China delayed releasing coronavirus info, frustrating WHO

In the meantime 430,000 Chinese traveled to every major population center in the U.S. to celebrate their precious New Year.

How China Deceived the WHO

More about this shady bastard:

John Doe wrote in news:rb8ujj$c2g$6@dont- email.me:

John Doe, the Usenet stalker.

By the time of the report, 'their own doctors' were saying all sorts of things, which couldn't be confmed. They said their investigations were preliminary, and that they didn't know how it was transmitted.

More noteworthy, there's distorted variants of exactly what they 'said' showing up on the internet. What language, pray tell, was the original document?

The problem isn't that the WHO is doing a terrible job, the problem is that Donald Trump thinks that threatening to cut off their money will persuade them to do what he wants them to do (which is essentially to get him re-ele cted in November). More importantly, he thinks that it sends the right mess age to the people in the USA who are silly enough to be likely to vote for him in November, so it's mainly pointless posturing.

WHO hasn't got the power to do what he wants done, and if they tried to do it, every other contributor would get mightily peeved to see their money wa sted on what they would see as something between an irrelevance and a fatu ous waste of money.

The lefties - or, more broadly the non-Trump supporters - have a slam-dunk case.

Complaining that everybody is ganging up on Trump is rather like complaining that everybody is ganging up to put out a fire or cope with a flood.

Bill Sloman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

There are comments talking about folks' rights and obligations to NOT carry out orders which contradict their oath.

The problem is that Tedro was/is doing a terrible job.

Most of the money are wasted on lavish trips, while the primary goal of pandemic control was a complete failure.

That's your opinion. Trump may share it. I haven't seen anybody else make t hat kind of claim.

do it, every other contributor would get mightily peeved to see their mone y wasted on what they would see as something between an irrelevance and a fatuous waste of money.

andemic control was a complete failure.

WHO isn't in the business of pandemic control - it's in the business of hel ping member countries control pandemics in their own countries. That means quite a lot of international travel. Traveling in anything above tourist cl ass is "lavish" - business class costs about twice as much - but modern bus iness class makes it a lot easier to sleep through the flight, so you can b e more effective when you arrive.

Airlines keep on offering business class, and passengers keep on buying it, so does seem to be worth the extra price.

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that kind of claim.

I guess you have a very narrow view. Do these count as "anybody"?

Still, critics have accused Tedros of having moved too slowly at the beginn ing of current coronavirus pandemic out of undue consideration for the Chin ese government. This has led US President Donald Trump to freeze his countr y's payments to WHO temporarily. Even though this move has been widely crit icized, it is beyond dispute that Tedros forged close contacts with the Chi nese political leadership during his time as foreign minister and that Ethi opia remains an important strategic partner for China.

?Particularly at the beginning, it was shocking when I again and ag ain saw WHO?s [director-general], when he spoke to the press ? ? almost directly quoting what I read on the Chinese government?s statements,?

Not only was there a strong allegation of Tedros covering up three cholera epidemics in his country and thus endangering surrounding states, he suppo sedly did this just to avoid international embarrassment. The terminology a ffected whether outside health organisations would marshal resources to fig ht an outbreak of the deadly bacteria.

A group of American doctors wrote to Tedros in 2017 saying, ?Your s ilence about what is clearly a massive cholera epidemic in Sudan daily beco mes more reprehensible?. ?The inevitable history that will be written of this cholera epidemic will surely cast you in an unforgiving light,? they wrote, adding that Tedros was ?fully complicit in the terrible suffering and dying that continues to spread in East Afric a?.

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ke that kind of claim.

Not really. It's essentially a spillover from Ethiopian domestic politics.

nning of current coronavirus pandemic out of undue consideration for the Ch inese government. This has led US President Donald Trump to freeze his coun try's payments to WHO temporarily. Even though this move has been widely cr iticized, it is beyond dispute that Tedros forged close contacts with the C hinese political leadership during his time as foreign minister and that Et hiopia remains an important strategic partner for China.

again saw WHO?s [director-general], when he spoke to the press ? ?? almost directly quoting what I read on the Chinese government? ?s statements,?

ra epidemics in his country and thus endangering surrounding states, he sup posedly did this just to avoid international embarrassment. The terminology affected whether outside health organisations would marshal resources to f ight an outbreak of the deadly bacteria.

silence about what is clearly a massive cholera epidemic in Sudan daily be comes more reprehensible?. ?The inevitable history that wil l be written of this cholera epidemic will surely cast you in an unforgivin g light,? they wrote, adding that Tedros was ?fully complic it in the terrible suffering and dying that continues to spread in East Afr ica?.

You have to sort out what Tedros might have been able to do in the governme nt of which he was a part, what the particular ethnic groups criticising hi m would have liked him to have done, and what they might have expected if h e'd been a member of their group.

He was a prominent Tigray politician in Ethiopia, and the Amhara and Oromo ethnic groups - which are larger, but less politically powerful - aren't fo nd of him. No surprise there.

He's also closer to the Chinese than Trump would like - but what Trump want s is determined by what he thinks will get him re-elected in November, and very little else.

I would first try to figure out /if/ they are doing a terrible job - I wouldn't make random accusations without investigating. (And I certainly wouldn't make accusations as a way of trying to distract from my own failures, which is what Trump has been doing.) I'd be looking at whether it was "terrible", or merely "not as good as it could have been". I'd be looking at whether mistakes or failures were due to incomplete information, incompetence, deliberate failings, bad luck, or whether they did a reasonable job with what was known and possible at the time, and it only looks bad with hindsight. I'd look at whether outside influences or third parties caused the problems. I'd be looking at their procedures for self-regulation - did they identify problems and take measures themselves?

I'd be looking at /what/ went wrong, and /why/, and how to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Is there a problem with leaders in the organisation, and should they be changed? Are there procedures, organisational issues, or other working arrangements that should be better? Are there resources that they are missing, or resources that are being wasted?

I'd look at alternatives. Is there someone else who could do the job? Would they do it better? Does the job actually need done?

I'd be trying to figure out how to fix the problem, not how to fire them.

I'd be honest about not blaming others for my own obvious mistakes. You don't fire someone for failing to predict how incompetently you would handle their advice.

I'd only stop paying them if that would lead to overall benefits for me

- such as being able to pay someone else who would be likely to do a better job, or if I thought temporarily withholding money would encourage them to do a better job. Only an ex reality star who gets paid to say "You're fired!" would pick stopping payments as the /first/ option for covering his own mistakes.

Not paying people is efficient. Make it their problem to show why they should be paid.

And you don't see that as ridiculous? The problem of a pandemic doesn't get solved that way. The OTHER problem that you perceive, you describe as 'show why'.

The WHO is a productive association, and its product is... cooperation. Alas, it only produces cooperation for you if you join, and cooperate.

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The usual response is to decide not to do business with people who don't pa y on time.

When I worked for Kent Instruments back in 1970's, the accounting departmen t had decided that it would help the company's cash flow if they waited 90 days between getting a bill and paying it. The major distributors didn't li ke this, so it became very difficult to get small numbers of parts for prot otyping.

The accountants didn't care. Marketing wasn't happy. When you you've got an almost completed instrument sitting on the end of the production line wait ing for one last past, it doesn't do anything good for your cash flow, but accounting didn't get to worry about that until the instrument had been com pleted. tested and shipped to the customer and they could then send an invo ice to the customer.