Aibu to think that if the WHO had teeth they could have stamped out CV before it escaped China?

[KenDodd]

Unfortunately they don't. It depends on funding from governments and so has to tip toe around them. This also, of course, depends on governments being honest and sounding the alarm.

It annoyed me how wishy washy they were in their inititial statements. I felt they needed to give a much stronger message. And yes maybe then it wouldn't be as bad as it is. I remember reading about the concern regarding Chinese New Year and how that usually involved a world wide mass movement and therefore a risk to spreading coronavirus.

Yeah like China would have paid a blind bit of notice to the WHO, teeth or no teeth. They pay minimal heed to the US as it is and they certainly have teeth

If you think China would ever have done anything it didn't want to because the WHO said so, I'm afraid you're being very naive.

I'm afraid you're being very naive.

I think you're right. I just wish countries would listen, cooperate and basically do as they're told. And the WHO didn't need to take political sensitivities into account.

I was thinking more the rest of the world could've heeded WHO's warnings if they were more explicit.

By the time they knew it was already too late.

We’re just not that clever, it had got a good grip before China started joining the dots, and had already crossed a number of borders.

This has been coming a long time. Just imagine exactly how fucked we’d be if this infection was the zombie one? (Only half joking)

The WHO is effectively a coordination body, it's not a kind of health-police force. They can advise and support but can't override decision making within any country.

But if WHO's message had been stronger wouldn't it have had some impact?

The WHO certainly made mistakes but they needed to play nice so the China gov would cooperate with them. Remember WHO found no evidence of human transmission in early Jan & said there was no need for travel restrictions. They also only declared it a pandemic in early March.

These facts often get forgotten by those posters who saw it all coming before it even had a name.

We’re just not that clever, it had got a good grip before China started joining the dots, and had already crossed a number of borders.

I agree with this, you need to spot patterns to identify anomalies & considering globalisation by then it's too late.

Hindsight is 20:20.

The problem with new viruses is that no-one knows how they behave or what they'll do next. It is hugely complicated and takes time to understand.

An external body cannot force a country into nationwide lockdown on the premise of ifs and maybes.

Donald, is that you? 😁

I think WHO have been really poor. Europe were advised not to stop travel to and from China. And here we are. Why did they not pay attention to those brave whistleblowers in China who have since disappeared? America got it right by banning travel with China. What they got wrong was not banning travel from countries like ourselves who refused to ban travel with them based off WHO recommendations. I feel quite angry about it. All these people passing away alone and before their time. Children left orphaned. This could have been avoided.

WHO has not behaved impeccably. However, in China it is the Chinese government that has sovereignty, not WHO, just like anywhere else in the world. An international organization cannot force a sovereign state to do anything. From that you may conclude that international organizations don’t have teeth, but that is hardly surprising since they belong to the member states.

China wouldn't give permission for them to enter the country in any real way in the very early part I think it was already February (I may be wrong) before they were allowed to send a proper team in to do any real work.

I've not got time to search for the actual dates so if Iv got it wrong I apologise.

YANBU. China had the opportunity to contain the virus, they chose not to. Unfortunately the world has allowed China to become too powerful so nobody is willing or able to stand up to them.

Aibu to think that if the WHO had teeth they could have stamped out CV before it escaped China?
I personally doubt this was ever possible.

By the time anyone figured out what was going on suspect it was already too late.