WHO official: Asymptomatic spread of coronavirus 'rare'

WHO official: Asymptomatic spread of coronavirus 'rare'(thehill.com)

21 points by schintan 5 years ago | 17 comments

0xy 5 years ago |

Presumably the same WHO who lied about travel bans, masks, covered up for China, put Taiwan in danger and repeatedly lied about the extent of the outbreak -- all while calling China "transparent and open" publicly.

ta17711771 5 years ago | |

Does anyone have any authoritative sources regarding the battle between Italian doctor who says they have less potent coronavirus now, and the WHO saying they're wrong?

zed88 5 years ago |

As someone who worked for a global UN agency, I can personally attest to the influence of China in the organisation. I remember one instance where the Chinese govt. kicked a major fuss over including 'Taiwan' in the country selector dropdown for our web properties. The order came from really high up in the top and we had to remove Taiwan lol.

pmiller2 5 years ago |

The title is very misleading.

A WHO official did, indeed, state that asymptomatic transmission was "rare," but, the article goes on to say "She noted that the answer is not definitive," and then goes on to quote the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and an infectious disease expert from Baylor University expressing doubt.

rst 5 years ago | |

Also uses a very strict definition of "asymptomatic" which apparently excludes the likely more common case of "presymptomatic" carriers -- who will develop symptoms but haven't yet.

SomeoneFromCA 5 years ago |

They are so discredited now, now one listens to them.

pengaru 5 years ago | |

Well now that they've been severely defunded by the USA everything coming out of them is especially suspect as propaganda resulting from that leverage.

The American president wants scapegoats for his failings, and despite completely ignoring the WHO recommendations at the start of the pandemic, he's turned the WHO into one.

SomeoneFromCA 5 years ago | | |

Every recommendation coming out of WHO was bad so far. Especially to not close borders with China.

runawaybottle 5 years ago | |

You’d think a Pandemic would be their time to shine, but they really didn’t meet the moment.

Applethief 5 years ago | | |

Yes, exactly.

malloryerik 5 years ago | |

Don't think that's fair at all. It rather sounds like partisan political positioning. Indeed I doubt that leaders in any country that made a strong and effective response to the virus would try to discredit the WHO. I'm in South Korea and know that the WHO has been absolutely crucial to the successful and ongoing response to the novel coronavirus here. Ask and I will supply a slide deck of evidence. As merely one example South Korea had a working test in two weeks because of WHO data and indeed Chinese data shared through the WHO. Without the WHO it's likely we in South Korea would have to have had a lockdown.

The WHO weren't perfect, they were human. They have limits and they can't really criticize member states. And how about the US response (your moniker implies you're from the US)? To be quite honest, I find the WHO response flawed but essential. The USA's medical/epidemiological response was/is almost, I mean I want to say... criminally negligent. Beyond flawed. The financial response is another story. But the US didn't even try to make tests until it was way too late, indeed avoided and inhibited testing (remember "I like the numbers where they are"?), still hasn't instituted a national tracing program or a coordination of municipal tracing programs (which are pathetically weak in general), had already disabled its own pandemic response team if I recall, bickered and argued amongst itself while its own citizens were dying, lied and denied, had top leaders (indeed the top leader) claiming on television initially that the virus didn't exist and was a hoax, then that it was all China's fault for doing the same things that the US did (lying and denying), had a large amount of the population refusing to wear face masks because a medical issue had been irreparably politicized, and then when the entire world is in the pangs of this plague actually defunded the WHO, blaming the doctor for the disease. Among South Koreans I have heard again and again, "Is the US really an advanced nation? How can they be so incompetent and callous?" And South Korea is usually among the world's most pro-US countries. So, maybe recall the Christian parable about criticizing the splinter in your brother's eye and never noticing the plank in your own? If the WHO is discredited, then the US...

I know this sounds ranty, but please, please, enough is enough. Does this matter to Hacker News people? Well, it's gotten to the point that yes, it matters a lot.

Oh by the way part of the US coronavirus response has been to attack skilled immigration, immigration bans that the likes of Stephen Miller hope to render permanent. That's a boon for US tech?

Here's a Der Spiegel article in English about the WHO response. https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/europe-made-mista...

yellowapple 5 years ago |

Did the WHO ever change its stance on wearing facemasks (specifically: "only wear a mask if you're symptomatic or in the same household as someone who is", rather than the arguably more responsible "wear a mask, period" guidance of e.g. the CDC)?

I feel like this is an attempt to double-down on that "guidance". I would hope that the WHO cares more about saving lives than saving face.

Either way, this statement is meaningless when unaccompanied by data.