Illinois joins WHO global outbreak network after U.S. withdraws | Hacker News Reader

Illinois joins WHO global outbreak network after U.S. withdraws

capitolnewsillinois.com

137 pointsdoener52 comments

It's fascinating the country-ification happening with the US states as the political divide between the state level and federal level political perspectives grows wider. Much like California, Illinois plays a global scale when looked at in isolation (though at a smaller level than California). Its 1.14T GDP puts it around #20 worldwide for GDP when compared to other countries (just behind Saudi Arabia).

It'll be interesting to see what other states follow suit.

Blue states combined are the second largest economy in the world, just ahead of China (3rd) but behind the US in totality. California alone is the fourth largest economy. Their economy would be worth about ~$15T. Combining resources is simply good policy imho.

It will be interesting to see exactly where Texas decides to come down if there really was a split in the US. I have to imagine they would want to follow the rich blue states rather than be stuck footing the bill for Arkansas and Mississippi.

I guess they probably just try to become their own country, like they already did once anyway.

Texas is red (rural and suburban) with big dots of blue (urban).

If worse comes to worst, Texans will be fighting ourselves first.

Texas was Democratic 35 years ago. They also gain 100k Californians each year so becoming more and more purple.

> Texas was Democratic 35 years ago.

As I believe were many southern states at that time, but certainly not because they were at all "liberal", either by the standards of then or now.

Both parties have changed so much since then that it's a weak comparison at best.

I attended the Arkansas Governor's School in '92. The last with Clinton's influence. They had remarkably liberal programs to expose kids to the broader world. After that year the J-freaks took over and eliminated all of that programming to suit their flavor of bigotry but that doesn't erase the people that were and still are there.

That describes essentially every state in the Union. Illinois is red with big dots of blue.

Blue states are states where the big dots of blue are big enough to outweigh the rural red. The only major difference between Indiana and Illinois is Chicago.

>Texas is red (rural and suburban) with big dots of blue (urban).

Isn't every state including California? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...

The only thing unique about CA here is the coast line, which is just a proxy for dense population.

They need to team up and petition to be annexed as Canada's 11th province.

Massachusetts just signed an agreement with Denmark [1] covering several things. From their press release:

> Today, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey welcomed a delegation from Denmark for a series of meetings focused on strengthening the scientific, technological and commercial ties between Massachusetts and Denmark. During the visit, Governor Healey and Denmark’s Ambassador to the U.S. Jesper Møller Sørensen signed an economic partnership agreement, committing to work together to grow their leadership in life sciences, health care, biomanufacturing, advanced manufacturing, robotics and artificial intelligence.

This is an interesting one..

Negotiating treaties is the exclusive authority of POTUS but approving them is the US Senate's job.

"Committing to work together" is probably vague enough that it's not meaningful but "signed an economic partnership" with a foreign ambassador is pretty explicit.

I wonder how they're going to make this one work.

It's actually a crime for unauthorized officials to negotiate with countries directly to influence disputes, under the Logan act.

Going backdoor with Denmark to make "unrelated agreements" (wink-wink) at the same time as the Greenland dispute is just a cheap way to get around that.

* Note that this doesn't mean I agree with the Logan act, but it's pretty obvious what is happening.

It's also a crime for people to pretend to be electors and submit fraudulent paperwork.

Not in this case, since the US hasn't sanctioned Denmark. Trump's rage bleating on Truth Social doesn't constitute official policy. Now, if restrictions on doing business with Denmark were published in the Federal Register, it could get complicated.

I admit, other than in name, I'm not familiar with the Logan Act. Where does it require sanctions or similar?

There isn't a dispute is there isn't any sort of official government publication about it. Late night rants on Truth Social don't meet that standard.

It's also something that wont be prosecuted under the current admnistration, given a lot of the Trump family have acted in the role of foreign diplomats despite not holding official positions. Prosecuting the states for this would open equal scrutiny for them.

California set this precedent roughly a decade ago [0] with no challenge. It will stand.

