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Kathy Gilsinan https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/how-china-deceived-the-who/ar-BB12xURp?li=BBoPU0R
Back in January, when the pandemic now consuming the world was still gathering force, a Berkeley research scientist named Xiao Qiang was monitoring China’s official statements about a new coronavirus then spreading through Wuhan and noticed something disturbing.
Statements made by the World Health Organization, the international body that advises the world on handling health crises, often echoed China’s messages.
“Particularly at the beginning, it was shocking when I again and again saw WHO’s [director-general], when he spoke to the press … almost directly quoting what I read on the Chinese government’s statements,” he told me.
The most notorious example came in the form of a single tweet from the WHO account on January 14: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus.”
That same day, the Wuhan Health Commission’s public bulletin declared, “We have not found proof for human-to-human transmission.”
But by that point even the Chinese government was offering caveats not included in the WHO tweet. “The possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be excluded,” the bulletin said, “but the risk of sustained transmission is low.”
This, we now know, was catastrophically untrue, and in the months since, the global pandemic has put much of the world under an unprecedented lockdown and killed more than 100,000 people.
The U.S. was also slow to recognize the seriousness of this new coronavirus, which caught the entire country unprepared.
President Donald Trump has blamed the catastrophe on any number of different actors, most recently, singling out the WHO.
“They missed the call,” Trump said about the body at a briefing this week. “They could have called it months earlier.”
Trump may well be looking to deflect blame for his own missed calls, but inherent structural problems at the WHO do make the organization vulnerable to misinformation and political influence, especially at a moment when China has invested considerable resources cultivating influence in international organizations whose value the Trump administration has questioned. (Trump just in March announced he would nominate someone to fill the U.S. seat on the WHO’s Executive Board, which has been vacant since 2018.)
Even in January, when Chinese authorities were downplaying the extent of the virus, doctors at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan reportedly observed human-to-human transmission, not least by contracting the disease themselves.
In the most famous example, Dr. Li Wenliang was censured for “spreading rumors” after trying to alert other doctors of the new respiratory ailment; he later died of the virus himself at age 33.
China now claims him as a martyr.
Asked about Li’s case at a press conference, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Michael Ryan, said, “We all mourn the loss of a fellow physician and colleague” but stopped short of condemning China for accusing him.
“There is an understandable confusion that occurs at the beginning of an epidemic,” Ryan added. “So we need to be careful to label misunderstanding versus misinformation; there's a difference. People can misunderstand and they can overreact.”
Those lost early weeks also coincided with the Chinese New Year, for which millions of people travel to visit family and friends. “That’s when millions of Wuhan people were misinformed,” Xiao said. “Then they traveled all over China, all over the world.”
The WHO, meanwhile, was getting its information from the same Chinese authorities who were misinforming their own public, and then offering it to the world with its own imprimatur.
On January 20, a Chinese official confirmed publicly for the first time that the virus could indeed spread among humans, and within days locked down Wuhan. But by then it was too late.
It took another week for the WHO to declare the spread of the virus a global health emergency—during which time Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, visited China and praised the country’s leadership for “setting a new standard for outbreak response.”
Another month and a half went by before the WHO called COVID-19 a pandemic, at which point the virus had killed more than 4,000 people, and had infected 118,000 people across nearly every continent.
The organization’s detractors are now seizing on these missteps and delays to condemn the WHO (for which the U.S. is the largest donor), call for cutting the organization’s funding, or demand Tedros’s resignation.
At the White House, Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has been a sharp critic.
“Even as the WHO under Tedros refused to brand the outbreak as a pandemic for precious weeks and WHO officials repeatedly praised the [Chinese Communist Party] for what we now know was China’s coordinated effort to hide the dangers of the Wuhan virus from the world, the virus spread like wildfire, in no small part because thousands of Chinese citizens continued to travel around the world,” Navarro wrote to me in an email.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said the administration was “reevaluating our funding with respect to the World Health Organization;” Trump has said an announcement on the matter will come next week.
