If an organisation gets too big to keep its act together, perhaps it's time to make it more decentralized and dynamic (the original proposition).
I also honestly don't think working as a volunteer would really get you to understand how something like the WHO is being actually run.
I'm not an expert (would never say otherwise). But the world is full of experts locked in dogmas and lacks those couragious enough to break free, look stupid and try new things.
I'm afraid that's a normative and oversimplistic statement.
Have you seen, at least, the WHO Twitter/FB feeds? It's acting as a teacher for the global public. So "intergovernmental public health coordination" is definitely not its only job, which it doesn't seem to be doing well. There's no disagreement that it's inherently political but in any case, that wasn't a function I proposed to replace in the first place.
> The decentralized version is just local public health authorities acting without the WHO.
That actually goes with the original proposition and that's the way to go. But the early warning system for these authorities is broken - they got their intel too late.
Software-powered != Software-only. Nonprofit != Startups. Propositions != Complete, bulletproof solutions
Clearly and pragmatically, anyone certified to work directly with patients at a hospital, clinic, etc. is "medical staff" regardless of where they are.
As for subjectivity per se, that's a separate philosophical discussion to me and doesn't have to do much with epidemics. The initital proposition was simple but the discussion drifted (as expected); let's find a better and faster way to prevent outbreaks altogether. There can be no subjectivity/relativity about this - it's a universal imperative.
At high level of exposure, as you said, the Chinese gov may track down anyone behind such report, despite the anonymity. It may even block investigative entry/inquiry to the entire city. How do we solve that? I don't know but I suppose that, in the grand order of things and following this pandemic, we shouldn't be living in a world where any government is allowed to work against such public health efforts and get us into another quagmire that we could have simply avoided, which again rolls back to international relations, politics and trade and is tricky to solve but shouldn't stand in the way of trying these things out. We can't simply give up to the way the world is set up at any point in time.
You can simply take stances that would reduce harm, avoid collapse and (optionally) maximize benefit for everyone. The current stance of WHO doesn't seem to be in that realm and something could/should be done about it.
There's no action without a stance.
However, to not drift this discussion into definitions, I'll agree on your definition of "politics", which - correct me if I'm wrong - is any activity that involves decision making.
Let's assume, in that or any case, every decision and action to be political. Then the important question here becomes: how do we make political decisions that would ensure the most transparent, decentralised, instant and honest reporting? Would that mean trusting all medical facilities/staff of any kind or excluding some?
Point is: if every decision is political, then let's make the good ones with the best possible outcome, regardless of their nature/definition.
No, there would (almost) be no policy. That's the point. It's one planet - one health. Which country it is shouldn't matter much.
If a severe case was reported by medical staff in Taiwan, North Korea or where ever it would/should instantly show as potential breakout warning signal on some webpage or dashboard, without having to travel weeks through broken bureaucracies and press.
There has been a lot of red flags on the WHO recently, from misreporting data [1, 2] to confusing guidance on masks [3] to the controversial case of Taiwan [4, 5].Does anyone here feel that such bureaucracies wouldn't/shouldn't survive long? And that they could be easily replaced by an efficiently-operated, software-powered non-profit (something similar to Our World in Data)?One starting point...
It's definitely a hefty undertaking and that's why I was keen to know what HN thinks. Is there anyway we can get in touch (i.e. Email)?
I know there are already few similar projects out there but they all seem to be lacking in almost every aspect. This would be the Gitlab/Mattermost of EHR/PHR.Would love to know your thoughts/suggestions.
The graph in this case ended up being just a base layer for some interesting internet stories, while paying some tribute to HN for the great place it is.