The WHO has done magnificent work; its doctors have done heroic work, all over the world. For example, without the WHO we would still have smallpox. The reputation of the WHO should not be spoiled by the awful errors of individual WHO tweeters and writers; there is still time to correct it.
On April 6, 2020, at who.int we read the advice of the World Health Organization ("WHO"): "Studies to date suggest that the virus that causes COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through contact with respiratory droplets rather than through the air... These droplets land on objects and surfaces around the person. it is important to stay more than 1 meter (3 feet) away from a person who is sick.” https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-transmission-of-virus-causing-covid-19-implications-for-ipc-precaution-recommendations
I quote from a medical study, so mainstream that it's cited in Annex C of another WHO publication: “In the classic study of airborne transmission, Wells (1934) was able to identify the difference between disease transmission via large droplets and by airborne routes. Wells found that, under normal air conditions, droplets smaller than 100 μm in diameter would completely dry out before falling approximately 2 m to the ground.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK143281/
Please note that "Wells (1934)" indicates that wells published his study in 1934.
SHOULD FAITH GUIDE US?
It is generally agreed that influenza is spread by droplets from nearby infected persons, by aerosol floating in the air, and by the hand-to-face route. Since 2019, it was rational to expect that the virus (SARS-CoV-2) would behaves similarly. No argument was offered over why the cough of Covid-19 patients should not produce aerosols. Are droplets from the mouth of Covid-19 patients heavier than droplets from influenza patients?
The denial of airborne transmission is faith-based, and has scientific backing as solid as the medical work of Pastor Kenneth Copeland in Texas--that's the pastor who, working directly with God, executed judgement on Covid-19. Regrettably, the excellent pastor was only chasing the virus from "this nation...the United States." The wording used by Pastor Copeland was heard by God, who immediately complied, and banned the virus from the U.S. God is not allowed to grant more than asked, and the virus, banished from the U.S., immediately returned, riding on planes from godless nations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSIrQBGfUtw
It is faith, and they call it fact check. Faith that droplets of saliva do not become airborne, and that they shall rapidly descend to the ground, going as far as one meter from the infected person, and no more!
Italian authorities relied on the one-meter rule, when, with tragic results, they decided to keep schools, restaurants, bars and betting parlours open, in February 2020 The students’ desks would be set one meter apart from each other, and every child would be learning in perfect safely. But events soon overtook those government fantasists, and they closed schools on March 4.
Then a grandiose experiment was organized, as the governments of Europe, ordered house arrests for 300 million people. The problem is that the experiment is based on people disbelieving in aerosols, and believing in the one-meter safety zone.
Reading the history of medicine we read of brilliant doctors who made fools of themselves when they got married to a stupid idea. Hopefully, in this case, both the one-meter and the two-meter partisans will soon stop making fools of themselves, since both parties are dead wrong.
Wikipedia insists on citing the WHO as a most reliable source of information, even though its advice has been nothing but murderous. The WHO leadership has been remiss and catastrophically incompetent, since the start of the pandemic. The advice of the WHO has often been detached from reality, and should be presented as interesting advice or as important opinion, not as evidence.
World Health Organization's response to the COVID-19 pandemic
December 2019[edit]
- On 30 December 2019, the WHO obtained a Chinese report about seven or more cases of atypical pneumonia.[4]
- On 31 December 2019, authorities in China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause.[9] Taiwan's CDC emailed WHO a few hours later, restating the earlier Chinese report and requesting more information.[4]
On December 30, 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued "urgent notices" of atypical pneumonia, ordering no public comment. Minutes later, those orders were leaked online. A doctor in Taiwan called Dr. Pollack of ProMed-mail, an emerging diseases and outbreak reporting system. It was not the WHO that notified the world's ministers of health or the international press about the novel coronavirus, it was Dr. Pollack, who sent the news to 60,000 correspondents all over the world.
On December 31, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announced there were 27 cases of atypical pneumonia.
On December 31, Dr. Lipkin of Columbia University spoke to Dr. George Gao, head of China's CDC, who said it was a new coronavirus and it was not highly transmissible. Not highly transmissible means transmissible. Medics at the WHO were very unhappy, but Geneva headquarters had decided: it would not say more than what Peking said.
January 2020[edit]
On January 1, the WHO asked Peking for clarifications. Since Dr. Tedros, Secretary General of WHO had a good relationship with Peking, he could have flown to Peking to make inquiries himself.
On January 1st or 2nd, Dr. Redfield, head of CDC was quite shaken, when Dr. Gao, his Chinese counterpart, on the phone from Peking, burst into tears. This is what the NYT says happened. But at WHO in Geneva, total calm reigned.
On January 5, the WHO announced that, "based on the preliminary information from the Chinese investigation team, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported...WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on China based on the current information available on this event." https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/
That's how the WHO notified us about the new illness. It was reckless advice, it would have been much better to say nothing. Silence, at least, would have told everyone in the West that the Chinese government had a big problem it was hiding. Chinese leaders were thus encouraged to keep their head in the sand. Rational advice from the WHO might have helped.