On the Hill, Republican Senators Martha McSally of Arizona and Rick Scott of Florida are both seeking an investigation of the WHO’s performance in the crisis and whether China somehow manipulated the organization.
“Anybody who’s clear-eyed about it understands that Communist China has been covering up the realities of the coronavirus from Day 1,” McSally, who has called for Tedros to resign, told me.
“We don’t expect the WHO to parrot that kind of propaganda.” Scott told me he wants to know whether the WHO followed their own procedures for handling a pandemic and why the organization hasn’t been forceful in condemning China’s missteps.
Asked for comment, a representative from the WHO pointed to a press conference Tedros gave this week.
“Please quarantine politicizing COVID,” Tedros said then. “We will have many body bags in front of us if we don’t behave … The United States and China should come together and fight this dangerous enemy.”
Even in early January, when it was still describing the disease as a mysterious new pneumonia, the WHO was publishing regular guidance for countries and health-care workers on how to mitigate its spread.
And the organization says it has now shipped millions of pieces of protective gear to 75 countries, sent tests to more than 126, and offered training materials for health-care workers.
In any case, it’s not the WHO’s fault if China obscured the problem early on, says Charles Clift, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Center for Universal Health who worked at the WHO from 2004 to 2006.
“We’d like more transparency, that’s true, but if countries find reasons to not be transparent, it’s difficult to know what we can do about it.”
The organization’s major structural weakness is that it relies on information from its member countries—and the WHO team that visited China in February to evaluate the response did so jointly with China’s representatives.
The resulting report did not mention delays in information-sharing, but did say that “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic.”
The mission came back telling reporters they were largely satisfied with the information China was giving them.
If this is something short of complicity in a Chinese cover-up—which is what former National Security Adviser John Bolton has alleged of the WHO—it does point to a big vulnerability: The group’s membership includes transparent democracies and authoritarian states and systems in between, which means the information the WHO puts out is only as good as what it’s getting from the likes of Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
North Korea, for instance, has reported absolutely no coronavirus cases, and the WHO isn’t really in a position to say otherwise.
The structure also gives WHO leaders like Tedros an incentive not to anger member states, and this is as true of China as it is of countries with significantly less financial clout.
During the Ebola epidemic in 2014, Clift said, WHO took months to declare a public-health emergency.
“That’s three very small West African countries, and WHO didn’t want to upset them,” Clift said. “WHO didn’t cover itself in glory in that one.”
The response this time has been much faster and better, in Clift’s observation. “It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be examined afterwards to see what they could have done better,” he said. “And one should really investigate the origins of what happened in China.”
The WHO has also shown, however, that it can walk the line between the need for cooperation and information-sharing from member states and the need to hold them accountable for mistakes.
During the SARS outbreak in 2003, a WHO spokesman criticized China for its lack of transparency and preparation, which had allowed the virus to spread unchecked. China even later admitted to mistakes in handling the outbreak.
No such critique has been forthcoming this time. One study found that China could have limited its own infections by up to 95 percent had the government acted in that early period when doctors were first raising the alarm and the Chinese Communist Party was still denying the extent of the problem.
“The WHO at that time didn’t do their job,” Xiao said. “The opposite: They actually compounded Chinese authorities’ misinformation for a few weeks. That is, to me, unforgivable.”
Back in January, when the pandemic now consuming the world was still gathering force, a Berkeley research scientist named Xiao Qiang was monitoring China’s official statements about a new coronavirus then spreading through Wuhan and noticed something disturbing.
Statements made by the World Health Organization, the international body that advises the world on handling health crises, often echoed China’s messages.
“Particularly at the beginning, it was shocking when I again and again saw WHO’s [director-general], when he spoke to the press … almost directly quoting what I read on the Chinese government’s statements,” he told me.
The most notorious example came in the form of a single tweet from the WHO account on January 14: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus.”
That same day, the Wuhan Health Commission’s public bulletin declared, “We have not found proof for human-to-human transmission.”
But by that point even the Chinese government was offering caveats not included in the WHO tweet. “The possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be excluded,” the bulletin said, “but the risk of sustained transmission is low.”
