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Comment by AbrahamParangi | Hacker News Reader

The null hypothesis is of course the most probable and bio is insanely hard.

But it’s not clear to me that the WHO has any credibility left.

Edit:

This is not a coded American Politics statement. Here are examples of where the WHO provided directly counterproductive recommendations:

1. Don’t wear masks (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/30/worl...)

2. Don’t close borders (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-says...)

3. COVID is not airborne (https://m.facebook.com/WHO/posts/3019704278074935) (pedantic takes aside you should obviously treat it is if it were)

View on HN

The mask thing was a mess. But even back then, WHO was clear on why they said that:

"We need to be clear. The world is facing a significant shortage of PPE for our frontline workers -- including masks and gloves and gowns and face shields -- and protecting our health care workers must be the top priority for use of this PPE."

That's very World Health Organization, which is used to operating under scarcity.

The embarrassing thing now is that, eight months on, we don't have a huge supply of N95 masks, which actually protect the wearer. On eBay, the price is starting to drop, from about $10 each to about $5 each. Normal price is about $1 each.

Why? I know WHO is now politically involved in the US elections and I presume that shapes many opinions.

But, I did read recently about polio eradication from the African continent etc. Obviously not just by WHO but efforts by many organizations, but still a major achievement isnt it?

Update: I actually would like to know why WHO is not credible any more for some. Honest question.

Unfortunately, the whole polio eradication thing is less of an clear-cut success story than the headlines made it seem - they only eradicated wild-type polio, there are still major outbreaks in Africa of vaccine-derived polioviruses that have lost the mutations which made them safe and started spreading in the community and paralyzing people, those have only been getting more widespread last I heard and there doesn't seem to be any clear route to a solution. Can't imagine that Covid has helped much with that either, given the disruption to vaccination programs worldwide - vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks thrive wherever vaccination is disrupted or incomplete, or there's a border between vaccinated and non-vaccinated regions.

The original plan that the WHO and the rest of the global health community came up to deal with this also seems like total magical thinking to me - basically, everywhere would drop the type 2 poliovirus component (which corresponded to a virus whose wild type had been eliminated) from their live vaccines at once, which would leave none to turn into vaccine-derived poliovirus and type 2 woud just go away. It didn't work that way. I can't fathom why it even should. Nonetheless, there were lots of fancy documents and presentations from the WHO and other such organisations explaining this strategy very hopefully. The current ones don't have the same level of hope.

Please explain why you're downvoting, this is a fact, only wild polio is "eradicated" from africa, not vaccine-induced polio (type 1 and type 2 are often milder than wild polio however). And i think there was a polio outbreak in Soudan this year, so...

> I can't fathom why it even should. Nonetheless, there were lots of fancy documents and presentations from the WHO and other such organisations explaining this strategy very hopefully.

I can fathom this easily. The general idea is to administer the type 2 oral vaccine (along with 1 and 3, but we’re talking about type 2 here) widely enough that you expect a high level of herd immunity. Specifically, you want sufficient immunity that any newly introduced cases of reverted-to-virulent type 2 will quickly die out. (If you have the resources, you also try to give almost everyone the injectable vaccine to prevent virulent type 2 cases from causing damage). Then you stop giving the type 2 vaccine. If it works, then type 2 is locally eradicated.

Maybe it’s “magical”, but this particular magic has worked in almost the entire world.

This seems like antivax advocacy. WHO would point out that vaccines have likely prevented over 13,000,000 cases of polio, while cPDVD has caused fewer than 800 cases.

The current administration has spent the entire last year trying to deflect criticism for their bungled response, and have been throwing accusations of corruption and incompetence at anything that moves.

At least earlier on the narrative was that "the WHO is in the pocket of China" [1] -- while in reality of course the Americans were a dramatically bigger contributor both financially and politically. Further at the same time, the Chinese were actually threatening the WHO and leadership for not playing ball.

Typical 2020 dumpster fire. And at the end of the day the people really hurt are once again the poor countries who depend on the WHO, and we're left with a pile of sadly misinformed "they have no credibility" armchair quarterbacks. It's always easier to try and tear down a system than understand and fix. That's my opinion anyways.

For a more balanced take I suggest this Atlantic piece [2].

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-pompeo-who-workd-health...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...

> For a more balanced take I suggest this Atlantic piece

This made me laugh out loud

For the intellectually curious, in what way?

