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]

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)