[tommit]

I saw that thread as well and there were so many comments about how he cannot be trusted and that they are an institution bought by the Chinese.

I don't know. I might just be horribly, horribly naive. That is not meant to be sarcastic, but an actual possibility. But I really do feel like if we cannot trust institutions like the WHO, then we have zero facts and everyone can just come up with their own facts/form their own beliefs about this disease. I guess the one thing everyone is on the same page about is that we should wash our hands more frequently ...

[Zancarius]

It appears China did actually donate $20 million to the WHO[1], but I'm not sure what this means. I've seen claims that they've walked back statements immediately following the donations, and whether or not that's true seems to be mostly opinion. I'm sure it influenced the WHO but how much is difficult to say.

Maybe I'm grossly naive too, but it seems incredibly myopic to assume that everything coming out of the WHO is now immediately suspect when the facts are pretty clear that we just don't know much about this virus and probably won't for quite some time. There have been one or two early papers coming out questioning how transmissible the virus is, but I think the data is just too limited.

Without the World Health Organization, we're left with the CDC... and not much else.

FWIW the Gates Foundation was also going to donate $20 million to the WHO[2].

[1] http://www.china.org.cn/world/2020-03/08/content_75787774.ht...

[2] https://observer.com/2020/02/bill-melinda-gates-donate-100m-...

[bad_user]

HN can be very disappointing. Software developers in general can be disappointing because we usually have enough information to make us dangerous and we also succumb to conspiracy theories.

WHO currently represents the scientific consensus.

I'd rather be on the side of the scientific consensus rather than entertain unfounded accusations of corruption promoted by random weirdos on YouTube.