EXPOSED: The WHO's Bungled Covid Response

[_canpakes]

The way Ajax conceptualizes this one is weird. Americans forgoing plastic straws doesn't make Chinese people use more straws. It's just an aggregate reduction in pollution of the commons, which is a good thing. It seem to be a small inconvenience to bring your own metal straw or just drink something without a straw. In order make this seem like a ridiculous cost for the benefit, Ajax ends up acting like not having a plastic straw is a great personal burden.

What measurable benefit has been gained for the environment from banning plastic straws in a few American cities? Exactly how many years back does this push our global extinction due to global warming? It is just a mild inconvenience. But it's stupid because it does absolutely nothing to help the environment on a global scale because it's not a global rule and it doesn't work.

1. I’m pretty sure that reading is an essential requirement of your career, and (not ironically) a function of the testing you do with your customers, so I’m fascinated by your refusal to deploy that skill here. To wit: the straw issue isn’t oriented to ‘global warming’ but to plastic waste in general. You blew right past that in EA’s response above. Read it again.

2. If you end up creating less trash, I can guarantee you that your neighbor isn’t calculating how much less, and increasing their trash output to make up for it. What happens is, all things being equal, that less trash overall is created. It’s as simple as that. Therefore your assertion that ‘reducing trash does nothing to reduce trash’ is, obviously, not correct.

[_canpakes]

Have you ever tried drinking a milkshake with a metal straw?

OK, I’m hooked, now, and utterly fascinated by your strange First World disability of being unable to use a metal straw. Please tell me how this is an issue for you.

It can’t be that the straw gets cold. After all, the milkshake you’re drinking must, by the laws of physics, be at least as cold - and that doesn’t seem to hinder your efforts.

It can’t be that metal straws are weaker than plastic straws, or get soggy.

It can’t be that you aren’t able to suck through a metal straw, because you can already suck through a plastic straw.

I have preschoolers in our house that easily use metal straws, including for homemade smoothies that are thicker than any milkshake you’re buying. Please tell us what we need to know so that we can prepare for the unfortunate future that you experience today with metal straws. Do it for the children.

[_Gadianton]

I wasn't aware of the plastic straw issue until this thread. I use very few straws. Granted, Ajax is down there in type-2 country, right? Everybody sucking down soda and milkshakes because it's 'Merica. I occasionally will get a small drink with my food but I fill the cup halfway and no lid. Nothing to do with environmentalism. If I never see a straw again I'll be okay.

Anyway, the broader idea is that you've got to start somewhere. The larger scale initiatives will never happen without smaller scale examples first. I think that's pretty obvious.

[_EAllusion]

The argument I'm used to against plastic straw bans that isn't out-loud-stupid is that they fool people into thinking they are solving the problem with relatively symbolic actions, thus demotivating them from taking more serious steps. People change their light bulbs or get some metal straws, dust their hands, and don't think about the hard stuff. I'm iffy on that, but at least it's an argument.

[_Res Ipsa]

I think there's an attempt to play on people's inability to keep the timeline straight in their mind. The initial outbreak in Wuhan likely started in late November. We know through reporting that this is when the Trump admin itself started developing intelligence on a disease outbreak in the region. There's an early period from then up until around the end of the year where China successfully suppressed information to the public about the extent of the epidemic and its risk and it appears the WHO abetted this by initially reporting out overly rosy information. The Trump admin had its own intelligence contradicting this, but did not listen to it. But then there was a whole separate phase where the Trump admin was getting clear warnings about the risk from within and without, which was also being paralleled in public reporting, and Donald Trump spent that time downplaying the warnings about the threat to the public and not preparing appropriately. That's not on China, the WHO, or anyone else but Donald Trump. It's conflating the WHO in mid Dec. with the WHO in late January.

Donald Trump's entire response to this, including in this very moment, appears to be dictated by avoiding blame and taking credit while trying to benefit his election chances in opportunistic, short-sighted decision making that seems to exist moment to moment. It's only possible to do this if you have a profound disregard to the human cost going on.

