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Why the WHO took two years to say Covid is airborne

nature.com

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

#201

Post by hetspookjee »

cersa8 wrote: post #187

A dutch data scientist repeatedly showed, with data that Covid was airborn and ventilation should be a top priority [0] (dutch). Unfortunately has was ridiculed. I wonder how much better we could have done taking these early warnings more serious. Part of me thinks we wanted an easy option (masks) instead of expensive changes to existing ventilation systems. [0] https://pointer.kro-ncrv.nl/hoe-maurice-de-hond-in-het-…

His (de Hond) reputation is abhorrent as he did a complete made-up witch hunt for his personal prime suspect in the Deventer moordzaak, of which he was way off and never really apologized to damages he caused to the victim that he created.

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

#202

Post by traceroute66 »

dgellow wrote: post #195
titzer wrote: post #183

Governments who "didn't want to create a panic" just flat-out lied. They broke the public trust and did incalculable, permanent damage to societies' ability to react to crises in the future. It was self-serving, short-sighted, and frankly, the worst possible outcome. They clearly did not avoid a panic, did not avoid massive consequences, but, in the long run, deliberately injected distrust, hatred, and fear, deepenin…

Which governments specifically? Also, you say that they failed to avoid panic but where have you seen some? From what I’ve seen some governments said a few incorrect or misleading things at a time where we had a lot of uncertainty and contradictory information. And then corrected once information became better. Overall western governments (I’m mostly familiar with Western Europe and the US) have been quite good at co…

> Which governments specifically?

Erm, the US and UK ? Their handling has been dire.

We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and when asked about the images coming out of Italy said "Well, its nothing to worry about, you'll have to just take it on the chin".

Every man and his dog could see the slow car-crash coming. First China, then Asia, then Western Europe... the statistics and TV coverage was all there for everyone to see. But the UK government was in constant and total denial until the hospitals started clogging up.

And even when the UK government finally admitted it, their handling was truly, truly dire. Constant failure to act, constant acting too late, constant u-turns, throwing 40-billion down the pan on dodgy contracts.

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

#203

Post by throwaway4good »

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.

The US has an outsized influece on the WHO. Dominating the whole institution from finance to its people.

At the time of the outbreak, the US administration was under a populist leader who saw the virus as an almost personal attack; emphasizing that mask wearing, and the implicit recognition that the virus spread by air, was a political symbol directed against him.

Funny how people forget this.

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

#204

Post by chimprich »

titzer wrote: post #183

Governments who "didn't want to create a panic" just flat-out lied. They broke the public trust and did incalculable, permanent damage to societies' ability to react to crises in the future. It was self-serving, short-sighted, and frankly, the worst possible outcome. They clearly did not avoid a panic, did not avoid massive consequences, but, in the long run, deliberately injected distrust, hatred, and fear, deepenin…

> Governments who "didn't want to create a panic"

Is that supposed to be a quote? It doesn't seem to be a quote from the article. Not creating a panic seems to be a sensible thing to do in most circumstances. You want people to react with appropriate concern to risks, but not behave irrationally.

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

#205

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

CTDOCodebases wrote: post #191
optymizer wrote: post #33

I was the first in our office to go permanently WFH in February of 2020, three weeks before our offices closed, because I recognized that SARS-Cov-2 would be a huge problem, when pretty much everyone was in the 'just a flu/cold' mode. Here's the news that did not pass my bullshit detector: 1. Virus is not airborne (as initially claimed). I thought the water droplets claims were true for a while until I saw how fast i…

All anyone had to do was look at the video coming out of China. Would they be wearing bunny suits and N95 masks while welding doors shut if it was a no issue? Think of the financial ramifications of shutting down an entire city. Remember they dealt with SARS too. Once the r0 was released it was clear it was going to be a sh*tshow for anyone who understands exponential math.

That turns out to be a fairly small number of people.

The percentage of the population who looked at the video coming out of China and concluded "Shit, this could get bad, I'd better do something" was tiny.

