Re:YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
by nl on Thursday October 15, 2020 @06:47PM
(#24795191)
There was no hard proof, but there was a great deal of circumstantial evidence. Yes, it's possible Taiwan's CDC was overly suspicious due to memories of how SARS was covered up in 2003. However, given the way epidemics spread, the wiser course is to take circumstantial evidence of transmission very seriously.
I agree with this entirely. But I don't think there is any evidence that the WHO - or China - thought otherwise.
I'd note that the WHO bulletins from both Jan 5[1] and Jan 12[2] mentioned "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." (Jan 12, Jan 5 was similar).
Now this turned out to be wrong, but that doesn't indicate a cover-up. As your link from Taiwan said, no one definitively knew.
I'm very aware of the messages (not emails) shared by the doctor. I know he was forced to retract them by the regional government, and later exonerated by the central government. I think the dates here are important - as you mentioned it was Dec 30 he sent them, and by Jan 20 the central government had taken over. I do think the Wuhan regional government did try to minimise news of the outbreak, and I think criticism of that is fair - but needs to be tempered by acknowledgement that the central government acted relatively quickly and didn't try to hide things.
I think it's likely that external pressure from Taiwan, Japan, Korea and elsewhere made it clear to the central government that they needed to intervene.
I agree with this entirely. But I don't think there is any evidence that the WHO - or China - thought otherwise.
I'd note that the WHO bulletins from both Jan 5[1] and Jan 12[2] mentioned "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." (Jan 12, Jan 5 was similar).
Now this turned out to be wrong, but that doesn't indicate a cover-up. As your link from Taiwan said, no one definitively knew.
I'm very aware of the messages (not emails) shared by the doctor. I know he was forced to retract them by the regional government, and later exonerated by the central government. I think the dates here are important - as you mentioned it was Dec 30 he sent them, and by Jan 20 the central government had taken over. I do think the Wuhan regional government did try to minimise news of the outbreak, and I think criticism of that is fair - but needs to be tempered by acknowledgement that the central government acted relatively quickly and didn't try to hide things.
I think it's likely that external pressure from Taiwan, Japan, Korea and elsewhere made it clear to the central government that they needed to intervene.
[1] https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk...
[2] https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronaviru...