Visconti

You were being incredibly kind with "disingenuous." I'd have some other more colorful words I'd have used.

invisible

In one country I lived, there is a local anecdote about a local folk character who tells the story coming from London incredibly rich after playing poker at high society meeting. When he asks club members to show cards they say 'we are gentlemen, we honor each others' words'. The folk character's punch line follows: 'you have no idea how incredibly lucky a become right after these words...'

You get an idea...

In number of countries, actually in vast majority of countries employees have guaranteed number of sick days regardless the size of company, industry or their functions. US is an outlier here.

Another reference anecdote from different country, different era, but the same situation:

In Perm's Prison for political dissidents inmates are asking each other for what they are there. One of them says - 'I'm a plumber'. Others say - 'how you ended up here?'. Plumper says - 'got a call that at Central Committee they had a leak. Went there, checked and told them - whole system here is rotten, you gotta change it...'

STS-134

Well Winston and Matt just called out the WHO for the same stuff I called them out on 1-2 days ago. What a joke. This organization should be disbanded. I won't trust anything the WHO says but I still trust the CDC.

iahphx

There are so many reporting variables that I don't think that measuring the reported infections/deaths in Hubei tells us that much about the virulence of the virus. I'm watching the growth rate elsewhere in China and it is extremely slow -- as is the worldwide spread of the virus. It's undeniable that, so far. the virus does not seem to be spreading very quickly outside of Hubei. Why? This is what everyone needs to know.

moondog

While I'm unable to answer your question in a scientific manner, I have been in Shanghai throughout this entire saga to date, and have observed that the vast majority of the population has kept contact with others to an absolute minimum (e.g. they stay in their own houses 90% of the time, and when they do venture outside, they keep a distance). One of my Chinese friends told me that, apart from her fear of the virus, a major reason she stays home is because her compound makes her complete a form every time she leaves. As such, she simply orders food from grocery stores or restaurants. I do go outside myself. Most restaurants that I like are closed by government order this week. For those that aren't, I'm typically 1 in about 5 total customers. I guess I'm not surprised that the virus hasn't spread faster here.

helvetic

Do these guys really expect people to watch 70min videos? They need to learn conciseness. Jesus.

moondog

Yeah, I was tempted to ask STS-134 to give us a quick summary. He deserves a medal for making it through the entire segment.

helvetic

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Co...s-public-anger

anacapamalibu

18k views..not exactly "viral".
Bring back "beer girl".

Eagle2000

#drtedrosresign

STS-134

This is a good one to listen to (not watch). Like, download it using youtube-dl and extract the audio, put it on your phone, and listen to it while you drive. That's what I do.

They called out the WHO for:
- Not declaring a PHEIC as soon as it was confirmed that the virus was outside of China *and* it was known to be human-to-human transmittable

- Using language in its statement (which I found here: https://www.who.int/docs/default-sou...t-30012020.pdf) that "WHO doesn’t recommend, and actually opposes, any restrictions for travel and trade or other measures against China." Which is exactly what I criticized them for, since in the same statement, they praise China's handling of the crisis, which includes closing entire cities and restricting travel inside its own borders.
They also critized this quote:
"Let me be clear. This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary, WHO continues to have the confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak. I’ll repeat this. Let me be clear. This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary. WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak. As you know, I was in China just a few days ago, where I met with President Xi Jinping. I left in absolutely no doubt about China’s commitment to transparency and to protecting the world’s people."
First, what does a declaration of a PHEIC have to do with whether you're confident (or not) in anyone's abilities to control an outbreak? Either it's an emergency or it's not, and if it's an emergency, then you do whatever it takes to stop it.

- Suggesting that borders don't need to be closed to halt the spread of this virus, citing the need for "sharing information". As if people are actually needed to physically carry information in the information age. Then criticized the CCP for blocking social media and hampering the flow of information at the same time. It's literally the Chinese government that is preventing the sharing of information about this virus (by blocking social media/deleting posts/not being transparent) and yet, the WHO cites the need for open borders for "sharing information". One of them then said, "are we living in the stone age"? Furthermore, they pointed out that medical supplies do not need commercial flights to be brought in, as they can be brought in on cargo planes, without 200+ humans who could be carrying the virus on the same plane.

- Suggesting that you need to take into account the "economic impacts" of restricting travel. WHO is not the WTO, and their job is to protect the public health.

For my own analysis of that statement, I'm going to pull a quote from the above linked statement (not mentioned in the video):
"We would have seen many more cases outside China by now - and probably deaths - if it were not for the government’s efforts and the progress they have made to protect their own people and the people of the world. The speed with which China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome, and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive, and beyond words. So is China’s commitment to transparency and to supporting other countries. In many ways, China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response, and it’s not an exaggeration." Seriously? The Chinese authorities sat on their asses for over 3 weeks while the virus spread, silenced those who were trying to tell the truth, and tried to sweep this under the rug, and the WHO calls this "a new standard for outbreak response"? They ENDANGERED their own people by refusing to release information within Wuhan at the end of December. They authorities obviously knew they were dealing with something serious because they shut down the wet market suspected of harboring the virus on January 1. Except they lied and told people it was for "renovations". WHO should be disbanded if they're going to put out statements like that. They're not being useful at all.

moondog

Thanks for the summary. International law --regardless of regulatory body-- is only effective when times are good, and even then, more powerful countries are afforded the loudest voices.

helvetic

Well, while they still screwed it up, at least they're doing an order of magnitude better than with SARS where it took months to even acknowledge its existence.

Also, seems to me that while the local response was handle terribly (due to general Chinese political culture), at least once the central government realized the magnitude of the problem and took over, the response was pretty well handled. I'm glad the CCP took the drastic measures to instantly quarantine the entire country, as I think we'd be in a much worse place already had they not.

As far as the WHO, they're obviously pandering to China. Perhaps they think that keeping China happy with them is net-positive and a bad reaction from China would make things worse. Idk… I'm trying to find a charitable interpretation here.

helvetic

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...first-death-39

Coronavirus: Hong Kong confirms first death, a 39-year-old man


See… people do die outside of Hubei. Like I've been saying, it's a matter of time lag between infection and death, and I think this is just the first of many.

STS-134

Yeah but if you're going to lavish praise where praise is due, then you need to also criticize where criticism is due. They praised China for the good things it's doing to contain the outbreak (basically everything since around January 20), but failed to criticize them for trying to silence doctors, having a 40k family banquet just 3 days before they locked down the city, etc. Now maybe they don't want to criticize past actions that cannot be changed, like you don't really scold someone for leaving a space heater running near a curtain when the house is on fire and you're trying to get his or her family out, since the priority is getting the people out. But why not just have neither praise nor criticism in the statement?

Personally, I don't think WHO statements should praise or criticize anything. These statements should be factual. Here is the situation, here's how many people are infected, here's how it spreads, here's what we need to do to stop it. It really doesn't matter how you got to this point. That's the situation now, we cannot change the past, and the only thing you're concerned about is how to prevent it from getting worse going forward. And if that means causing a 20% economic tank, so be it.