Pandemic Thread (CoronaVirus etc.)

[Dicknose]

The pandemic wasn't a huge surprise, it was just the biggest of several over the last few decades. Still not as bad as the 1918 pandemic.
There are plenty of factors that make this more of an issue - increased population pushing into new areas, poor people using wild animals for food, climate change encouraging spread of mosquitoes, more travel allowing quicker spread...

The problem with regulating these markets is that this would need to happen world wide. Next time it could be from Africa.
And while China delayed a little on reporting this, I could easily see an African nation not even detecting problems till its spread widely.
Sure we should try to phase these out, but they survive as either cheap meat or cultural reasons for a particular meat. Hard to regulate. Im sure China could do it, but plenty of other places would struggle.

And WHO doesn't really have any power, all it can do is make recommendations, its then up to countries to listen. While WHO recommendations changed, that is because our understanding of the infection changed. I think WHO did a reasonable job.

Research is one area we can control, because that has big money involved and would fall under plenty of rules and regulations.
Could be something that we get countries to sign up to an agreement on research safety - maybe get independent inspections for certain research, a bit like nuclear inspections. While this one wasn't a lab leak, it doesn't mean that we should assume it could never be a lab leak.
I think this sort of research can be important, as long as it for general betterment, not as weapons!

Now Im sure there are people discussing these sorts of issues. But they are not sexy click-bait, so we probably dont see it in general media.

[Crazed_Insanity]

It’s one thing if a new infectious disease broke out unnoticed… but CCP attempted to silence the whistleblower doctor.

WHO also silenced or ignored alarms sounded by Taiwan. Point is that they bowed down under political pressure rather than act in ways that put the health safety of the world 1st.

Next time when this happens in Afrika or USA, let’s say… WHO will also continue to praise America every step of the way until we end up with a pandemic again?

Anyway, again, not asking that we need to penalize the nation of origin. South Africa for example, got penalized for detecting a new variant early on… that’s clearly not fair.

We definitely need better protocols for future spreads that will foster international cooperation.

I really don’t believe WHO has done a ‘reasonably’ good job. If that’s really the best they could’ve done, then why do we need them for? I can praise China by myself, I don’t need them to tell me that I should praise China.

If pandemic just cannot be stopped and we just can’t possibly have enough masks for all who want one… let’s just give up and praise the nation of origin for doing such a fantastic job! Was that really the most reasonable thing WHO could’ve done?

[Dicknose]

WHO is not responsible for sourcing masks.
And its not about praising countries, their job is to report - they did that.
The rest is political bullshit which really doesn't matter. If your country did a shit job that's because of your country, not WHO.

[Crazed_Insanity]

If Taiwan were the one reporting this, Taiwan could do a better job than WHO. But WHO ignored Taiwan. Maybe it’s because of Billi.

BTW, on a more personal note, my dad has been in a nursing home for a while due to suffering from multiple falls and needing regular dialysis… it became too much for my mom to handle… anyway, he got Covid in the nursing home somehow, but luckily he’s been asymptomatic. He ended up going to a different dialysis center for Covid patients… and I don’t think he received any treatments. Apparently either our genes were able to handle Covid well or it could be all the booster shots… or both. Him being in the highest risk group and now he has tested negative after 2 weeks. A huge sigh of relief and hopefully for all of us direct family members will be able to handle the infection as well as him…

Maybe I’ve already been infected and never knew…

[Rare White Ape]

WHO is not responsible for sourcing masks.
And its not about praising countries, their job is to report - they did that.
The rest is political bullshit which really doesn't matter. If your country did a shit job that's because of your country, not WHO.

I get the feeling the discussion is along the lines of “something-something CCP WHO Fauci” that has been cut-and-pasted into somebody’s brain straight from Fox News or whatever.

I ain’t got no time for that.

[Yw-slayer]

Yeah, just ignore that brainwashed noise.

[Rare White Ape]

Hey man I literally work in healthcare and there are enough people stomping their feet and blaming Fauci and the CCP and the WHO for the shitty predicament we find ourselves in right now, and I have no extra time to deal with it....

...just kidding. There is nobody here at my workplace who is complaining about WHOO CCP Fauci CNN FAKE NEWS for the stupid pandemic. We just get on with it. Ahh well.

Hey look, another Boeing plane fell out of the sky!

[Crazed_Insanity]

Anyway, although you don't care, China obviously cares. Whether it came naturally from the wet market or artificially from the lab, they're both unacceptable to the CCP. So at 1st they silenced the doctor who discovered it... and then they went in and destroy Animal Zero so that nobody can say shit about any of it. Point is that they are not interested in finding out the truth. Cover up and denying it all the way... and years into this, let's see how the chinese people will praise this Covid zero policy.

China is the #2 funder of WHO behind US. If a virus came out of US, I'm sure WHO would praise USA too. Pretty sure WHO leadership would praise US efforts regardless of whether if a republican or dem government were in charge. Remember WHO praised Trump too! Surely they don't want to offend anybody. Even the diseases themselves, they seemed very good at renaming them politically correctly so that nobody gets offended. Monkey Pox should have a new name soon?

As for Fauci, I really think he is in control of way too much research funding. I suppose plenty of other government agencies have similar problems as well... such NSA, CIA... It's also interesting that US Intel community annual budget is about the same as NIH budget... at around $60 billion! However, I'm not sure if we have a chief spy... maybe we do, he just hides very well... Anyway, if even NASA is restricted from funding or partnering with China, why do they allow NIH to partner with China?

Even if we can really debunk the lab leak theory, I'm willing to bet there's something shady going on between the Chinese and the Americans within these labs. WHO surely would not offend their 2 top financial backers. Heck, nobody in this world would want to challenge either US nor China about this.

Anyway, it is possible that all those praises were 'necessary' in order to make people more cooperative. If WHO condemns too much, surely nation in question would clam up more. I could definitely be wrong about WHO just as I was wrong about Joe Manchin. I don't really know what's going on behind the scene... At least WHO is still 'open' to the lab leak theory. It's definitely NOT the leading theory, but there's really no reason why we need to debunk it too prematurely. Here's a thought, when you do hear WHO wants more investigations into the lab leak theory, do you still think they're doing a reasonably good job or do you think they're Trump supporters?

[Dicknose]

Taiwan is a tricky case - WHO is part of the UN and the UN does not recognise Taiwan as a country.
So WHO is forced to ignore Taiwan and only deal with China.

This is not just WHO ignoring Taiwan, its a policy of the UN.

[Crazed_Insanity]

It’s universally recognized policy to not run the red light, but if you’re driving somebody who’s suffering from life ending illness or ready to give birth… and you see that there’s no cross traffic, you’d stick to that policy and let your passenger wait for the red light to turn green?