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Comment by knzhou | Hacker News Reader

This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying that nations should get prepared, one saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.

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I’m in the “WHO is ineffective at best” camp, but I agree with you here.

They have been conservative in their statements. I don’t recall them ever saying “it doesn’t spread person-to-person” - I do recall them saying “there is no conclusive evidence of person-to-person transmission”. At the time, given the evidence they had, that was true. From their perspective saying that it did in fact spread person-to-person and later concluding it didn’t would have been much worse; I assume they take this approach to protect their reputation of being certain before making a public statement.

The problem seems to be that lay people seem to expect WHO to be on the bleeding edge and providing comprehensive information on the latest investigation and data. That’s not what they do. They report the findings, and that’s very different.

It seems that people expect the WHO to be clairvoyants rather than reporting evidence. It's disappointing that a scientifically minded community like HN believe absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Respectfully, Could you link to the documents you were referring to?

I feel like a trend I see is folks say to go out on their own to find some document that proves their point. There are several statements by the WHO on those dates, and I do not know which one you mean.

I have unfortunately seen the trend also where someone does link a source that is very lengthy and same thing. In one case, the source actually contradicted the person citing it.

I am not accusing you of that, merely it makes your argument much more credible when it is easy to see where you cited your sources.

Wikipedia has 3 clear link from Jan 14th - the Telegraph (UK), Straits Times (Singapore) and Reuters, all conveying the quote that there was indeed human to human spreading, but at the time it seemed limited. Which is right.

The WHO further said

  "It is still early days, we don’t have a clear clinical picture."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-pneumonia-wh...

Fair enough....but the grandparent comment said "Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements".

I only found two WHO statements, and they are discussing the minutes of emergency meetongs on COVID in January. Are those what they are referring to? If so, which one?

Here's a statement from Jan 9th

https://web.archive.org/web/20200115194156/https://www.who.i...

"Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses with some causing less-severe disease, such as the common cold, and others more severe disease such as MERS and SARS. Some transmit easily from person to person, while others do not. According to Chinese authorities, the virus in question can cause severe illness in some patients and does not transmit readily between people"

That seems very responsible reporting given that only 10 days after being made aware of it, WHO wouldn't have been able to gather any independent evidence. They said it could transmit easily from person to person, but it might not.

Statement on Jan 13th

https://web.archive.org/web/20200115230651/https://www.who.i...

Certainly doesn't say anything along the lines of "there will be no human-human transmission", just calls (which were mostly unheeded in the west) for active monitoring and preparedness

Taiwan didn't get a first case until Jan 21st, which was someone who travelled from Wuhan. It wasn't until Jan 28th they had a domestic case which wasn't linked to Wuhan, so expecting the WHO to have independent evidence in mid January isn't realistic. They reported the evidence they had and pleaded with the world to take it seriously. Taiwan listened, Europe and America didn't.

Tweet on January 14 [0].

"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"

0. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...

14 January 2020 • 5:40pm

> While clear information about the mysterious virus remains hazy, the WHO said on Tuesday that transmission between humans has not been ruled out.

“From the information that we have it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families"

The WHO report findings, and on Dec 14th there was limited evidence that it was spreading from human to human. All of that is true.

My point is WHO failed the world by trying to be politically correct with China and not listening to Taiwan. Here is how Taiwan dealt with it from the outset [0] and what Taiwan says about WHO [1].

0. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...

1. https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6...

CCP has told WHO to not acknowledge the existence of Taiwan.

Here's what it looks in action, with senior leadership at WHO following the orders from China (video interview)

https://twitter.com/ezracheungtoto/status/124386977441046937...?

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