The Atlantic is a neo-lib magazine that leftists and right-wingers can agree is not even worth using as toilet paper.

LOL..I knew the folks here would hate that. Seriously though, the idea that the Atlantic and balanced takes, particularly within the last few years can be used in the same sentence un-ironically is indeed a joke.

I don't have anything against your reaction. I don't read the Atlantic; I saw this particular article, read it, lined up the facts with other things I'd read, and felt this piece reflected a more balanced take than mine. Not necessarily in absolute terms. That is what I meant by my note about balance.

I suppose next time I reply to a contentious topic I could find a more seemingly dispassionate source but these days most folks are too polarized to read any news source that doesn't align with their preconceived notions.

The WHO is a political organization - much like the WIPO, WTO, UN and many others. It does not exist for the benefit of mankind, but rather for the benefit of its member states - and those have differing agendas.

Current WHO head was elected in part thanks to chinese votes and influence. When the WHO recommended not closing any borders, how can you disentangle the professional epidemiology opinion from the political push? You can't.

Which is not to say it is evil or incompetent (it may be either, both, or none - I don't know enough) - but it seems to have an aura of "professional only" organization, which is unjustified.

Has WHO lost some credibility through a combination of poor decisions, poor communications, and rapidly changing scientific understanding? For sure. Suggesting that WHO has no credibility left is hyperbolic and unhelpful.

>1. Don’t wear masks

False. They said - "There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit"

"In the community, we do not recommend the use of wearing masks unless you yourself are sick and as a measure to prevent onward spread from you if you are ill"

"The masks that we recommend are for people who are at home and who are sick and for those individuals who are caring for those people who are home that are sick,"

These are completely normal statements.

>2. Don’t close borders

False. The said "There is a “huge reason to keep official border crossings open” to avoid people entering irregularly and going unchecked for symptoms, "

"Certain containment measures will be appropriate, but widely banning travel, closing down cities, and hoarding resources are not realistic solutions for an outbreak that lasts years."

>3. COVID is not airborne

Please understand that airborne has a scientific meaning, and that is the terminology that scientists use. There is no actual clinical evidence of the airborne transmission of COVID.It is spread through large droplets. If it was airborne, those cloth and surgical masks that people wear would be useless, so you might as well not wear them.

>But it’s not clear to me that the WHO has any credibility left.

Maybe that is true for you, but ironically your wild accusations have let me wondering about your agenda here. :)

> Please understand that airborne has a scientific meaning, and that is the terminology that scientists use. There is no actual clinical evidence of the airborne transmission of COVID.It is spread through large droplets.

At this point, it's expert consensus that airborne transmission of COVID is a significant if not the major route of transmission[1].

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/26/14857

> If it was airborne, those cloth and surgical masks that people wear would be useless, so you might as well not wear them.

Not quite useless, but nowhere near as effective as people would like to believe them to be.

Please explain on what basis you are assigning a paper "expert consensus" ? Are you an infectious diseases researcher? If so, your opinion would matter more to me than the paper.

I read dozens of studies every day as part of my job in biotech, and most papers are junk and/or contain overly enthusiastic claims that few can replicate. I know somehow on HN linking to a paper is seen as a mic-drop, but that is not the case in the real world.

I don't read that many studies (I'm envious you can do that ;) as part of my (science) job, but as far as I read on airborne transmission, most of the "evidence" presented is actually modeling, or some IMO questionable studies, like the one - was it Lancet, or NEJM? I don't remember - about potential airborne transmission in a hospital setting. I was left with an "and then?" thought after I finished reading.

> most of the "evidence" presented is actually modeling

If the model evidence-based, falsifiable, and tested, applying modeling to a set of conditions is a way of deriving evidence-based conclusions about the likely outcome of those conditions.

> deriving evidence-based conclusions

No, it's a way to derive evidence based hypotheses. A model that does not include a confounding variable (of which there are many) cannot give any conclusion about that variable - at most a hypotheses.

I've spent some time looking at the models, all of them fail - some spectacularly so (those that inform policy much more so, unfortunately). To the point of being useless, I might say, because their stated assumptions usually apply almost everywhere, but their prediction (and back testing results) match only a small sample (e.g. a few specific countries or cities).

> Please explain on what basis you are assigning a paper "expert consensus" ?