This, we now know, was catastrophically untrue, and in the months since, the global pandemic has put much of the world under an unprecedented lockdown and killed more than 100,000 people.
The U.S. was also slow to recognize the seriousness of this new coronavirus, which caught the entire country unprepared.
President Donald Trump has blamed the catastrophe on any number of different actors, most recently, singling out the WHO.
“They missed the call,” Trump said about the body at a briefing this week. “They could have called it months earlier.”
Trump may well be looking to deflect blame for his own missed calls, but inherent structural problems at the WHO do make the organization vulnerable to misinformation and political influence, especially at a moment when China has invested considerable resources cultivating influence in international organizations whose value the Trump administration has questioned. (Trump just in March announced he would nominate someone to fill the U.S. seat on the WHO’s Executive Board, which has been vacant since 2018.)
Even in January, when Chinese authorities were downplaying the extent of the virus, doctors at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan reportedly observed human-to-human transmission, not least by contracting the disease themselves.
In the most famous example, Dr. Li Wenliang was censured for “spreading rumors” after trying to alert other doctors of the new respiratory ailment; he later died of the virus himself at age 33.
China now claims him as a martyr.
Asked about Li’s case at a press conference, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, Michael Ryan, said, “We all mourn the loss of a fellow physician and colleague” but stopped short of condemning China for accusing him.
“There is an understandable confusion that occurs at the beginning of an epidemic,” Ryan added. “So we need to be careful to label misunderstanding versus misinformation; there's a difference. People can misunderstand and they can overreact.”
Those lost early weeks also coincided with the Chinese New Year, for which millions of people travel to visit family and friends. “That’s when millions of Wuhan people were misinformed,” Xiao said. “Then they traveled all over China, all over the world.”
The WHO, meanwhile, was getting its information from the same Chinese authorities who were misinforming their own public, and then offering it to the world with its own imprimatur.
On January 20, a Chinese official confirmed publicly for the first time that the virus could indeed spread among humans, and within days locked down Wuhan. But by then it was too late.
It took another week for the WHO to declare the spread of the virus a global health emergency—during which time Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, visited China and praised the country’s leadership for “setting a new standard for outbreak response.”
Another month and a half went by before the WHO called COVID-19 a pandemic, at which point the virus had killed more than 4,000 people, and had infected 118,000 people across nearly every continent.
The organization’s detractors are now seizing on these missteps and delays to condemn the WHO (for which the U.S. is the largest donor), call for cutting the organization’s funding, or demand Tedros’s resignation.
At the White House, Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has been a sharp critic.
“Even as the WHO under Tedros refused to brand the outbreak as a pandemic for precious weeks and WHO officials repeatedly praised the [Chinese Communist Party] for what we now know was China’s coordinated effort to hide the dangers of the Wuhan virus from the world, the virus spread like wildfire, in no small part because thousands of Chinese citizens continued to travel around the world,” Navarro wrote to me in an email.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said the administration was “reevaluating our funding with respect to the World Health Organization;” Trump has said an announcement on the matter will come next week.
On the Hill, Republican Senators Martha McSally of Arizona and Rick Scott of Florida are both seeking an investigation of the WHO’s performance in the crisis and whether China somehow manipulated the organization.
“Anybody who’s clear-eyed about it understands that Communist China has been covering up the realities of the coronavirus from Day 1,” McSally, who has called for Tedros to resign, told me.
“We don’t expect the WHO to parrot that kind of propaganda.” Scott told me he wants to know whether the WHO followed their own procedures for handling a pandemic and why the organization hasn’t been forceful in condemning China’s missteps.
Asked for comment, a representative from the WHO pointed to a press conference Tedros gave this week.
“Please quarantine politicizing COVID,” Tedros said then. “We will have many body bags in front of us if we don’t behave … The United States and China should come together and fight this dangerous enemy.”
Even in early January, when it was still describing the disease as a mysterious new pneumonia, the WHO was publishing regular guidance for countries and health-care workers on how to mitigate its spread.
And the organization says it has now shipped millions of pieces of protective gear to 75 countries, sent tests to more than 126, and offered training materials for health-care workers.