Subnational diplomacy is the norm in most federations, hence why GOP led Iowa [1] and Montana [2] lobbied in favor of India with Trump leading to the current trade deal [3].

[0] - https://calmatters.org/environment/2017/11/gov-jerry-brown-t...

[1] - https://governor.iowa.gov/press-release/2025-09-07/gov-reyno...

[2] - https://www.daines.senate.gov/2026/01/20/daines-travels-to-i...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/us-trade-chief-says-indi...

It looks like California showed up and participated in conversations, didn't sign anything. Montana appears to have lobbied, again not signing anything.

Iowa is the exception and I'd be curious what gave them the authority and how much, why it wasn't challenged last fall, and if Massachusettes meets the same circumstances.

Conversations are conversations, and that's my point. This is the "MoU"fication of the US, and honestly, it's not a bad thing.

Reincentivizing states to compete with each other for FDI is not a bad policy. If TX and CA talk with energy speicifc SWFs and go on roadshows abroad, there's nothing wrong with that.

It lights a fire under other state legislator asses.

It’s going to lead to balkanization, and it seems at this point to be basically intentional.

Increasing federal power is what is going to lead to balkanization. Now that the 10th amendment is null and void the executive and federal government have nearly limitless power, particularly through expanded interpretation of the commerce clause, we find ourselves in a hell where we teeter between two extremes who badly both need to get into power to not be dominated by the other.

Allowing states to differ wildly was what let bygones be bygones, but no we can't have that anymore, everything nowadays seems to need to be imposed on everyone via 190,000 pages of federal regulations and 300,000 federal laws.

> Allowing states to differ wildly was what let bygones be bygones,

I'm not convinced this was ever a thing. A good example is Bleeding Kansas (something every elementary student in the state is taught about, or used to be), in which Missourians flooded the state to influence elections and intimidate free-staters in hopes of creating another slave state (it's still a minor point of rivalry to this day). Point being, during the lead up to the civil war we had states trying to control the politics of other states

I don't see the civil war as working against my thesis. Maybe it was worth it cuz slavery, but god forbid it happens again I don't think there is an excuse nearly as good as slavery to be fighting over today.

> Increasing federal power is what is going to lead to balkanization

lmao imagine opening with that and expecting anyone to take you seriously.

and im not even passing a judgement call on whether or not federal power is good, nor am i saying there's only one potential cause of balkanization.

but, lmao

> Allowing states to differ wildly was what let bygones be bygones, but no we can't have that anymore, everything nowadays seems to need to be imposed on everyone via 190,000 pages of federal regulations and 300,000 federal laws.

I'm not certain this is a good historical take.

When sates actually had this kind of leeway, they used it to defend chattel slavery, and even after losing a war in support of the institution they still distorted their laws to maintain apartheid.

Were bygones really bygones back in the good 'ol days of race based oppression? Maybe for the gentry, but obviously not for those who were being oppressed.

> Were bygones really bygones back in the good 'ol days of race based oppression? Maybe for the gentry, but obviously not for those who were being oppressed.

You're being far too black and white. There's a lot of space between "allow slavery" and "total federally-mandated conformity."

Honestly, as someone who strongly believes in federalism and hates what our country turned into over the 20th century, I hope the trend continues. The federal government was never meant to have as much power as it took on during the FDR administration, and it's high time we reversed some of the affronts to the Constitution that happened back then. Hopefully things like this can be the first step.

Yes but the quiet part out loud is that rewinding FDR unwinds the 'switch in time that saved 9' which reverse the SCOTUS decisions that ultimately allow the EPA, most applications of the NFA/GCA (gun control), civil rights act as it pertain to intrastate business, controlled substance act as it pertains to intrastate trade, most functions of regulatory agencies, etc.

So while your comment might be acceptable on face, if you actually explain what it means you will be damned for it.

One of Russia's two big fantasies: the breakup of NATO and the balkanization of the US.