The source is for the "if not majority" part of that sentence. The other part is just me making an admittedly unsubstantiated claim.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/health/239-experts-with-o...

> I know somehow on HN linking to a paper is seen as a mic-drop, but that is not the case in the real world.

Sure, but this is HN. You often have to source stuff just to not get downvoted.

FTR, the letter linked in the NY Times article actually advocates the precautionary principle (which implies there isn't enough evidence, only suggestions of such).

Not enough evidence for what? Quote:

"The evidence is admittedly incomplete for all the steps in COVID-19 microdroplet transmission, but it is similarly incomplete for the large droplet and fomite modes of transmission. The airborne transmission mechanism operates in parallel with the large droplet and fomite routes [16] that are now the basis of guidance."

By using arbitrarily high standards for evidence, I might as well claim there's no evidence that COVID is transmitted by large droplets or by smear infection. Where's the randomized trial that proves beyond any doubt that coughing in each other's faces will spread COVID?

I have not bookmarked them, but I found in the past very convincing evidence for significant fecal-oral transmission -- possibly of comparable standard to airborne and droplet transmission.

I'm kind of surprised that there isn't much of a discussion about that, because if it is indeed a significant route (say 30%), all the masks and distancing in the world won't help until this is also addressed.

It is not clear to me in what way you are refuting the first two points. The citations that you are giving seem to indicate exactly what you are trying to refute. I am very confused, and left wondering about your agenda here. :)

I work in vaccines, so maybe I'm more sensitive to misinformation than most :)

Clearly!

Fair enough. Who/what organizations do you trust then for public health and covid related recommendations?

My short answer: there aren't any. Every source has shown itself willing to set truth aside in the interest of some political or ideological agenda.

If your response is "well, that sucks", yes, I agree. It sucks to live in a world where people and institutions whose sole job is supposed to be making sure true information gets to the public, every time, no exceptions, are either unwilling or unable to do that job right.

This is where I also stand. I don't (a prior) trust the WHO, I don't (a priori) trust the CDC, I don't (a priori) trust the talk show hosts. (To be fair, I think this principle applies much more generally than public health matters.)

That's not to say I behave irresponsibly: I wear a mask in public (because "better safe than sorry"), my family self-quarantined for two weeks when one of us got sick, etc. I just don't assume what "experts" say is necessarily the truth. (To be fair, I also don't trust myself to reach correct conclusions—hence my personal policy of "better safe than sorry.")

I personally feel like too much of modern society involves idolizing experts and institutions—after all, it's nothing more than the argument-to-authority logical fallacy (admittedly, even if it's often a useful heuristic)... but that's a discussion for another time :-P

> That's not to say I behave irresponsibly: I wear a mask in public (because "better safe than sorry")

Same here. My wife and I were wearing masks, social distancing, not going to public places like restaurants where there was a high risk of catching something, weeks before any public health authorities were recommending such measures, and before the case rate in our area started to spike. To us it was obvious common sense.

To clarify: I am by no means "anti-science"—exactly the opposite! Obviously, science is an unspeakably valuable epistemological tool and process (and, as I see it, the inarguable best way to reach correct conclusions about the world). I'm no crackpot or conspiracy theorist who thinks vaccines don't work or the earth is flat or climate change isn't real.

All I'm saying is that, as I see it, society's idea of "science" often conflates it with scientists and/or institutions themselves (hence the "argument to authority" part of my comment above). This is, of course, the opposite of what science means, which is why it bothers me enough to have written these comments :-P

> I wear a mask in public (because "better safe than sorry")

Saying "better safe than sorry" makes it sound as though you're not sure about this, but this one isn't in doubt - masks reduce the spread of the virus, and that's their primary purpose.

Here's an article about it: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou...

See the section titled "What evidence do we have that wearing a mask is effective in preventing COVID-19?"

What does this mean?

That he is one of the people that don't believe anything anymore the WHO says because they got the thing with the masks wrong.

IIRC the 'masks wrong' accusation was more about the CDC than the WHO. As I recall, the WHO caught a lot of flak early on for press releases written in strict scientific language that were easily construed to mean something entirely different. They earned a bit of criticism for that, since they should have written those PR bits for the lay audience that it was intended for.

The sibling post was rather unjustly flagged. I'm often on the other side of the fence on this but in this case I think it was unfair.

I've always thought of the WHO as serving an audience of public health experts for the member nations. Then those nations can decide what the best response is within their borders.