In any case, it’s not the WHO’s fault if China obscured the problem early on, says Charles Clift, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Center for Universal Health who worked at the WHO from 2004 to 2006.
“We’d like more transparency, that’s true, but if countries find reasons to not be transparent, it’s difficult to know what we can do about it.”
The organization’s major structural weakness is that it relies on information from its member countries—and the WHO team that visited China in February to evaluate the response did so jointly with China’s representatives.
The resulting report did not mention delays in information-sharing, but did say that “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic.”
The mission came back telling reporters they were largely satisfied with the information China was giving them.
If this is something short of complicity in a Chinese cover-up—which is what former National Security Adviser John Bolton has alleged of the WHO—it does point to a big vulnerability: The group’s membership includes transparent democracies and authoritarian states and systems in between, which means the information the WHO puts out is only as good as what it’s getting from the likes of Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
North Korea, for instance, has reported absolutely no coronavirus cases, and the WHO isn’t really in a position to say otherwise.
The structure also gives WHO leaders like Tedros an incentive not to anger member states, and this is as true of China as it is of countries with significantly less financial clout.
During the Ebola epidemic in 2014, Clift said, WHO took months to declare a public-health emergency.
“That’s three very small West African countries, and WHO didn’t want to upset them,” Clift said. “WHO didn’t cover itself in glory in that one.”
The response this time has been much faster and better, in Clift’s observation. “It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be examined afterwards to see what they could have done better,” he said. “And one should really investigate the origins of what happened in China.”
The WHO has also shown, however, that it can walk the line between the need for cooperation and information-sharing from member states and the need to hold them accountable for mistakes.
During the SARS outbreak in 2003, a WHO spokesman criticized China for its lack of transparency and preparation, which had allowed the virus to spread unchecked. China even later admitted to mistakes in handling the outbreak.
No such critique has been forthcoming this time. One study found that China could have limited its own infections by up to 95 percent had the government acted in that early period when doctors were first raising the alarm and the Chinese Communist Party was still denying the extent of the problem.
“The WHO at that time didn’t do their job,” Xiao said. “The opposite: They actually compounded Chinese authorities’ misinformation for a few weeks. That is, to me, unforgivable.”
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In mid January they were still declaring that there was no evidence of human to human transmission.for whatever reason they believed everything China reported.they were asleep on the job & should take a lot of blame for the spread of the virus.Trump may be a **** but he’s not always wrong.
Disagraceful and need to be reformed or replaced with something else.
The fact it is funded by corporations as well as countries is a big problem. Certain private individuals with their own agendas how too much power.
Trump was right to act. Other democracies need to follow to ensure the reforms happen.
The fact it is funded by corporations as well as countries is a big problem. Certain private individuals with their own agendas how too much power.
Trump was right to act. Other democracies need to follow to ensure the reforms happen.
China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!
DJT 24th Jan
DJT 24th Jan
Yes Dave, but the WHO misled Trump, they really are nasty people.
Apr 17, 2020 -- 12:03PM, dave1357 wrote:
China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!DJT 24th Jan
China did work very hard to contain the virus. The Chinese contained the virus very well for the only country given no advance warning of it. Their coverup and lying is completely separate to what they did to contain the virus, which was very successful and worthy of praise.
The explanation is that the WHO took everything China told them as Gospel, despite evidence that they had covered up the inital outbreak and evidence of human-to-human transmission coming from Taiwan on 31 December, which they chose to ignore. Yes, China deceived them, but the WHO should not have taken it as Gospel in those circumstances, where there was clear evidence that they weren't being up front about everything and clear contradictory evidence of human-to-human transmission from another source.
“Even as the WHO under Tedros refused to brand the outbreak as a pandemic for precious weeks and WHO officials repeatedly praised the [Chinese Communist Party] for what we now know was China’s coordinated effort to hide the dangers of the Wuhan virus from the world, the virus spread like wildfire, in no small part because thousands of Chinese citizens continued to travel around the world,” Navarro wrote to me in an email. This part is nonsense too. The WHO have never praised China for their 'coordinated effort to hide the dangers of the Wuhan virus from the world'. They praised them for the measures taken to contain the virus, which were worthy of praise.
