The problem is, the WHO does, they even said this thing wasn't transmitted person to person. And they're supposed to be the authority everyone was saying to listen to.
The WHO technically said they were looking into it and that they had not confirmed it spread human to human. That’s totally different from “we have looked into it and can confirm it does not spread human to human.”
“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China”
It takes some serious mental gymnastics to interpret this in any way other than the obvious one. This isn’t a philosophical discussion about the limitations of empiricism, it’s a tweet that goes out to millions of people from an organization imbued with serious authority.
And what is the obvious interpretation? Mine is ‘it is preliminary, so results can still change’ and ‘found no clear evidence does not mean evidence will not be found later’.
Or maybe we can agree that there is no such thing as obvious, and different people will necessarily have different interpretations, for better or worse.
I see it as yours but recognize it as probably being read like the parents as not only is the default behavior for absense of evidence to treat it as evidence of absense or subtly of magnitude the fine distinction is lost on most.
It is anti-communication in context as cunningly putting effort into /not/ being clear. If they truly weren't sure a more honest form would be "We have neither confirmed nor denied the possibility of human to human transmission." (Putting aside any biological questions like are there even any crossspecies transmissions which cause propagative symptoms like coughing or sneezing but do not transmit through it.)
By even posting this tweet, it is implied that there is no human-to-human transmission. They could have easily said, "So far, preliminary tests have found no evidence of human-to-human transmission, however we have only just begun research into the matter and thus still recommend social distancing."
Why didn't they say this? Because China seems to have pressured the WHO the entire time, including saying that the borders shouldn't be closed.
>And what is the obvious interpretation? Mine is ‘it is preliminary, so results can still change’ and ‘found no clear evidence does not mean evidence will not be found later’.
If that's what they meant, then they should have said so. They didn't. As I said before, this is a major health organization that needs to be clear in its communication, not speak in riddles.
There was very clear evidence, the WHO were just ignoring it like they pretend Taiwan isn't it's own independent entity, they won't talk about Taiwan or interact with them for the sake of politics. It's no coincidence that the one country that has the most reason to mistrust the CCP and took the alternate sources from on the ground reporting as trusted that has managed to not get overrun by this virus.
They literally just repeated whatever the CCP said, plenty of information was leaking out of the country through alternate channels, reports about doctor/journalist arrests, and the way the Chinese public was reacting about how serious this virus was. What did they think it was if not human to human transmission? Hundreds of people in multiple cities ate at the same restaurant or tainted meat? People were talking about this virus in China publicly in early January and it was known it was spreading.
The WHO said there's no clear evidence of h2h on Jan 14. The Chinese cdc team didn't conclude their investigation until a few days after, and the advisory was changed after. Your sort know perfectly well why your statements are misleading but will continue to make them for obvious reasons.
I think that the WHO communication was proportionate to the current knowledge at the time of each of their interventions.
First of all they said, when it was clear there was a problem "We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test." (and then Trump and almost everybody else did not want to hear that)
And moreover they said more exactly, some time before the previous item, that "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission". So your position is a deformation of their words.
No. The WHO constantly downplayed this pandemic and kowtowed to China to the point of disgracefully delaying calling it a pandemic and then playing catch-up when individual countries started ignoring the WHO and implemented their own measures.
Then the WHO switched gears and complained that the countries were doing too little too late.
They've been almost completely worthless in this crisis.
The WHO constantly downplayed this pandemic and kowtowed to China
See also: The whole WHO/Taiwan debacle, which is still ongoing.
The WHO is OK risking the lives of people in Taiwan in order to keep the mainland happy. You would think that the WHO would put the health of people, regardless of where they live, ahead of politics.
WHO does not officially recognize Taiwan because the UN does not officially recognize Taiwan, and the WHO is a UN organization. It is as simple as that.if you disagree then you gotta take it to the UN.
It's not about recognition. It's about doing the right thing.
If the virus' impact in Puerto Rico was very different than it was in the rest of the United States, the WHO would note it publicly. But Taiwan't situation was actively suppressed by the WHO because of Beijing.
When has any organization put peoples' lives over politics?
Anyway, the WHO/Taiwan debacle seems to resulted in Taiwan handling this pandemic better than anyone else, considering their proximity to China and the huge amount of trade and travel between them. Taiwan just ignored the WHO and did their own thing, which was the best thing.
Well, they at least published that anti-covid disinfection recipe. At least here in Czech Republic everyone uses that to make emergency disinfection mixtures.
There is no downplaying in "test test test". That could not be farther from downplay. The emergency sense is vibrant in their declaration. Previous declarations were done with a lack of scientific knowledge.
Btw only South Korea did "test test test". And that succeded very very much.
WHO does not officially recognize Taiwan because the UN does not officially recognize Taiwan, and the WHO is a UN organization. It is as simple as that, got nothing to do with being in China’s pocket. If you don’t like that, pressure your government to recognize Taiwan, and pressure them to pressure UN.
OK, but let's ignore the recognition of Taiwan for a second.
China censoring social media chat about the virus[0], tons of talk among experts that China faked their numbers and dates[1], meanwhile the WHO praises 'Chinese Transparency'[2][3], while hinting that the actions of censorship and moderate reporting were the right idea to avoid widespread panic.[4]
I'm not anti-WHO, but it's getting harder to believe that they are working objectively. China did a lot wrong in regards to response, but the WHO seems to want to heap on the praise. It makes one wonder. The weird non-response and hangup regarding Taiwan was just the topping on the cake, and it was entirely irresponsible on the WHOs part.
Statements in sources you cite seem rather deceptive, for example insinuating that censorship delayed response. Wiki has a pretty factually sourced timeline with precise dates, and it shows the infamous Dr. Li in question messaged a private group about a lab report he saw from Dec 30 (authorities found out because it was reshared on public forum), when the WHO was notified if it on Dec 31. He was also reprimanded for claiming it was a sars outbreak, when there's no evidence at the time. I suspect many of these news sources are aware of these underlying facts, if they're the sort to do any research before publishing, so the only interesting question here is why they chose to be deceptive anyway.
