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
k. americans five years ago were also mostly happy with their government. people are stupid and easily fooled by something as pervasive as a state. and you can’t claim its ‘not at the expense of the people’ if there are billionaires. which there are.
First of all, no the fuck they weren’t lol, but I guess whatever the fuck you need to say to hold on to your “China bad” brain worms. I’m talking about things like a 10 year study showing 95% satisfaction with the government, show me anything remotely comparable for the US or other comparable capitalist state.
It’s not at the expense of the people because life has gotten better in leaps and bounds for the people specifically because of the same policies that produced billionaires, the existence of billionaires in and of itself being regrettable. Do you seriously think if given the choice of undoing all the reform and opening up policies which allowed China to build world class infrastructure for the people and eradicate extreme poverty they would jump at that opportunity because “hey at least there wouldn’t be any billionaires 😡”. This is just clueless.