Then after praising the Chinese measures, one of the most effective of which was to ban international travel into Wuhan, they didn't recommend to any other country to ban travel into their country.
What else is the WHO there for, other than to be on top of outbreaks like this? Also it is very noteworthy that they parroted the Chinese verbatim re no evidence of human-to-human transmission on 14 January. This was the day before the Chinese signed their trade agreement with the US.
“Even as the WHO under Tedros refused to brand the outbreak as a pandemic for precious weeks and WHO officials repeatedly praised the [Chinese Communist Party] for what we now know was China’s coordinated effort to hide the dangers of the Wuhan virus from the world, the virus spread like wildfire, in no small part because thousands of Chinese citizens continued to travel around the world,” Navarro wrote to me in an email. This part is nonsense too. The WHO have never praised China for their 'coordinated effort to hide the dangers of the Wuhan virus from the world'. They praised them for the measures taken to contain the virus, which were worthy of praise.
Then after praising the Chinese measures, one of the most effective of which was to ban international travel into Wuhan, they didn't recommend to any other country to ban travel into their country.
What else is the WHO there for, other than to be on top of outbreaks like this? Also it is very noteworthy that they parroted the Chinese verbatim re no evidence of human-to-human transmission on 14 January. This was the day before the Chinese signed their trade agreement with the US.
^^China was blocking access to WHO inspectors at the time trump was tweeting about China's transparency. Where was the WHO meant to get its info other than from China?
lurka, the key words in that passage you have quoted are "what we now know".
The author isn't saying that the WHO were knowingly complicit in China's cover up, he is saying they were hoodwinked and possibly naive.
The author isn't saying that the WHO were knowingly complicit in China's cover up, he is saying they were hoodwinked and possibly naive.
I have seen 2 people making statements representing the WHO.
Both were Non-White (politest way that I can put) - and neither of them spoke with any CLARITY of Diction - making the presentations almost incomprehensible.
In both instances I thought ... How can you give ANY CREDENCE to these people's opinions, when they cannot communicate in the recognised - and in this scenario NEEDED - PROPER global manner of speech.
Simply sounded like well-paid Gravy-Trainers.
Both were Non-White (politest way that I can put) - and neither of them spoke with any CLARITY of Diction - making the presentations almost incomprehensible.
In both instances I thought ... How can you give ANY CREDENCE to these people's opinions, when they cannot communicate in the recognised - and in this scenario NEEDED - PROPER global manner of speech.
Simply sounded like well-paid Gravy-Trainers.
Angoose, what they did to cover it up is completely separate to what they did to contain it internally. Lying to the WHO and the world about the extent of the virus had no effect on what they did to contain it. They shut off travel inwards, tested, traced and quarantined and got on top of it before they entered the type of curve trajectory the rest of the world is on.
That is completely separate to lying, suppressing doctors, hiding the extent to the world. The WHO haven't to my knowledge made any comment whatsoever about that part, never mind praised them for it, and I don't think it is within their remit to do so, certainly not while the pandemic is still active.
That is completely separate to lying, suppressing doctors, hiding the extent to the world. The WHO haven't to my knowledge made any comment whatsoever about that part, never mind praised them for it, and I don't think it is within their remit to do so, certainly not while the pandemic is still active.
dave1357
17 Apr 20 12:10
Joined: 05 Sep 10 | Topic/replies: 12,384 | Blogger: dave1357's blog
^^China was blocking access to WHO inspectors at the time trump was tweeting about China's transparency. Where was the WHO meant to get its info other than from China?
If China were withholding information and blocking access then the WHO should have stated this and not praised China for their efforts and just parroted the information that they gave them.
17 Apr 20 12:10
Joined: 05 Sep 10 | Topic/replies: 12,384 | Blogger: dave1357's blog
^^China was blocking access to WHO inspectors at the time trump was tweeting about China's transparency. Where was the WHO meant to get its info other than from China?
