritarian bullies regardless of who was "right" and even if there were no mistakes or blatant misrepresentation of risks and benefits of certain policies. - A person's bodily autonomy is the most fundamental freedom there is. Of course there is a balance to be weighed when it affects others, but there is no absolute right or wrong answer. - Pe…

Amazing that in reply to an article about Covid being classified as airborne and transmitted as an aerosol, with specific concern for indoor venues due to wide variation in ventilation, there are still comments like this this about bodily autonomy.

As if clothes weren’t already a requirement for visiting your public venue of choice.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#178

Post by poglet » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

unityByFreedom wrote: post #158

philliphaydon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case my wording is poor and I apologise for that, sorry. By 'we' I meant my family and I. My wife is Taiwanese and her family said to be careful because people are saying there was a possible sars outbreak.

I'm glad we sorted it out. And thanks for the lesson. I'll be more careful reading this kind of comment in the future. I didn't realize there were such rumors floating about and just assumed you were talking about actual news reports.

My partner (from Wuhan) had received wechat messages (a shared wechat 'moment') reporting of an outbreak, I believe this was on the 24th of December 2019, however it could have been a few days later. It indicated that there was some type of outbreak and hospitals were becoming full.

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#179

Post by netsharc » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #97

lobochrome wrote: post #82

It is rather interesting to consider that many countries in Asia (China / Japan / Taiwan / Vietnam / Malaysia that I am aware of) happily ignored the WHO on masks and, with regards to Japan, actively promoted the airborne nature of COVID-19 early on. I remember seeing specials on NHK visualising the spread from a sneezing person in a room in March 2020. There were also a lot of helpful PSAs like the 3C model [0] and…

But coronavirus specifically does not spread like cigarette smoke. It was one of the models that turned out to be wrong. It is easy to focus on what scientists got wrong about the virus, but it's equally important to point out what was right. In retrospect, the early data about the nature of the virus itself was pretty spot on. Modelling pandemics is really hard, even before this virus, and we've only gotten better.…

A cursory Google early in the pandemic told me that virus particles are smaller than cigarette smoke particles, so paranoid me thought masks aren't bulletproof (it feels like a lot of people think - and I exaggerate - "I'm wearing a mask, I can stand at making-out distance to this other person and I'll be fine."), and why shouldn't the virus be as airborne-transmissible as cigarette smoke?

It was also funny how people were screaming about people going to beaches, hey, they're outdoors, if the groups are distant to each other, they'll probably be fine! On the flip side, it was aggravating to see moronic restaurants building enclosed outdoor tents to meet the requirements of "outdoor dining". Sure, they meet the legal requirements, but for the health requirements?

Re: Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

#180

Post by dhzhzjsbevs » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:44 AM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #166

dhzhzjsbevs wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people don't understand the scientific method or that science is not about certainty but about constantly learning and adjusting. This is the Fauci argument. It doesn't work. Aside from being incredibly Condescending to assume the masses are too stupid to handle the truth... All it does is open you up to criticism from people that understand basic logic. Those criticisms then spread between these "many people"…

I am not American and I don't care about Fauci. I'm just reporting on what I observe in the Dutch discourse. This doesn't mean that I condone lying about being wrong. But it also doesn't mean that it's as easy as admitting mistakes.

> I am not American and I don't care about Fauci. I'm just reporting on what I observe in the Dutch discourse.

Neither here nor there. Fauci, along with most governments in the oecd lied about mask efficacy to protect mask stocks for health care workers.

This was done because they didn't trust the poor stupid people with the truth.

All they had to say, masks work but please leave these for health care workers as they are more at risk. Most people would have done the right thing if they just trusted them, and if not? Who cares, it's not your fucking job.

> This doesn't mean that I condone lying about being wrong. But it also doesn't mean that it's as easy as admitting mistakes.

Except it is?

You need to trust humanity to make the right decisions when given the facts.

Hiding the facts, lying, or obscuring the truth in hopes of controlling the poor stupid people is how you get a nanny state.

Let idiots win the Darwin award and move on with your life.