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Comment by rihegher | Hacker News Reader

What part of their narration is unreliable ?

In January they said the virus doesn't transmit between humans. Then they said travel restrictions are xenophobic. Then they said the world should thank China for its efforts.

A representative also pretended his audio went out when asked about Taiwan.

Yes, and when he came back and was asked about Taiwan again, he said he already discussed China and ended the conversation. Taiwan doesn't exist according to WHO.

Taiwan is not a member of the UN so WHO kind of have to act that way.

It sucks, but that's a problem with the UN, not with WHO specifically.

WHO, being staffed by scientists, should recognize that Taiwan indeed exists, that it has its own government that responded to the pandemic, and that China is not in charge there. Pretending otherwise leads to losing credibility, as everyone knows Taiwan does indeed exist. I've actually seen it.

Pretending that horribly complex geopolitical issues are simple does not magically make them simple.

Perhaps you could inform your own government?

Unless you happen to live in one of a handful of central American, Caribbean or South American states which do recognise it.

It's a f*cking minefield, if you'll pardon the language, and I can't blame scientists who don't want to touch it with a fifty foot pole.

UN does not recognize Taiwan and WHO is part of it.

Scientists should recognize because it exists but the politicians and governments that pay those scientist don't have to recognize Taiwan because they live in Wonderland I guess. Your logic is impeccable.

This still does not justify this bizarre behavior by the WHO representative.

February 1st to be specific, that was when they tweeted that it doesn't transmit between humans.

The tweet was different though (and AFAIK, much earlier): "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 clearly mentions that they're relaying what Chinese authorities are saying.

If you read e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/09/trump-vs-... the timeline of things is quite different than what you state.

I also don't see how this influenced anything. It took almost every country way too long to respond. Loads of countries thought it'll be fine for them.

Like most of what is not strictly “scientific “ (quoted because this term is being abused so much today that it would be hilarious were it not for the inflicted suffering).

And no: just trying to clear China’s laboratories from guilt is NOT scientific.

I think I'm missing something here, which chinese laboratory would be guilty of what? Are you talking the claim the virus has been engineered in a lab? If so I think there is a consensus of scientits that reckon it is not the case.

In the same city district as the wet market that was visited by a number of the first cases, there is a Chinese laboratory that does research on bat coronaviruses, and that has had accidents and international criticism on its safety in the past.

It is hard to provide evidence, but the accusation is that it somehow originated there.

Scientists seem to agree that it isn't an engineered virus, but that doesn't mean it isn't a wild virus first transmitted from bats to humans in that lab.

The lab you are describing is 13 km away from the market.

This is a misleading statement. There is consensus that there are no traces of gene editing in the virus. But this statement is not equal to "it wasn't produced in the lab".

They said wearing masks does not help decrease infectious spread. They actually claimed that wearing masks can increase infectious spread because of improperly wearing it.

There is ongoing debate about this because the evidence shows only a small positive effect for wearing them, and mask wearing can change behaviour.

There is no debate. Healthcare workers are invariably wearing masks around all patients, regardless of known COVID19 status.

It is simply irresponsible to claim that wearing masks offers only marginal benefit. This is a respiratory virus, it is transmitted by droplets.

The downvoting of this plain truth ought to scare anyone who values science over politics.

Healthcare workers wear masks of a known quality, which they have fit tested, and they know how long to use them and when to dispose of them. They wear them as part of a full protective strategy along with other context-appropriate equipment and have training to know how to conduct themselves in the situation too.

You can't just claim the same benefits for an old piece of t-shirt stretched across your face. An old piece of t-shirt which may give you a false sense of security and lead you to take risks and get closer to other people, and which may make you touch your face more, and which you may not clean or replace etc etc...

There has been masks around for more than 100 years to protect from infectious diseases. Why is this still an ongoing debate?

The ongoing debate is whether getting the general public to wear masks is actually helpful or not.

See my other response for ways in which that differs from medical staff doing it. It's psychology and sociology as well as pure "can a mask stop the virus", which are important factors when looking at disease transmission in a population.

> They said wearing masks does not help decrease infectious spread. They actually claimed that wearing masks can increase infectious spread because of improperly wearing it.

Can you please point to the studies claiming that masks significantly lower transmission rates? The only think I ever read was it lowers a bit the transmission FROM infected people by blocking some of the droplets sneezed/coughed, but just wearing them doesn't protect healthy people anyhow. Unless you have N95 + good glasses and perfect hygiene.

The behavior of 'I have a basic mask therefore I am protected' - I've seen it quite a few times personally. It really can lead to false feeling of security and lowering one's guard. I've seen folks wearing them incorrectly too, especially in the beginning - ie not over nose, huge gaps around it, putting it down in store for a call etc.

I think your statements are taken out of context of what was claimed. Not claiming WHO is perfect (far from it), but trump-ish bashing everybody and everything external instead of admitting one's utter failure and working on fixing things won't change much.

WHO said that masks are very helpful for Asia. Netherlands government also mention that the usefulness of masks is questionable at best. This despite that the masks obviously do help.

It seems that this was said because there's a huge shortage of masks. People starting hoarding them, plus stealing them from hospitals and so on.

So yeah, WHO did mention masks aren't super useful for the general public, but seems like the reason is mostly because to prevent people going crazy for masks.

The bit about people thinking their safe due to a bad mask is also mentioned by the Dutch government btw. And they decide for themselves, they do not just follow whatever WHO says.

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