When I remember back on the news about the other recent pandemic scares (ebola, swine flu, zika), I don't remember hearing any mention of the WHO. I'm sure it happened, but not nearly as much as CDC. We hear about their announcements a lot more often now, but how much is that due to being cast as antagonists by DC?

If the Ebola epidemic killed 200,000 people in the United States, due to a completely bungled response by the CDC, you could bet that the supporters of the administration in power at the time would be burning effigies of the WHO.

That is what the WHO used to do, certainly. It does seem to talk more directly to the press these days, and it's honestly probably not a great idea.

Going by their news releases page, it doesn't seem like even 2020 has more listings than most years:

https://www.who.int/news

I'm now leaning more toward my hypothesis that they haven't changed behavior much, but US reporters are citing them now because the current administration brought them into the story. In the past, reporters probably read the WHO announcements but quoted from CDC same academic experts. Again, WHO info is dry.

Or, you know, this now infamous Tweet: https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152

That's an entirely accurate tweet at the time.

On Jan 14, 2020, the WHO had no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission yet. It came (to them) shortly afterwards.

That China may have had such evidence and kept it private doesn't make the WHO's statement any less truthful at the time it was issued. They aren't an intelligence organization; they rely on cooperative member nations.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/factchecking-trumps-attack...

> While there is a debate about what was known when — and it seems clear that China knew more than what it reported — the WHO never said the virus was not communicable. Instead, the agency always considered the possibility, even if it also shared information from China that found no evidence of such transmission.

> Lack of evidence, especially of “preliminary” results, does not mean the WHO was saying the novel coronavirus could not be spread between people. The same day as the tweet, the WHO cautioned that there might be some human-to-human transmission of the virus among family members in China.

> According to a timeline of events, Van Kerkhove, who is also the WHO’s technical lead for the COVID-19 response, also said that human-to-human transmission wouldn’t be unexpected, since that is what occurs with SARS and MERS, which are also coronaviruses.

Just a few days later:

> By Jan. 19, the WHO was more definitive, saying in a tweet that there was “some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.”

Trying to use this tweet to justify US inaction months later is silly and transparent.

Thanks!

It wasn’t lacking evidence at all, want to know why? Because I read that headline at the time and thought it was ridiculous, I couldn’t believe they were saying something so backwards. If you had been paying attention, you knew already:

1. It was spreading rapidly in humans

2. It was a coronavirus and therefore was similar to other coronaviruses

If you were following a precautionary principle, you’d have said “it likely is spreading between humans given we’ve never seen any other form of transmission this rapid in any virus that isn’t, and it’s a coronavirus”.

If you think their “don’t wear masks” lie was ok because it was trying to keep medical workers from a shortage, then, how can you not see this as hypocritical? You can’t think the mask lie was ok, due to abundance of caution, and then a total disregard for caution at a much more crucial early stage as ok.

But again, if you were paying attention, watching the WHO make statements like this was terrifying. Like driving in a car with a drunk driver who is stepping on the gas. Who in their right mind would make such a totally braindead, reckless press release like that. Technically there’s no direct evidence, but there’s a whole lot of reason to be worried it likely is airborne. So the headline should be “it’s highly possible it’s airborne, we are waiting for concrete data, but recommend caution given exponential spread within humans”.

The WHO did things similarly shockingly bad three times or so during the pandemic. I was paying attention to all of them and couldn’t help but think something was up. Something was wrong with the WHO. Not just being conservative, but being totally negligent and backwards time and time again. It really seems they were playing either protection for China, or some sort of interference against a good chunk of the world.

If they had done better, many many lives would have been saved. It was some internal politics that broke them. Any halfway sane person knew it at the time.

"I personally believe the evidence will come soon" is not the same as having that evidence.

As the excerpts I've cited demonstrate, the WHO's statements at the time are longer than what can be fit in a single 280 character tweet. The tweet is accurate; the WHO was also issuing far more detailed statements including cautions about exactly what you assumed at the time - that further information was likely to arrive later.

Again:

They were making the exact point you claim they didn't make.

The WHO January:

> International traffic: no restrictions recommended. Wuhan city is a major domestic and international transport hub. Currently, there are no reports of cases outside of Wuhan City. Given the heavy population movements, expected to significantly increase during the Chinese New Year in the last week of January, the risk of cases being reported form elsewhere is increased. WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travellers. It is generally considered that entry screening offers little benefit, while requiring considerable resources. In case of symptoms suggestive to respiratory illness before, during or after travel, the travellers are encouraged to seek medical attention and share travel history with their health care provider. WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on China based on the information currently available on this event.

