It takes some serious mental gymnastics to interpret this in any way other than the obvious one. This isn’t a philosophical discussion about the limitations of empiricism, it’s a tweet that goes out to millions of people from an organization imbued with serious authority.
Or maybe we can agree that there is no such thing as obvious, and different people will necessarily have different interpretations, for better or worse.
It is anti-communication in context as cunningly putting effort into /not/ being clear. If they truly weren't sure a more honest form would be "We have neither confirmed nor denied the possibility of human to human transmission." (Putting aside any biological questions like are there even any crossspecies transmissions which cause propagative symptoms like coughing or sneezing but do not transmit through it.)
Why didn't they say this? Because China seems to have pressured the WHO the entire time, including saying that the borders shouldn't be closed.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/02/china-coronavirus-who-h...
>And what is the obvious interpretation? Mine is ‘it is preliminary, so results can still change’ and ‘found no clear evidence does not mean evidence will not be found later’.
If that's what they meant, then they should have said so. They didn't. As I said before, this is a major health organization that needs to be clear in its communication, not speak in riddles.
So its implied. They cant confirm anything but they need to refute that its spread through humans
They literally just repeated whatever the CCP said, plenty of information was leaking out of the country through alternate channels, reports about doctor/journalist arrests, and the way the Chinese public was reacting about how serious this virus was. What did they think it was if not human to human transmission? Hundreds of people in multiple cities ate at the same restaurant or tainted meat? People were talking about this virus in China publicly in early January and it was known it was spreading.
First of all they said, when it was clear there was a problem "We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test." (and then Trump and almost everybody else did not want to hear that)
And moreover they said more exactly, some time before the previous item, that "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission". So your position is a deformation of their words.
Then the WHO switched gears and complained that the countries were doing too little too late.
They've been almost completely worthless in this crisis.
See also: The whole WHO/Taiwan debacle, which is still ongoing.
The WHO is OK risking the lives of people in Taiwan in order to keep the mainland happy. You would think that the WHO would put the health of people, regardless of where they live, ahead of politics.
If the virus' impact in Puerto Rico was very different than it was in the rest of the United States, the WHO would note it publicly. But Taiwan't situation was actively suppressed by the WHO because of Beijing.
Anyway, the WHO/Taiwan debacle seems to resulted in Taiwan handling this pandemic better than anyone else, considering their proximity to China and the huge amount of trade and travel between them. Taiwan just ignored the WHO and did their own thing, which was the best thing.
Btw only South Korea did "test test test". And that succeded very very much.
China censoring social media chat about the virus[0], tons of talk among experts that China faked their numbers and dates[1], meanwhile the WHO praises 'Chinese Transparency'[2][3], while hinting that the actions of censorship and moderate reporting were the right idea to avoid widespread panic.[4]
I'm not anti-WHO, but it's getting harder to believe that they are working objectively. China did a lot wrong in regards to response, but the WHO seems to want to heap on the praise. It makes one wonder. The weird non-response and hangup regarding Taiwan was just the topping on the cake, and it was entirely irresponsible on the WHOs part.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/05/chinese-social...
[1]: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/08/8037667...
[2]: https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/28-01-2020-who-china-le...
[3]: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcr...
[4]: https://apnews.com/16cd6173232a01ec04780db3eea4de79?fbclid=I...
Not sure what the solution here is, but it certainly does seem it's everyone for themselves in these situations.