Oregon has been strengthening their Asian business ties over the last few years.

The entire west coast is also gearing up to form interstate health compacts and other agreements to replace the federal government.

Is this the point of the "states" in America, if the administration is a failure, states can basically secede and just get back to sensible governance / getting work done ?

There were a lot of reasons for keeping states as states when the US formed. Anything from fears of too much centralized power to being a compromise to get agreement from all of the states at the time. Secession wasn't one listed as a states right though, in either the original Articles of Confederation or in the Constitution.

Since then, the Supreme Court has consistently held it would effectively require a constitutional amendment defining secession for a state to be able to legally secede. So the realistic paths are still only "pretty much the whole country wants to dissolve and come up with something new instead" or "revolution".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States...

Thanks for the response!

Time for each state to get independent

Why is this flagged?

Cause tech is controlled by MAGA.

Does the world really need yet another /r/politics ?

Based on the events in the 2011 film Contagion, I think this is a smart move.

Is there any benefit to individual states joining the WHO in lieu of the federal government? As silver lining, I mean.

Improves detection and response around public health concerns. Current hot topics are measles [1] and syphilis [2] outbreaks.

[1] America’s Measles Crisis Is Spiraling - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-02-03/measle... | https://archive.today/XXYZt - February 3rd, 2026

[2] Syphilis Resurgence: Rising Rates, Public Health Challenges, and Future Strategies - https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/features/syphilis-r... - September 26th, 2025

Measles is popping up in numerous countries the last couple years. Canada has way more cases than the US in absolute numbers and it's catastrophic per capita.

It'd be great to start digging into the "why" and figure out how to mitigate the sources.

> Canada has seen an alarming increase in the number of measles cases since the outbreak began in October 2024, with a total of 5,380 probable and confirmed cases as of Jan. 10, according to Health Canada.

Ref: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/measles-manitoba-18-...

> In recent months, six countries in the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) European region that had previously eliminated the disease have officially lost their measles-free status. In other countries, measles is once again considered endemic.

> Although the decision to remove these countries’ measles-free status was taken last September based on 2024 data, the World Health Organization (WHO) did not release the information publicly until this week, once all countries had signed off.

Ref: https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/what-does-it-mean-lose-mea...

> It'd be great to start digging into the "why" and figure out how to mitigate the sources.

The "why" is that Measles is an extremely infectious viral disease and so it spreads easily. You "mitigate" this by vaccinating everybody you can once they're old enough and thus creating herd immunity. We already knew that a long time ago.

Or I suppose if you think God King Donald J Trump's misfiring brain controls reality you could ask him to Truth that measles doesn't exist any more. Good luck with that.

Can you explain what Trump has to do with the health practices of Canada, the UK, Belgium, or a dozen other European countries in 2024?

Or more importantly - what happened in 2015/2016 in these countries when measles first started reappearing?

Growing Anti-vax sentiment results in a gradually falling fraction of immunised population, Measles is an infectious disease with about 20:1 ratio, but obviously incidence is somewhat random, so a population with only 80% vaccination might go five years with no problem, while one with 90% gets unlucky and sees a rash of cases.

This grew as part of a general "Facts aren't true" era in which we've deployed powerful technology that's able to spread nonsense very quickly to gullible people. Trump is just another symptom and his rise to power in the US in particular is also a consequence of systemic flaws in the US government, a known bad model for governments.

The "facts aren't true" stuff is why the Nazis who have decided to protest near me have such a weird collection of beliefs which to them seem more or less equivalent. They believe 5G mobile telephones caused COVID, that trans people don't exist, that migrants are simultaneously both incredibly powerful, almost superhuman, and yet also very weak and entirely useless. None of this has to make any sense at all, indeed if you're the sort of person who wants to make sense of things you're not what they're looking for.

Illinois has not joined the WHO, just this particular network. The US stopped paying dues to WHO when they left. There are no dues for joining this particular network. So there's the silver lining of being able to pick and choose the WHO components that fit your needs and budget.

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