It’s a good thing Trump didn’t listen to them and limited immigration by end of January. They made many more reckless recommendations like this well after they knew people were dying, it was spreading rapidly, and it was a coronavirus.

The travel "ban" was political theater, targeting only foreign nationals; red meat to add on to the existing trade wars. It had already escaped China at the time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/01/debate-ear...

> The measure that the Trump administration implemented could not be described as a “ban” that “closed the country”: It only prohibited U.S. entry to foreign nationals who had visited China in the last 14 days. Americans and U.S. permanent residents returning from Hubei Province were still allowed, subject to a 14-day quarantine. After these policies were enacted, hundreds of thousands of travelers continued to arrive in the United States via direct flights from China. Until Feb. 27, no other travelers to the United States faced such travel restrictions and quarantine requirements — even if they were arriving from other nations that were reporting coronavirus cases.

> Restricting flights from China did nothing to prevent the virus from arriving from other parts of the world. Genetic analyses have shown that the large epidemic that unfolded in New York was linked to travelers from Europe. In the early days of the U.S. epidemic, testing was restricted to people with a travel history to China, which limited the ability to detect locally the cases and infections among travelers from other countries.

> By the time Trump expanded travel restrictions to Iran on Feb. 28 and to European nations on March 12, it was largely too late. By mid-March, the United States was approaching 2,000 confirmed cases and experiencing severe shortages in testing capacity that meant many infections likely went undiagnosed. The travel restriction did not initially apply to the United Kingdom, which already had hundreds of reported cases. And, implementation caused chaos. Photos showing large crowds of Americans stranded together in long lines and tight corridors for hours at airports may have increased virus transmission among those travelers who eventually made their way back to the United States.

https://apnews.com/article/0dc271ad7f7917374a5a0cfb49273783

> A recent study from the journal Science found China’s internal crackdown modestly delayed the spread of the virus. It cast doubt that travel restrictions elsewhere will do much compared with other preventive measures, citing in part the likelihood that a large number of people exposed to the virus had already been traveling internationally without being detected.

And yet he was ahead of almost everyone in doing that - no other politicians or agencies were calling for it, most were denouncing it.

I personally know someone coming here from China who was disallowed end of January.

That he didn’t go all the way and ban US nationals is only because that would have probably been untenable politically and legally.

Travel restrictions absolutely prevent spread to argue against that shows fundamentally you’re willing to make silly arguments to win, I won’t engage further.

Yes, he was ahead of everyone in proposing the thing that didn't work, while to this day casting doubt on things like masking.

Saying "The WHO did things similarly shockingly bad three times or so during the pandemic" and then pivoting to praise Trump on his COVID handling is pretty hilarious.

It did work, absolutely.

Editing here as I can’t reply. I’m not debating on failure vs success in the US in this thread, you seem to be caught up in that. I’m simply completely refuting that the WHO was even close to doing well.

Here’s a decent summary of multiple mistakes and pandering to China: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/02/china-coronavirus-who-h...

The WHO themselves even said they made a “huge mistake”. So I guess you’re out there on your own in defending them.

But more than that, anyone paying attention saw they were in China’s pocket. You’re grossly misinformed.

As evidenced by our status as the world's largest and most sustained COVID-19 hot spot?

What's your definition of failing?

If an infectious disease breaks out in your country do you a) close the gates, b) let people travel, c) do nothing?

We picked d) ban travel from one of many countries with active infections to score political points.

We didn’t even do that properly - American citizens were allowed to return, weren’t screened, and were asked to observe a “voluntary” quarantine.

We wound up mostly getting it from Europe, where we similarly didn’t restrict until it was far too late.

I agree -- shut the border completely or not at all; but I was referring more about where it started rather than where it spread to.

> And yet he was ahead of almost everyone in doing that - no other politicians or agencies were calling for it, most were denouncing it.

You’ve been fooled by fake news. Just google and you’ll find the truth. Here’s an article from February 2 “All over the world, countries are imposing travel bans on visitors who’ve been to China“ https://qz.com/1795615/coronavirus-travel-bans-on-china-impo...