I don’t think your timeline is accurate. By examining medical records, the first likely patient had symptoms in early December. That gets stretched back to mid-November by adding the maximum assumed time between exposure and symptoms. The average is around five days. That’s one patient who was sick with symptoms of pneumonia in early December. There is no evidence other than one news story that there was an outbreak to become aware of in November. It started as old people dying of pneumonia, which is not unusual during the winter. An outbreak big enough to draw US attention in November is not consistent with the medical evidence and the spread of the disease.

WHO reported the information it received when it received it. I went and looked at WHO’s guidance early on. From the beginning it advised that the virus could have epidemic or pandemic potential and advised countries to prepare. WHO didn’t just present the information from China. It sent a delegation to China, observed evidence of human to human transmission and immediately reported it. It didn’t simply rely on China, it relied on its experience with coronavirus and what it knew from SARS-CoV and MERS.

Yes, WHO was very polite to China and bent over backwards to complement China when it cooperated. But they do that with every country, including Trump. That’s how it was able to get a delegation into China — something the US CDC has not been able to do to this day. And I’d bet good money that the difference is Trump’s repeated antagonism toward China.

I think, with the benefit of hindsight, there are things the WHO could have done better. But most of the story that WHO acted too slowly because it is in China’s pocket are based on cherry picked quotations that ignore the guidance that WHO was providing at the same time it reported the information that it had received.

At any rate, the CDC had employees at the WHO who were reporting the information they were learning back to DC. From first report of the disease to WHO declaring a PEIC was less than a month. Frankly, that seems pretty damn fast to me.

[_EAllusion]

[quote="Res Ipsa" post_id=1222243 time=1587361212 user_id=16705
I don’t think your timeline is accurate. By examining medical records, the first likely patient had symptoms in early December.[quote]Phylogenetic studies place the origin around late November +/- a half month, there's two independently sourced stories (ABC/Times of Israel) indicating the US government having and sharing information on an unfolding disease in the region in late November (from intercepted communications), and the earliest cases are still shrouded enough to preclude the outbreak originating around that time. The is an instance of an early patient whose symptoms started in late Nov. / early Dec. whose only plausible contact with the initial outbreak area dates to a specific day in mid-November. That the Chinese government isn't reliable makes it challenging.

[quote]Yes, WHO was very polite to China and bent over backwards to complement China when it cooperated. But they do that with every country, including Trump. That’s how it was able to get a delegation into China — something the US CDC has not been able to do to this day. And I’d bet good money that the difference is Trump’s repeated antagonism toward China.

I think, with the benefit of hindsight, there are things the WHO could have done better. But most of the story that WHO acted too slowly because it is in China’s pocket are based on cherry picked quotations that ignore the guidance that WHO was providing at the same time it reported the information that it had received.[/quote]

Oh, I don't think that the WHO is in China's pocket. Rather, I think their early reporting was overly sanguine about the outbreak and response, which abetted the narratives the Chinese government was pushing. That changed in a short window of time, but there's a good body of evidence that things were already worse than initial reporting indicated. I guess without expressing the nuance I could be seen as endorsing anti-WHO conspiracies, but I'm not.

[_Res Ipsa]

Thanks for clarifying. Could you link to the phylogenetic evidence you are relying on? The first identified patient I’ve seen referred to was written up in the Lancet, and what in early December. What phylogenetic information could extend the outbreak back in time from the first known patient?

[_ajax18]

The larger scale initiatives will never happen without smaller scale examples first.

The larger scale initiatives are never going to happen. It's like saying, if I start eating bugs to help the environment maybe that will encourage the rest of the world will want to start eating bugs too. The science says that insects are higher in protein than fish or beef. It's only a small fraction of the world that is ever going to be stupid enough to use paper straws. Thankfully the effects of plastic straws is trivial enough that it won't matter much.

Now go suck on your soggy paper straws and think about how many whales you saved.

[_Chap]

The larger scale initiatives will never happen without smaller scale examples first.

It's only a small fraction of the world that is ever going to be stupid enough to use paper straws.

I'm trying really hard to remember when I last felt I needed a straw of any kind to drink something. Frankly, I can't. And yet I drink all kinds of delightful stuff.

So I must be part of another small fraction, I suppose.

[_Icarus]

The only time we use straws is when ordering drive-through.