Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simonh | Hacker News Reader

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Please don't spread inaccurate and misleading information. The WHO declared this an international public health emergency just over 6 weeks ago on Jan 30th [0], one week exactly after the first published data indicating high mortality[1] and a few days after the first reports of cases internationally.

The main reason it wasn't escalated sooner is that through January China was still withholding and delaying the release of data. China only confirmed that cases of human to human transmission had occurred on January 10th, and froze reporting of new cases during a party congress that ended on January 17th. So the WHO escalated this appropriately within 2 weeks of the first indications from China that this was a serious issue, despite confusing and inaccurate reporting of data.

Also about 2% mortality was an early estimate, is 20x that of most strains of flu and is comparable to that of the Spanish Flu pandemic. So those estimates were as good as they could have been at the time, and are still not far off what we're seeing happen.

[0]https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/30-01-2020-statement-on...

[1]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

> The reason it wasn't escalated sooner is that through January China was still withholding and delaying the release of data.

The reason doesn't matter (especially when it's waiting for China's trafficked data), the institution knew about the very likelihood of pandemia and still denied it for longer than needed. That allowed various national governments to hide their own lack of counter-measures behind a "reputable" source. And finally the media gave voice (at least in France) to a lot of "experts" that implanted a false sense of security in people's mind. Fake news all the way down, and people are now paying the price for it.

Declaring in international health emergency for an infectious disease is exactly warning of a possible pandemic. That's what it's for.

Everybody could see that SARS-CoV-2 infection graph was going to beat SARS outbreak from 2003, long before WHO called an emergency.

They waited until a foreigner (Thai national in Kolkata) died and only then declared an emergency, saying that nobody outside China died yet. During the declaration they sounded more like the WTO than the WHO, stating that banning flights from China would do zero to help combat the spread.

The main reason for not escalating sooner was the tremendous pressure that China applied. In the initial stages the WHO was just a mouthpiece for the Chinese CDC, who was trying to save face.

Then they waited to call a pandemic, while everyone was annoyed with them for waiting.

Just, please don't.

How long is 'long before'. The emergency was notified 20 days after the very first confirmation this was even human communicable, and 7 days after the first published data on morbidity. These are the facts, and the WHO was communicating all of this promptly.

Yes of course the WHO was just a mouthpiece for what the Chinese were saying in the very early days, because the Chinese were the only people with the data. I understand this is frustrating, it's infuriating in fact.

It's only an international emergency when it's international. It was a declaration of fact, not a prediction about the future. The same is true of calling a pandemic, they declared it when it reached the criteria to do so. That's their job, but there seems to be a popular misconception that they should declare a pandemic when there 'might' be a pandemic, but that's not the case.

I have seen this in my professional life. I've come under pressure to declare escalated emergencies because there 'might be' a high level impact, but the agreed SLAs were to declare those only when there is actual impact. There were specific agreed processes for potential high impact issues and we followed them and they worked, but still I've had pressure to break process and escalate inappropriately, sometimes by very senior management. Fortunately my current management are pretty well informed.

3-4 days after John Hopkins started tracking and the number of infected was still below that of SARS 2003, but exponentially curved upwards. The WHO increased the threat level, but lacked confidence to declare international emergency.

Then in the same speech where they say, they will be fighting a misinformation pandemic, they say nobody outside of China has died, when a Thai national had died in Kolkuta.

All countries complained about the data sharing from China, but when asked, the WHO replied with praise and that it was not time to point any fingers.

Their main concern was for countries with a weak healthcare system, while Italy has the second-best healthcare system of Europe, and India and Africa seem better of.

> they declared it when it reached the criteria to do so.

A pandemic is defined as: "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people." The fact was that it's an epidemic in China, Italy, South Korea, and Iran, and it is occurring in more than 80 countries, with some devastating effects. Public health experts were all talking of a pandemic correctly, while Ghebreyesus was still doing "an ongoing assessment" before making a decision.

We're arguing about a couple of days here. All the information they had in January was widely distributed and available to medical professionals worldwide. They were advising aggressive containment and isolation methods in the first declaration of the international emergency.

Really, this is the level we're sinking to? The first death in India was on 12 March. The Thai case was not Coronavirus according to the hospital that treated her, she was tested negative and had been in India since November [0]. If you're aware of the case, surely you must know this?

[0]https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/01/28/no-chance-thai-...

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