Pandemic advice from the WHO

[mtbc]

I had previously had a vaguely good impression of the World Health Organization. However, during this pandemic they have unpleasantly surprised me. In trying to understand how to protect myself from SARS-CoV-2 I have been keeping somewhat abreast of the preliminary research and it did not take long for multiple credible items of circumstantial evidence to emerge that widespread mask-wearing helps and that infection appears to follow indoor airflow. I would certainly understand some we're not sure caveats but it disappointed me to see how long it took the WHO to start to agree about masks and now they seem to be dragging their feet on airborne transmission. As somebody who dropped biology before finishing high school and whose professional focus is neither medical nor epidemiological, am I the one very plausibly mistaken about all this, should I have more faith? Otherwise, what is going on with the WHO? Are they hamstrung by what would be politically convenient for China and the US? Are they scared to make a best guess in a crisis situation? Should we be listening to some other organization instead?

Comments

[shadowkat]

NY learned the hard way - because the CDC and WHO told them not to worry about a mysterious illness in Rockland County, because the patient had not had any contact with anyone from China. So NY went off to develop its own test, and got FDA approval, and tested. That's how they discovered they had the first major hot-spot in the US. I remember following it on New York 1 - aka Spectrum News - the local news channel. It was absurd.

Beginning of Feb:
NY: Can we test?
CDC and WHO: No, you have no contact with China.
NY: But JFK.

Mid-Feb:
NY: we think we have two cases, can we test?
CDC: The case you listed had no contact with China and we only allow tests for people who have these symptoms and contact with China.
NY: But - we think this could be COVID, they came from Iran
CDC: We'll review and get back to you.

NY: Frak this, we're going to develop our own test using WHO and CDC's guidelines through our own labs and get it approved via the FDA. Also can someone test that woman from IRAN.

About two weeks later

CDC: We reviewed...and yeah, go test.
NY: About that? We kind of already did, and we have one case from Iran, who we've quarantined -
CDC: okay.
NY: And about a 100 cases and counting in Rockland County, we're declaring a state of emergency, with your approval of course.
CDC:....

NY has not forgiven the CDC and WHO for this by the way.

Then later?

NY: Uhm, we discovered that our strain came from Italy and not China.
CDC: Wait. What?
NY: There appears to be two strains, and ours may be more virulent -
WHO: Uhm, you have to be wrong about that. It's only China.
NY: We think it mutated.

Then much later.

WHO & CDC: Kids recover and don't die from the virus - so that's good news.
NY: Eh, about that - we just discovered this weird inflammatory condition in kids and they all tested positive for the virus, we have 25 cases, and many are serious and dying.
WHO & CDC: ...

Talk about epic fail! This would be hilarious if we weren't living it. So NY went and found their own experts worldwide. They are ignoring the Federal Government at the moment.

[mtbc]

Thank you for explaining the timeline, I'd completely missed those details. Epic fail indeed, their credibility has to be one of the big casualties. I was probably distracted by wondering when the British government would finally start to agree that, yeah, masks would be a good idea! It wasn't until the second week of May that they came around to that thinking.

[shadowkat]

A lot of people missed it. It wasn't broadly broadcast. I only picked up on it for the following reasons: I watched NY1 every morning at 6:25 am prior to going to work and they were talking about it. Also they would talk about it when I checked the weather for the next day at night. And...I was watching the maps, and thinking okay, the thing has exploded in Italy, it's hit the West Coast, why doesn't NYC have any cases? (I work out of a major transportation hub in Queens, NY - and see international travelers daily, some of which were wearing masks. Also co-workers who had kids studying in Italy - those kids were being sent home. And they were cancelling family trips there. I knew people were traveling to and from Europe and NYC.)

So, I was looking at it a lot more closely than other people were. Plus I have a fascination with viruses going back to the 1990s. And, the back and forth between NY and the CDC was entertaining.

NY1 had a bet going on when the CDC would let NY test. Each day they'd report on it - with the Mayor announcing that no, CDC hadn't granted permission yet, but not to worry - they were hunting ways to do it without them. LOL!

Then when the Governor started doing his briefings? He would make snide remarks about the CDC and WHO and the Feds. It was subtle at first, when he needed their help. It's not subtle now. He's reminded the NY Times several times now in his briefings that the CDC wouldn't let them test and told them they were being silly.

[shadowkat]

Britain was faster on the masks than many of the US States were. While NY made it mandatory in April - a lot of people didn't get the memo in NY. We're still having fights on my neighborhood FB page about whether masks are mandatory, or just recommended. Mainly because the police aren't enforcing and see it as recommended (many of them are Trump supporters and think the President has to mandate it not the Governor). So the US Federal Government refuses to mandate masks, and merely recommends, and worse? The CDC gave contradictory information regarding masks early on to ensure essential workers got them first.

So the reason Britain has been able to contain it better than the US, is the US refuses to mandate masks across the board. Our idiot President won't wear one. And the VP didn't start putting on one until two weeks ago.

[mellowtigger]

That's a sobering timeline. I agree that something happened at both WHO and CDC that prioritized something over pure medical objectivity on this pandemic.

[shadowkat]

I think it's that they were both so poorly underfunded, and under political pressure from competing economic interests. For agencies like these to work well - they need to be allowed to be completely separate entities, not affected by politics or economic pressures. The Trump Administration should not have been able to change any of the appointments at CDC or any say whatsoever in what the CDC did. Or the ability to defund or transfer funds.
And WHO same situation - needs to be independent, outside of politics.

I could be wrong of course - but that's my best guess, is financial interests caused the problem. Because, if you see evidence of a major pandemic - the first thing you do is shut down all but "essential" travel to major transportation hubs.

I got my haircut on Feb 29, the woman in the seat next to mine - was informing her stylist that her business had stopped all overseas travel as early as Feb 15. (Her company was American Express.) They'd grounded most of their employees and even had gone so far to inform them they had to request permission for any overseas travel.

NYC is a major transportation hub - if there were cases from cruise ships in Washington and LA, of course there were cases in NY. But they had no money or funding or power to get labs, etc to provide testing capability or to shut down airports. They had to cater to political and economic powers that put their economic/political agendas above world health. It's not WHO and the CDC's fault - it's ours for putting money, military defense, and nationalism above life. (shrugs)