Without government leadership, most populations default to a kind of bovine "I'll just carry on because I don't like change" inactivity, with a strong "How dare you tell me what to do!" tendency among the Dark Triad fringes.

In fact we're still there even after millions of dead.

The tragedy is that a no compromise planetary policy of short full lockdowns, a total ban on non-essential international travel, and aggressive testing/tracing could have ended Covid within 3-6 months.

But our economic systems aren't designed to handle that contingency, so we're dealing with much higher levels of personal and economic harm instead.

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

#206

Post by hassancf »

reactspa wrote: post #80

Can someone please clarify for me what is the implication if Covid is airborne? Does it mean that masks and social distancing were actually useful? Or the opposite?

Masks (N95 or equivalent) are useful because they filter out the virus.

Closed spaces: ventilation or HEPA filters are necessary.

Think of cigarette smoke: if you can smell it, you’d get the virus

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

#207

Post by chimprich »

traceroute66 wrote: post #202
dgellow wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which governments specifically? Also, you say that they failed to avoid panic but where have you seen some? From what I’ve seen some governments said a few incorrect or misleading things at a time where we had a lot of uncertainty and contradictory information. And then corrected once information became better. Overall western governments (I’m mostly familiar with Western Europe and the US) have been quite good at co…

> Which governments specifically? Erm, the US and UK ? Their handling has been dire. We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and when asked about the images coming out of Italy said "Well, its nothing to worry about, you'll have to just take it on the chin". Every man and his dog could see the slow car-crash coming. First China, then Asia, then Western Europe... the statistics and TV coverage was all there for ever…

> We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and saying "Well, you'll have to just take it on the chin".

You remember wrongly. He said we considered taking it on the chin, but decided against it.

I think Boris has done very badly in his handling of the pandemic; given how many bad decisions he made, it's strange that people seem fixated on this thing he didn't say.

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

#208

Post by shapefrog »

traceroute66 wrote: post #202
dgellow wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which governments specifically? Also, you say that they failed to avoid panic but where have you seen some? From what I’ve seen some governments said a few incorrect or misleading things at a time where we had a lot of uncertainty and contradictory information. And then corrected once information became better. Overall western governments (I’m mostly familiar with Western Europe and the US) have been quite good at co…

> Which governments specifically? Erm, the US and UK ? Their handling has been dire. We all remember Boris Johnson going on TV and when asked about the images coming out of Italy said "Well, its nothing to worry about, you'll have to just take it on the chin". Every man and his dog could see the slow car-crash coming. First China, then Asia, then Western Europe... the statistics and TV coverage was all there for ever…

'I was at a hospital where there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody,' the prime minister said on 3 March 2020

He back visiting a hospital, howwever this time as a patient in the ICU within a month.

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

#209

Post by hassancf »

aspenmayer wrote: post #32
troon-lover wrote: post #4

The article claims it was a “mistake” to knowingly make a false statement. I stopped reading immediately at that. This propaganda is disgusting, I used to respect Nature.

Saying it was a mistake elides responsibility and glosses over alternatives. How would you have articulated it, and would you have responded differently?

By saying: It was a FAULT to knowingly make a false statement

Fault as in: someone should pay for it.

Definitely NOT a “honest mistake”

The WHO is doing damage control.

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

#210

Post by tzs »

tomp wrote: post #110
thomassmith65 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These 'overlords' also tell us to take the vaccines instead of Ivermectin. Blind disrespect for authority is no better than blind respect for authority.

Well actually they first said “no way I’m taking Trump’s vaccine” and then flipped. So yeah blind disrespect for authorities has a much better track record.

> Well actually they first said “no way I’m taking Trump’s vaccine” and then flipped.

Who is "they"?

I've heard people, such as Biden and Harris, say they didn't trust Trump to give correct vaccine information and would make their decisions on when to take a vaccine based on what doctors say.

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