[msamwald]

> They said travel bans don't work. This defies basic logic.

> They delayed declaraing the pandemic to be a pandemic.

I have come to think that a major problem with the WHO might be that it is not independent enough from the political interests of major countries.

Banning non-essential travel from/to highly affected countries early would probably have helped to slow down global spread, but political opposition made that impossible.

[throwaway_pdp09]

I think they were trying to keep china on their side by not offending them. Politics intrudes into medicine. Perhaps they were even right to do so, they appeared to uncritically accept and repeat China's blatantly lying figures (though behind the scenes I think they knew exactly they were being lied to) and perhaps that was necessary - I'm not a politician so I can't say - but I don't like it at all. But I am not in a position to judge as I don;t have all the facts.

> Banning non-essential travel from/to highly affected countries early would probably have helped to slow down global spread

I think the point was that people tend to get round those travel bans - people instead of going from A to B (now banned) go A to C to B. But again, I don't know and would like to understand why they though that way.

[rumanator]

> I have come to think that a major problem with the WHO might be that it is not independent enough from the political interests of major countries.

Yeah unfortunately the WHO showed it lacked any credibility and is sounding like a major tool.

[lb0]

https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc/status/1243889673207832577?s...