> The WHO was put under tremendous pressure and suffered information-blackout by China. As a result of this blackout, not long-standing policy, the WHO suggested there was no proof of human to human transmission. As a result of this pressure the WHO re-iterated time and time again that banning flights from China would do nothing to curb the outbreak.
1) It's not a result of an information-blackout. Please do realize that this is a novel virus we are talking about, that got reported as such on Dec. 31st 2019, and per WHO's tweet on Jan. 14th 2020 (merely 2 weeks!),
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel"
Note the words "Preliminary", "no clear evidence", THIS IS NEW, CHINA and WHO DON'T KNOW MUCH, THEY NEED TIME
In comparison, the alpha COVID-19 variant discovered in UK was back in "Late September" back in 2020, and publicized in BMJ in Dec. 16th 2020.
That's 2.5 - 3 month. And what of this variant?
"
Does this variant spread more quickly?
Matt Hancock told the House of Commons on 14 December that initial analysis showed that the new variant “may be associated” with the recent rise in cases in southeast England. However, this is not the same as saying that it is causing the rise.
Loman explained, “This variant is strongly associated with where we are seeing increasing rates of covid-19. It’s a correlation, but we can’t say it is causation. But there is striking growth in this variant, which is why we are worried, and it needs urgent follow-up and investigation.”
"Is the new variant more dangerous?
We don’t know yet. Mutations that make viruses more infectious don’t necessarily make them more dangerous. "
"
So instead of 2 weeks, UK had 10 - 12 weeks, but they still don't know much about the alpha variant. Why? It takes time, time to collect testing results, compile and aggregate them, make hypothesis, make models, test models, etc.
Why do people expect China to be magnitudes better, and if not, it's China's fault? I mean, it's not like the US or UK didn't down play the pandemic at the beginning, and only after Italy or New York did they speed up. Why evaluate with double standards?
2) Like what my previous comment said, recommendation to not ban flights or restrict on international travel has been WHO's standing since H1N1 back in 2009,
The following link is from WHO statement on H1N1 back in 2009, stating: "The Director-General recommended not to close borders and not to restrict international travel. It was considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention."
https://www.who.int/news/item/27-04-2009-director-general-st...
> Even if it was encoded in policy (I will simply acede), it remains a policy based on politics and economic concerns, not a recommendation a scientist would ever give: an aerosolized h2h virus is out there, but it is has no effect to restrict travel from there.
> It is weird to me that the opposition seems to be: banning flights is just playing politics. However, saying to not ban flights is science and based on sane protocol.
> COVID was once in a 100 years. Not really apt to combat with political policies written in "peace time".
No, what "posturing" meant to say is it's ineffective, and has prove to be ineffective. I'm saying he did not do enough, either he banned all flights (which I don't think would be possible back then), or enforce mandatory quarantine (which hadn't happen even now, much less likely then).
And such "posturing" only hurts effort to better protect, just like hygienic theater of temperature monitoring and deep cleaning in late 2020 doesn't help too little, but take away resources from measures that can help.
> If the WHO is correct: China did extremely well with virus containment, and set a standard for the rest of the world. And Xi is correct: People fleeing from Wuhan are to be nailed on the pillars of shame for all of eternity. And you are correct: restricting travel is just political and does not nothing to help curb spread.
> Then what is this inconsistent reality?
This reality is consistent:
1) China did do quite well for its size and amount of people. You can argue that their number is not accurate (I would say that any country's number will not be inaccurate at the beginning, when testings are much rarer)
2) I wouldn't say nailed on the pillars of shame, but they did divert a lot of potential medical resources to better monitor spread outside of Wuhan, instead of putting more medical personnel and resources in Wuhan.
3) Restricting travel does not curb spread if you half-ass the restriction.
You need to do mandatory quarantine for incoming personnel, restrict contact and movement for the duration of the quarantine, and multiple tests during quarantine. And the precursory policy would be mandatory quarantine for at least 21 days, and people with symptoms are not to stay with their family, but to separate quarantine rooms.
> Then no links to ease your search for a truth.
No comment.
> This pandemic showed that for maximum security for you and your loved ones, you have to rely on yourself and your own fact-finding. Health generals were telling you not to buy masks as these were not protective. Senators were saying that banning flights would be useless to help curb SARS (in response to Trump, not in response to fact-finding).
> You listened, then you took your family to China Town without masks in early March 2020. You listened to the CDC, you were without toilet paper or medical supplies. You listened to China, and you would not prepare.
> The officials first botched the response, heavily politicized it, then attacked the "misinformation pandemic" so your aunts facebook post on turmeric would be blocked for promoting false cures, and your uncles facebook post on the WIV would be blocked for racist conspiracy.
> Or maybe you had an oxymeter, supplies of vitamins, masks, gloves, glasses, rubbing alcohol, vaporizer, routes to hospitals with occupancy, and 2 weeks of canned food. Maybe you informed your nearest ones, when doctors and virologists on TV were comparing COVID to heart attacks.
I do agree that to best protect one and one's closed ones, reliance on others were and are not the best option.
> A bit. I knew it would be perceived as a Trumpian: Just don't test, then we won't know, and what we won't know can't be a problem. But maybe you can re-read in the most favorable manner you can muster and take more from it than a joke: By the time we were bickering about tests, their availability, and effectiveness, there was already wide local community spread in the major cities. This stage demanded a different approach. Contact tracing resulting from a positive test would be a drop in a bucket. Test, say, 95%, and now you have exact numbers of something you already know in general to be true. Now what? Personalized quarantine efforts costing billions, while 5% goes on their merry way?
> Italy dumped all their tests in a week to get an overview of their situation. Result: Formally, the problem got worse (they know the extend exactly), and a shortage of tests followed where doctors had to sail blind and just assume it was COVID for everyone with pneumonia.
Lock-down and quarantine, testing, contact tracing, these go hand-in-hand. Only do some and not all will cause back lashes.
You lock down first for at least 1 month, quarantine the incoming personnel, quarantine those that have symptoms to individual rooms, quarantine those that had close contact with people that showed symptoms, suggest self quarantine to those that came in close.
Lock down buys some time, and in that time you need to scale production for testing, and test the heck out of the population. Priority would be people who traveled outside of the country, those that came close to travelers (airport/port workers, taxi drivers, etc.), then frontline medical personnel and staff, and down the line. Testing results gives a better presentation of the severity, and what's more, where to pool resources and personnel to prevent a collapse of the hospital system.
Contact tracing is to further track weaknesses in the lock down, quarantine, and testing. It also help to better pinpoint clusters and super-spreader events, to provide evidence to implement policy prohibiting such events.