Comment by skybrian
5 days ago
The WHO didn't declare a global pandemic until March 11, 2020 [1]. That's a little slow and some rationalists were earlier than that. (Other people too.)
After reading a warning from a rationalist blog, I posted a lot about COVID news to another forum and others there gave me credit for giving the heads-up that it was a Big Deal and not just another thing in the news. (Not sure it made all that much difference, though?)
I worked at the British Medical Journal at the time. We got wind of COVID being a big thing in January. I spent January to March to get our new VPN into a fit state that the whole company could do their whole jobs from home. 23 March was lockdown and we were ready and had a very busy year.
That COVID was going to be big was obvious to a lot of people and groups who were paying attention. We were a health-related org, but we were extremely far from unique in this.
The rationalist claim that they were uniquely on the ball and everyone else dropped it is just a marketing lie.
I recall friends who worked for Google telling me that they instituted WFH for all employees from the start of March. I also remember a call with a co-worker in January/February who had a PhD in epidemiology (not a "rationalist" afaik); I couldn't believe what he was saying about the likelihood of a months-long lockdown in the West.
The first time I read about covid, was in a (printed) computer magazine as a side note about government oppression in China. At that time I didn't even memorized the name, because I just didn't heard about it from any other source.
I don't think anyone said they were unique? I was countering a claim that they just agreed with the WHO.
Do you think that the consequences of the WHO declaring a pandemic and some rationalist blog warning about covid are the same? Clearly the WHO has to be more cautious. I have no doubt there were people at the WHO who felt a global pandemic was likely at least as early as you and the person writing the rationalist blog.
This is going to be controversial. But WHO wasted precious time during the early phases of the pandemic. It could have been contained more effectively if they weren't in denial. And when they did declare a pandemic, it was all very sudden instead of gradually raising the level, leading to panic buying and anxiety.
Are the WHO personnel rational and competent? I would like to believe so. But that isn't a given - the amount of nonsense I had to fight in institutions considered as pinnacles of rationality is just depressing. Regardless, WHO was encumbered by international policitics. Their rationality would have made no difference. That is why the opinion of rational outsiders matter - especially of those with domain expertise.
The signs of an uncontained contagion were evident by the middle of December 2020, well before the WHO declared the pandemic in March 2021. They could have asked everyone to start preparing around then. Instead, there were alarming news coming out of Wuhan and endless debates on TV about the appeasement of the Chinese administration by WHO - things that started ringing the alarm bells for us. We started preparing by at least the middle of January. WHO chose to wait again till everything was obvious and a declaration was inevitable. People were dying by the thousands everyday and the lockdowns had already started by then. Their rubberstamp wasn't necessary to confirm what everyone knew already. That was one instance where waiting for the WHO wasn't a prudent choice.
WHO is a critical institution to the entire world. Their timing can mean the difference between life and death for millions everywhere. These sorts of failing shouldn't be excused and swept under the rug so easily.
If you look at the timeline, it's purely political. Some earliest warnings came from Taiwan/ROC who found it in travelers from mainland. But WHO did not dare to anger PRC so they ignored Taiwan and that way caused probably thousands of unnecessary deaths in the whole world
Shitposting comedy forums were ahead of the WHO when it came to this, it didn't take a genius to understand what was going on before shit completely hit the fan.
Yet the stock market mostly didn't get it. I know some people who made some money based on the knowledge that a pandemic was coming.
Ideology is powerful and so is the bias towards the status quo, not to mention the want and belief that Everything is Just Fine™.
At least in the US, there was a ton of political and economic incentive to pretend that nothing was wrong, as business proceeding as usual was paramount.
I remember plotting exponential growth against the data in late February, it was a very exciting time.