If China were withholding information and blocking access then the WHO should have stated this and not praised China for their efforts and just parroted the information that they gave them.
Apr 17, 2020 -- 1:21PM, lurka wrote:
Angoose, what they did to cover it up is completely separate to what they did to contain it internally. Lying to the WHO and the world about the extent of the virus had no effect on what they did to contain it. They shut off travel inwards, tested, traced and quarantined and got on top of it before they entered the type of curve trajectory the rest of the world is on. That is completely separate to lying, suppressing doctors, hiding the extent to the world. The WHO haven't to my knowledge made any comment whatsoever about that part, never mind praised them for it, and I don't think it is within their remit to do so, certainly not while the pandemic is still active.
Agree, and again that is a key element of the article, the WHO have to walk a very tricky tightrope.
They want to help the citizens of any particular country, but there task isn't necessarily helped by the host government.
Syria is another example, the WHO have taken flak in regards to their cooperation with the rancid regime there.
But how else can they gain access to the people who need their help other than through the government.
They have praised how they tackled it, that's all they did. That is not praising them for covering it up and that is not something a health organisation would normally get involved in anyway.
The question is why the WHO didn't recommend similar measures to other countries if the Chinese approach was so worthy of praise. Why didn't they recommend cutting off travel inwards to anyone else? They actually came out and said they didn't recommend cutting off travel to other countries.
On Feb 29 they said 'WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks.'
The question is why the WHO didn't recommend similar measures to other countries if the Chinese approach was so worthy of praise. Why didn't they recommend cutting off travel inwards to anyone else? They actually came out and said they didn't recommend cutting off travel to other countries.
On Feb 29 they said 'WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks.'
The reality is that they have little or no teeth.
China does as it pleases with everyone, they aren't suddenly going to become a model government because a humanitarian organization asks then to be nice.
China does as it pleases with everyone, they aren't suddenly going to become a model government because a humanitarian organization asks then to be nice.
WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks.
In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions. Furthermore, restrictions may interrupt needed aid and technical support, may disrupt businesses, and may have negative social and economic effects on the affected countries. However, in certain circumstances, measures that restrict the movement of people may prove temporarily useful, such as in settings with few international connections and limited response capacities.
Travel measures that significantly interfere with international traffic may only be justified at the beginning of an outbreak, as they may allow countries to gain time, even if only a few days, to rapidly implement effective preparedness measures. Such restrictions must be based on a careful risk assessment, be proportionate to the public health risk, be short in duration, and be reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves.
In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions. Furthermore, restrictions may interrupt needed aid and technical support, may disrupt businesses, and may have negative social and economic effects on the affected countries. However, in certain circumstances, measures that restrict the movement of people may prove temporarily useful, such as in settings with few international connections and limited response capacities.
Travel measures that significantly interfere with international traffic may only be justified at the beginning of an outbreak, as they may allow countries to gain time, even if only a few days, to rapidly implement effective preparedness measures. Such restrictions must be based on a careful risk assessment, be proportionate to the public health risk, be short in duration, and be reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves.
Yes, but they had ample time to recommend effective travel bans to the whole of Europe and the US based on what the Chinese did. They could have done this on January 14 when they were praising China for the effectiveness of their measures, one of which was a travel ban.
I want to know which people from the W.H.O visited China during the outbreak, the dates of all there visits and the full results of their findings.
You have access to the internet, make the effort to find out.
lurka and dave on this thread have a big sense of denial.
Right, so you think the WHO should have come out and slated China when China was the only country on the planet with info about this virus, info they were desperate for in order to carry out their duties? And still is and prob will be for the foreseeable the country with the most knowledge about the progression of this virus? How will that help the WHO exactly?
It's a health organisation, not a court or a police force. Not its job to go throwing around accusations. That will be for another day by another more appropriate body.
To clarify, China deceived everybody, but the WHO should have known at the time they weren't being transparent and shouldn't have taken their word for it. The WHO are at fault for that and their advice to other countries was poor, especially in not advising travel being closed off ASAP, something they praised China for. They are due a lot of stick as well as China. Again, probably for another day.
