Comment by danparsonson
5 months ago
> the WHO contradicted itself many times during the pandemic
Did they? I remember them revising their guidance, which seems like something one would expect during an emerging crisis, but I don't remember them directly contradicting themselves.
As super low hanging fruit:
June 8, 2020: WHO: Data suggests it's "very rare" for coronavirus to spread through asymptomatics [0]
June 9, 2020: WHO expert backtracks after saying asymptomatic transmission 'very rare' [1]
0: https://www.axios.com/2020/06/08/who-coronavirus-asymptomati... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/who-expert-bac...
Of course, if we just take the most recent thing they said as "revised guidance", I guess it's impossible for them to contradict themselves. Just rapidly re-re-re-revised guidance.
The difference between a contradiction and a revision is the difference between parallel and serial.
I'm not aware that the WHO ever claimed simultaneously contradictory things.
Obviously, rapid revisions during a period of emerging data makes YouTube's policy hard to enforce fairly. Do you remove things that were in line with the WHO when they were published? When they were made? Etc
You’re removing people who were correct before the WHO revised their position.
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A censorship policy that changes daily is a shitty policy. If people on June 8th criticized that official position before they reversed the next day, do you think it was right or a good idea for them to be censored?
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They were producing contradictory messages about mere masks: man-made objects we've had in their present form for decades and in some form for centuries, if not millennia.
It's 2020 and suddenly we need research about how well masks work, if at all and what is their exact benefit.
> The difference between a contradiction and a revision is the difference between parallel and serial.
Eh, ya kind of, but it seems more like the distinction between parallel and concurrent in this case. She doesn't appear to be wrong in that instance while at the same time the models might have indicated otherwise, being an apparent contradiction and apparently both true within the real scope of what could be said about it at that time.
They would not utter the word Taiwan. That’s an huge red flag that they are captured and corrupt. Are you claiming this has changed?
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> I'm not aware that the WHO ever claimed simultaneously contradictory things.
Whether they did or not is almost irrelevant: information doesn't reach humans instantaneously, it takes time to propagate through channels with varying latency, it gets amplified/muted depending on media bias, people generally have things going on in life other than staying glued to new sources, etc.
If you take a cross sample you're guaranteed to observe contradictory "parallel" information even if the source is serially consistent.
OK and if you said something that you later realised to be wrong, would you be contradicting yourself by correcting it? What should they have done in this situation? People do make mistakes, speak out of turn, say the wrong thing sometimes; I don't think we should criticise someone in that position who subsequently fixes their error. And within a couple of days in this case! That's a good thing. They screwed up and then fixed it. What am I missing here?
When you're a global organization who is pushing for the censorship of any dissent or questioning of your proclamations, it's really on you not to say one thing one day then the opposite the next day, isn't it? They could have taken some care to make sure their data and analysis was sound before making these kinds of statements.
If you posted to YouTube that it is very rare for asymptomatics to spread the disease, would you be banned? What if you posted it on the 9th in the hours between checking their latest guidance and their guidance changing? What if you posted it on the 8th but failed to remove it by the 10th?
What if you disagreed with their guidance they gave on the 8th and posted something explaining your stance? Would you still get banned if your heresy went unnoticed by YouTube's censors until the 10th at which time it now aligns with WHO's new position? Banned not for spreading misinformation, but for daring to question the secular high priests?
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Them correcting themselves isn't a bad thing. The point is that it would be absolutely retarded to require that people never disagree with the WHO. Please try and follow the thread of the conversation and not take it down these pointless tangents.
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Is there a difference between an expert opinion in the midst of a pandemic and an organizational recommendation?
Sure seemed like you'd get kicked off YouTube equally fast for questioning either one.
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they also changed the symptoms definitions, so ...
So as researchers learned more about COVID the WHO should've just ignored any new findings and stuck to their initial guidance? This is absurd.
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> Did they?
They said it was a fact that COVID is NOT airborne. (It is.)
Not they believed it wasn't airborne.
Not that data was early but indicated it wasn't airborne.
That it was fact.
In fact, they published fact checks on social media asserting that position. Here is one example on the official WHO Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/WHO/posts/3019704278074935/?locale=...
None of that argues that they contradicted themselves. You and several others have just hijacked this thread to pile on the WHO.
Argue that they were incompetent in their handling of it, sure, whatever. That's not the comment you're replying to.
Some WHO reports were suggesting that lockdowns do more harm than good as early as late 2020.