So it’s the exact opposite of what you said - politicians all over the world were doing just that.

According to a later analysis at https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/13/joe-biden/...

“ By the group’s count, Biden is correct about 45 nations restricting travel from China before the United States.That number covers variations of travel restrictions in effect up to and including Feb. 1.”

Politifact has been wrong more time’s than I can count.

First, US closed late Jan before they are citing many others than closed right after that, I know someone who was disallowed before the 31st but they wouldn’t be straightforward on why, so the admin was restricting travel even before the announcement.

And I was referring mostly to within the US there, and with the WHO. Here’s Biden right after the ban:

> We need to lead the way with science -- not Donald Trump's record of hysteria, xenophobia and fear-mongering.

And before you reply saying he didn’t mean directly at the ban, I don’t buy it. It was sent directly after the announcement specifically saying “xenophobic” and suggesting the alternative was “science”. That isn’t someone who is signaling they support it.

The irony of the travel ban, of course, is that currently, travel from countries that have much lower rates of community spread of the virus is still banned.

This leads some credence to the theory that the various restrictions on travel were, and continue to be more politically, than medically motivated.

It's pedantically accurate but grossly irresponsible for an agency that has such influence. Such a statement should only be uttered in scientific circles where the precise meaning of that statement is understood.

"No evidence" is falsely interpreted by the layperson as evidence of absence, or at least that there isn't a good reason to expect it to be true. But given the asymmetric costs involved, it is exactly the wrong assumption that people need to make.

Assume there is airborne transmission -> low cost but hedge extreme downside risk.

Assume there is no airborne transmission -> slightly lower cost, but huge downside risk if incorrect.

Policymakers were misled by the WHO.

> Such a statement should only be uttered in scientific circles where the precise meaning of that statement is understood.

> Policymakers were misled by the WHO.

Man, if only "policy makers" had access to "scientific circles" so they could stop getting their public health pandemic response ideas from reading Twitter.

Given the number of politicians and media figures (who have influence over politicians) going along with the "no evidence" line early on, I believe the deleterious impact that I mentioned was real and significant.

That's only ~10% of the reason that people are critical of the WHO though. They also refused to declare a pandemic until until weeks after it had spread globally, even though early R estimates were around 3, which delayed countries' ability to respond quickly. They wouldn't recommend masks until months into the pandemic, even though similar viruses such as SARS were airborne.

The list of heinous mistakes is laundry-list long.

I don't see anything wrong with this tweet. At the time, this was the only information available about the disease, and the source and preliminary nature of the research are clearly stated.

One week later, the WHO had already conducted its own field visit in Wuhan and concluded that human-to-human transmission is likely taking place [1].

[1] https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit...

I don't remember that, but they got the thing about restricting travel wrong.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1...

It's not just the masks. They also got many other things wrong, and the leader of the WHO has a number of corruption allegations with some veracity to their name.

The individual that leads the WHO also has a number of corruption and cover-up allegations.

Let's also not forget that they refused to declare a pandemic until weeks after there was evidence of global spread.

The negligence (intentional or otherwise) is truly shocking.

Donald Trump would have raised holy hell if a pandemic was declared earlier. It would have been a globalist plot to crash the markets and tank his presidency. He would have threatened to withdraw from the WHO entirely and pull U.S. funding. [Checks notes] Ah - he did anyway.

Remember, the WHO recommends traditional Chinese medicine.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01726-1

Edit: downvoted for stating facts and linking to a Nature article? I guess HN has a soft spot for peddlers of pseudoscience and rhino boner pills as long as it their side politically.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06782-7

This is where I draw the line.

That's not what the article you linked says. It says the WHO includes the names of various ailments and diseases under traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). That's the not the same as recommending the use of TCM.

False. It says right in the article that they also include treatments and medicines. Does it do that for Ayurveda and other traditional treatments? Why not? I guess Nature is worried for an irrational reason?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06782-7

Please don’t twist yourself batting for this nonsense.

> It says right in the article that they also include treatments and medicines

Can you please paste the relevant quote from the article? Because I'm not seeing that. The part I looked at was:

"In a statement on 4 April, it insisted that the TCM chapter does not discuss particular remedies. Rather, it is meant to give doctors the chance to diagnose patients using both TCM and Western medicine — what it calls “optional dual coding”. These categories “do not refer to — or endorse — any form of treatment”, the statement says."

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