It's a health organisation, not a court or a police force. Not its job to go throwing around accusations. That will be for another day by another more appropriate body.
To clarify, China deceived everybody, but the WHO should have known at the time they weren't being transparent and shouldn't have taken their word for it. The WHO are at fault for that and their advice to other countries was poor, especially in not advising travel being closed off ASAP, something they praised China for. They are due a lot of stick as well as China. Again, probably for another day.
WHO did not need to:
1. Parrot China's comments on unlikely human to human transmission in mid Jan.
2. Say it was all good for flights to keep going for Wuhan to the rest of the world.
3. They also did not need to not listen to Taiwan's H2H warnings at the end of December.
Those three things made the situation worse rather than better.
If you cannot get decent information then it is surely best to say nothing rather than spread disinformation?
1. Parrot China's comments on unlikely human to human transmission in mid Jan.
2. Say it was all good for flights to keep going for Wuhan to the rest of the world.
3. They also did not need to not listen to Taiwan's H2H warnings at the end of December.
Those three things made the situation worse rather than better.
If you cannot get decent information then it is surely best to say nothing rather than spread disinformation?
Yes I 100% agree with you. Why are you saying I am in denial then?
Apr 17, 2020 -- 2:41PM, Ibrahima Sonko wrote:
I want to know which people from the W.H.O visited China during the outbreak, the dates of all there visits and the full results of their findings.
They were denied entry from China until late January. While they were trying to negotiate entry trump was tweeting
China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!
And China was working hard to contain the coronavirus. Very hard indeed. Even dragging people kicking and screaming from their houses just for being suspect cases and welding others into their homes so they couldn't spread it.
It hardly gave the WHO leverage to get into the country quickly and the key word is "transparency" in this debate.
China has half wrecked the world dave, not Trump, Boris or Hancock.
Why would you answer such a question like that, dave ?
Why would you answer such a question like that, dave ?
It was dave. You seem to think Trumpy's tweet caused the disease, it was China really.
America is a special case. The context is that they were finalising a trade agreement with China which they both wanted signed ASAP. I wouldn't read to much into Trump's praise, they were days away from getting what they wanted. It looks to me that China tried to hoodwink Trump by keeping human-to-human transmission evidence back until after the agreement was signed. I'm surprised Trump hasn't accused them of this and promised to go after them but he's probably saving that for nearer the election. Like him or hate him, he's probably the guy you'd want to go after China when all this is over.
If you were Trump what would you be thinking? I'd be thinking 'these guys tried to pull a fast one on me and the US AND they also tried to ruin my chances of re-election'. But it could backfire on the Chinese if he can use it to his advantage and it will be personal if he gets re-elected.
Too much hatred against China. Whatever they did, there's a lot of politics to be played over this. I'm sure politicians will never want to hold China accountable, for various reasons, one of them being that accusing China has way more value in their politics than holding China accountable and as a result creating more issues, especially Re trade.
They are the superpower. Get used to it.
They are the superpower. Get used to it.
China sells the most than any other country in particular USA and the EU, but mainly carp eg toys and games; no heavy machinery, vehicles, etc, unlike USA or Germany. I think a boycott of Chinese goods would not inconvenience consumers at all - they produce cheap tad. However, if remain unchecked they soon will do like the USA or Germany.
Conspiracy theory says the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, predicted in a book with spooky accuracy
The US public needs an enemy and the Trump faithful won't believe Russia after the horseshít the democrats pulled last time. They already hate China for this. Easy for Donald. Do you want Joe in charge of taking care of them?
Who suggested a boycott of Chinese goods? That would hurt the world, what is the point? Trump will add a few billion on to the trade deal. You need a hulk hogan type character to sort this mess out. Trump to rip his shirt off during the election campaign 1.01. Joe can't compete with that.
BTW Occam's Razor says it was a lab in Wuhan.
Who suggested a boycott of Chinese goods? That would hurt the world, what is the point? Trump will add a few billion on to the trade deal. You need a hulk hogan type character to sort this mess out. Trump to rip his shirt off during the election campaign 1.01. Joe can't compete with that.
