Yes. China could have prevented it. If this started in the US though... There's no way for containment in the Us.
Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
61–70 of 173 posts
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#62I always wondered why people thought quicker lockdowns in Chyna would have stopped covid-19 from spreading since no one knew who was infected and a single person who escaped the country during the arbitrary quarantine would have made the whole thing pointless. I'm also confused why they think a virus with such a low death rate is important. The only thing I can think of is a shocking percent of people don't actually…
You don't have to be a genius to realize that 600k deaths even with lockdowns was quite bad.
China managed to pretty much completely mitigate hundreds of thousands of deaths just by having a reasonable policy response. It makes me embarrassed to live where I do
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
WHO bears no responsibility (better word: accountability) as it is comprised of member states who define and fund it, that do. Findings, medical experts, doctors come from member state contributions. 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.
That is an extremely matter-of-fact reply, and I salute you. I disagree with "WHO bears no responsibility" insofar as the leadership of organizations ought to be able to be held to account. You might need to elaborate on what "crisis policies" you would find acceptable.
Of course everyone is responsible for their own efforts. It's just that WHO is no government (NGO) and thus not accountable like one, and also have no authority. Without member contributions, WHO doesn't exist. It reports medical findings from states, but the caveats are denials, misreporting, unknowns, early confusion, etc. which may be expected in an early breakout. The better the cooperation, things can improve. Otherwise, not.
We should of course minimize crisis mode. Without it, expect similar response. I doubt the world will be going back, but will need to tackle more crises.
This one is the perfect mirror for states. Only full lockdown will contain contagion, but many don't have that sophistication yet. Those who didn't lockdown early, got hit hard economically too.
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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?
I am not sure if it would have been unprecedented but the Chinese government knew what the reality of the virus was from what they observed in Wuhan - they just didn’t let the rest of the world know, and the WHO didn’t want to contradict the CCP’s claims (see the Business Insider link in parent comment). This delayed travel bans issued by other nations, such as Trump’s ban (issued on Jan 31). China didn’t stop intern…
China was warning about the virus pretty early on. When you compare the timescales that China is being criticized on with the timescales for the US or Europe to react, it's laughable. People criticize China for taking days to release information when it took weeks if not months for most of the developed world to do absolutely anything.
I was in China in early-mid january, there were warnings about the Wuhan virus all over all of the airports, it was not being hidden.
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#65I always wondered why people thought quicker lockdowns in Chyna would have stopped covid-19 from spreading since no one knew who was infected and a single person who escaped the country during the arbitrary quarantine would have made the whole thing pointless. I'm also confused why they think a virus with such a low death rate is important. The only thing I can think of is a shocking percent of people don't actually…
If you are wondering why people thought the virus was important despite the “low” death rate you only need to look at India right now. Or Italy before it. When it floods a medical system to the point of collapse things become very dangerous.
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
WHO bears no responsibility (better word: accountability) as it is comprised of member states who define and fund it, that do. Findings, medical experts, doctors come from member state contributions. 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.
By this logic, do politicians bear no responsibility for anything, either, since they are elected by voters who select and fund their governments?
Being citizens, they are accountable within their country.
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was very early in the pandemic, I doubt that many people had masks early, and the problem of people hoarding was very real and medical professionals were having a lot of difficulty acquiring PPE. I think it was a difficult situation, I don't think they handled it the best they could have, but the response (in the context of massive amounts of hoarding) was understandable. I know that this will not be a popular t…
Half a year into the pandemic the president of the United States was filling stadiums was maskless supporters. The WHO seems completely willing to fall on their sword over COVID, and indeed they failed in many ways. But in the long run, we’re seeing a disaster of anti intellectualism around the world, and the next pandemic may be just as bad as this one.
> the next pandemic may be just as bad as this one.
or worse. Keep the aerosol vector, but make it even more effective. Increase the effectiveness of surface transmission. Throw in greater resistant to surfactants (soap) and hand sanitizers.
boom!
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#68Earlier 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.
How do you measure competence? China plays whack-a-mole with its population. They certainly haven't eliminated dissent. They have the world's largest army as the only real backstop against opposition.
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#69Didn't WHO say that we shouldn't stop flights back in February. The message is still on Twitter.
Re: Covid-19 Was 'A Preventable Disaster,' WHO-Ordered Report Says
#70Man, 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…
Reminder: 2009 "swine flu": declared pandemic at 74 infected countries ( https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2009/h1n1_pa... )
COVID-19: declared pandemic at 114 infected countries ( https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... )