The WHO chartered something called the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, and yesterday they released their second report. It's not too long, so I read the whole thing to judge for myself how bad the headlines are. Here's my summary of its contents:
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The whole world was totally unprepared
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Measurements like the Global Health Security Index turned out to be bullshit
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Social media has created an infodemic
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Inequalities everywhere have been exacerbated
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Poorer countries are unjustly being left without access to PPE and vaccines
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Precarious and informal workers in wealthy countries are suffering disproportionately
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"Public health containment measures should have been implemented immediately in any country with a likely case. They were not."
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Some countries (unnamed) sacrificed public health and lives to make the line go up
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Overall, the Asia-Pacific countries and the Africa CDC have been doing a decent job
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The global supply chain is weak
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The WHO should have used the term "pandemic" sooner than March
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The WHO is underfunded and forced to waste too much time fundraising
Also buried in the report is this single criticism of China:
Public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by local and national health authorities in China in January.
Guess which parts the Western media chose to focus on?
CNN: China and WHO acted too slowly to contain Covid-19, says independent panel
The Week: Independent panel slams China and WHO over Covid-19 response
AP: China, WHO should have acted quicker to stop pandemic
Sydney Morning Herald: 'Signal was ignored': Independent inquiry criticises China and WHO over COVID
Seattle Times: Panel: China, WHO should have acted quicker to stop pandemic
Remember when the imperialist media was criticizing China for acting too aggressively and authoritarian with its lockdowns? Lmao
Far be it from me to question your quick web search skills, but what were the names?
I'm willing to criticize China, I just need more substance than "I read some article but I don't remember" before I do so.
dr li wenliang (arrested, not just fined, then died of it), along with multiple articles referencing as many as nine unnamed others, and zhang zhan for pointing out that they did that and taking video of the cover up in early stages before they properly locked down. which, to be fair, they DID eventually do.
but I'm quite done here. I don't have confidence you can engage in good faith on this subject, or any where your favorite oppressive capitalist shithole is involved, and if I wanted to deal with this shit I'd go to r/sino.
My entire comment above is about Dr. Li.
Never heard of Zhang Zhan before, I'll look into that.
Edit: Found this Guardian story on her, which sources Radio Free Asia.
couple articles I saw about liang referenced others who were arrested for the same thing, and he was arrested for it. plus it took a whistleblower before people got their shit together.
id be willing to believe the whistleblower bridged the gap between scared intimidated local officials trying to not be murdered for causing a problem and the national folks who realized "oh shit, this is a problem" and then they punished her because WTF else is one supposed to do to messengers when you've got a stratified power structure and illusion of a competent benevolent state to maintain?
I'd be interested to see those.
Yes, but charges were dropped and he never spend a minute in jail.
Patently untrue. Refer to the timeline.
:what: :bruh-moment:
yeah thats pretty close to what I spotted on a quick google; im just so burnt out on pro-chinese-government shit in leftist spaces.
also saw references to 7-9 'others' in multiple articles about liang. varying numbers isn't great, but there's not a lot of space to find truth between western propaganda and chinese secrecy.