Instead, Peking's chosen measures against the novel virus were police intimidation of "rumour mongers" like Dr Li Wenliang, who had written to colleagues about the illness, before falling ill and dying of covid.
It would appear, from the reported reaction of Dr. Gao, that he could not reach President Xi. Same thing happened to to Dr. Redfield, when he tried to attract the attention of President Trump. He was also surrounded by jerk retainers.
That's too cute. As evidence, we are given two Guardian articles, in which the Guardian attacks, as untrue and unfair, Trump's complaints against the WHO.
The April 15 2020 Guardian article mentions, from another Guardian article, the "technical briefings on 10 and 11 January." Click on that, and it takes you to April 9 article, where the reporter says that he saw WHO technical guidance notes warning of "potential human-to-human transmission."
There is a difference between the medics of the WHO filing a report and the officials at WHO releasing it. Indeed, doctors at the WHO, since 2011 have pleaded in vain for official declaration that vitamin D wards off respiratory infections in children. Dr. Tedros still refuses: cutting down on respiratory infections would be unwelcome to the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
On January 4, the head of the University of Hong Kong's Centre for Infection, Ho Pak-Leung, warned of a mystery new viral pneumonia. Viral pneumonias are contagious.
By January 5, there were 59 cases, with seven critical, and China had the complete genome of the novel virus, but did not release it.
By January 8, a chinese visitor in Korea fell ill; she had not been at the Huanan Seafood Market.
Denying human transmission of the virus was not tenable.
- On 12 January, Chinese scientists shared the genetic sequence of the new virus,[14] and the WHO asked a German team to design a test.[15]
- On 13 January, the WHO confirmed the first case of the disease outside of China, in Thailand.[16]
"No additional cases have been detected since 3 January 2020 in China."
Yet, the WHO continued to lie
On January 12, the WHO announced: "WHO is reassured of the quality of the ongoing investigations and the response measures implemented in Wuhan, and the commitment to share information regularly. The evidence is highly suggestive that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan. The market was closed on 1 January 2020. ...At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission. ...No additional cases have been detected since 3 January 2020. https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en/
This announcement was an obvious lie. It was self-evident that Chinese leaders were panicking and that their claims were worthless. It was most unlikely that only Cinese tourists would be falling ill with covid.
The WHO was helping China to persist in irrational denial, encouraging it to ignore its most competent doctors, who were pleading for action.
Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy... Scholasticism is not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, as it places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference and to resolve contradictions. Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous conceptual analysis and the careful drawing of distinctions. From Wikipedia
Which brings us forward into the 20th century, when President Clinton said, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is"
By that approach, certainty is unattainable, until God reveals it. Thus we delay any decision until when it is too late for the decision to have practical positive effect.
The WHO pushed optimism when there was no reason for optimism. It appears that the WHO had no presence in Wuhan and did not demand it. Nevertheless, there must have been WHO employees who were Chinese or who knew enough Chinese to get on line and gather real information from Chinese medics.
On 14 January, Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO told in a press briefing that "it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission"[17][18][19] WHO recommended countries to take precautions due to the human-to-human transmission during earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks.[12][13] On the same day, the WHO's Twitter account stated that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission".[20]
While Dr. Kerkhove's message was almost realistic, it was annulled by the WHO tweeting irrational exuberance. It was criminally reckless to repeat absurd Chinese claims about mythical direct transmission from wild animals which were being malevolently tormented in Chinese markets.
Dr. Kerkhove could not avoid knowing that respiratory infections are transmitted by airborne methods. The arrival of Chinese tourists who had not been to the Wuhan market proved there was transmission in China. It was wrong, but was repeated it because important people thought it was politically convenient.
The WHO receives only 20% of its budget from member states. Employees of the WHO, not unlike ministers of health, can count on employment by Big Pharma upon retirement from public life.
•On 20 January, the WHO tweeted that it was "now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission" that has occurred, given that healthcare workers had been infected.[21]
•On 3 February, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there was no need to "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade" in trying to control COVID-19.
The government of China waited six more days before announcing the contagion of doctors; only then, did the WHO admit human transmission.
The leadership of the WHO delayed reporting, gave falsely optimistic reports, disinformed the world, and repeated lies, even in conflict with the words of WHO scientific personnel.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, the WHO has given wrongheaded advice and has supported the reckless decisions taken by panicked politicians in China. After China crushed the Wuhan variety of the virus, the WHO encouraged Europeans regimes to continue in their destructive national lockdowns, rather than teach Europeans to follow the rational and successful policies of East Asian countries.
The WHO, since March 2020, has led the campaign of fraudulent rejection of prophylaxis and treatment of Covid 19.