BTW Occam's Razor says it was a lab in Wuhan.
saddo • April 17, 2020 10:20 PM BST
It was dave. You seem to think Trumpy's tweet caused the disease, it was China really.
we will get round to the disease trump is responsible for in another thread, this one is about china misleading the WHO and that tweet was about trump buttering up china when the WHO was being blocked from the country.
It was dave. You seem to think Trumpy's tweet caused the disease, it was China really.
we will get round to the disease trump is responsible for in another thread, this one is about china misleading the WHO and that tweet was about trump buttering up china when the WHO was being blocked from the country.
And even Trump has acknowledged that the WHO was denied access to China, was included in his daily briefing last night.
Apr 17, 2020 -- 11:59PM, impossible123 wrote:
China sells the most than any other country in particular USA and the EU, but mainly carp eg toys and games; no heavy machinery, vehicles, etc, unlike USA or Germany. I think a boycott of Chinese goods would not inconvenience consumers at all - they produce cheap tad. However, if remain unchecked they soon will do like the USA or Germany.
China sells a bit more than toys and games. You need to stay in touch with what they are doing.
Donald Trump's apparent attempt to scapegoat the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have been rebuffed in a virtual summit of the G7 world's richest nations.
The day after the US president drew international outrage for suspending funding for the WHO, all other world leaders attending the meeting gave the organisation their support.
Efforts to coordinate international efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic have been jeopardised by the controversy over the Trump administration's unprecedented move to withdraw funding for the global body tasked with battling the outbreak.
The White House tried to put its best gloss on the outcome of the virtual summit claiming that "much of the conversation centred on the lack of transparency and chronic mismanagement of the pandemic by the WHO. The leaders called for a thorough review and reform process."
But other world leaders stood by the WHO seeing it as an important part of efforts to coordinate an international response.
The Trump Administration says the WHO was too slow to respond to the outbreak in Wuhan and too ready to praise China's response, kowtowing to Beijing for political reasons.
There has been frustration with China and the WHO among other western governments and a recognition the international body needs some measure of reform. But there has been universal dismay at President Trump's decision to cut US funding for the WHO.
Allies suspect the president is attempting to distract attention from his administration's failings in dealing with the virus.
President Trump initially called the coronavirus outbreak a hoax and the number of cases in America is rising more steeply than anywhere else in the world.
Western diplomats concede America's allies have been blindsided by the president's decision and say it is not at all clear what kind of reforms he would like to see at the WHO to see funding reinstated.
Dominic Waghorn https://news.sky.com/story/trumps-criticism-of-who-coronavirus-response-back...
The day after the US president drew international outrage for suspending funding for the WHO, all other world leaders attending the meeting gave the organisation their support.
Efforts to coordinate international efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic have been jeopardised by the controversy over the Trump administration's unprecedented move to withdraw funding for the global body tasked with battling the outbreak.
The White House tried to put its best gloss on the outcome of the virtual summit claiming that "much of the conversation centred on the lack of transparency and chronic mismanagement of the pandemic by the WHO. The leaders called for a thorough review and reform process."
But other world leaders stood by the WHO seeing it as an important part of efforts to coordinate an international response.
The Trump Administration says the WHO was too slow to respond to the outbreak in Wuhan and too ready to praise China's response, kowtowing to Beijing for political reasons.
There has been frustration with China and the WHO among other western governments and a recognition the international body needs some measure of reform. But there has been universal dismay at President Trump's decision to cut US funding for the WHO.
Allies suspect the president is attempting to distract attention from his administration's failings in dealing with the virus.
President Trump initially called the coronavirus outbreak a hoax and the number of cases in America is rising more steeply than anywhere else in the world.
Western diplomats concede America's allies have been blindsided by the president's decision and say it is not at all clear what kind of reforms he would like to see at the WHO to see funding reinstated.
Dominic Waghorn https://news.sky.com/story/trumps-criticism-of-who-coronavirus-response-back...
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