
Coronavirus Came from Bats, Can Infect Cats, Ferrets, WHO Says - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-08/covid-19-came-from-bats-can-infect-cats-ferrets-who-says
======
not_a_moth
WHO said for weeks it wasn't transmittable between humans, that countries
should not impose travel restrictions, and insisting late into the pandemic
that you don't need to wear masks unless you're infected.

Arguably the WHO has blood on its hands for allowing the virus to spread.

They unquestionably are influenced by China and CCP's politics, not just
denying Taiwan's existence, but the many statements praising China throughout
the entire pandemic, on virtually all talking points, while being critical of
western nations handling of the virus.

If ever there was a time to take action, point fingers, and restore some
dignity to supposedly independent health organizations, it is now, by creating
a new organization.

~~~
bkor
This seems to be a "look over there" response. China had a big issue. In
Netherlands not much was done. Italy had big issues. Netherlands ignored it.
It spread to Netherlands, suddenly extreme measures had to be taken.
Meanwhile, not much was done in USA, aside from things like "meh, everything
will probably be fine".

Now instead of acknowledging that things went wrong, it's because of someone
else, say WHO. And China!

UK had a report saying that a pandemic was the biggest threat. They
recommended a tactical amount of ventilators to be kept, plus various other
actions. Nothing was done.

> If ever there was a time to take action, point fingers

Blaming doesn't really help anything IMO. Figure out the various causes and
take action on them. Blaming, too easy.

------
ryanwaggoner
This has been flagged off the front-page, likely because it mentions the WHO.
I haven't really been following the criticism of their handling of this all
that closely, so this might be worth reading for others in the same boat:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization%27s_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic)

This article seems to directly contradict some of the claims made by anti-WHO
folks here. In particular, this portion of the timeline jumped out at me,
contradicting the claim that the WHO was claiming no human-to-human
transmission as late as early February:

\--

 _On 14 January, Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO told in a press briefing that
"it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially
among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained
human-to-human transmission"_

 _The WHO recommended countries to take precautions due to the human-to-human
transmission during earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks. On the same day, the WHO
's Twitter account reported that "preliminary investigations conducted by the
Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human
transmission"._

 _On 20 January, the WHO released a tweet that it was "now very clear from the
latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission"
that has occurred, given that healthcare workers had been infected._

 _On 22 January, WHO issued a statement stating that the data "suggests that
human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan", and called for more
investigation._

\--

This certainly sounds to me like they initially said that we weren't seeing
human-to-human transmission in mid-Jan, but within a week or so, the data was
starting to show the opposite, and they said so.

What exactly is the controversy here?

~~~
ghostDancer
US media and some of right wing European media is charging against WHO because
they have to blame someone. That way the can put all the death people numbers
on WHO and not take any responsibility fro their handling of the situation.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I completely agree that there's a political element, but I'd like to hear from
the individuals who are so up-in-arms about this as to why they personally are
so aggrieved and how they interpret the facts to indicate such culpability on
the WHO's part.

~~~
ghostDancer
I can't help there, I suppose that is the same when someone feel attacked in
their beliefs religious or political, some people get really aggressive about
that.

------
aorth
First, this doesn't belong on HN.

Second, we already know for weeks or months that ferrets and cats are
susceptible to SARS-CoV-2—they even find it in their feces. This paper was
released to preprint in March 31st and today is May 8th:
[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.015347v1](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.015347v1)

Third, virologists and especially those who have studied Coronaviruses for
decades say the intermediate species could not have been a pangolin:
[https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-609/](https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-609/)

I recommend HN mods lock or delete this thread.

------
lablabla
This article misrepresents the lab theory. At least in its most common
version, the lab theory is not "it came from a lab, not bats". It is "it came
from bats, was being used for research, and got out accidentally". The article
omits this, creating the impression that animal origin is evidence against the
lab theory, when of course both could be true.

They wouldn't have left this out by accident. It's an obvious omission once
you know about it and it changes the meaning of the story. I have no opinion
about whether the virus came from a lab or didn't (how the hell would I know),
but when I see someone trying to manipulate me this way, it makes me angry and
suspicious and pushes me toward the other side. I've had no interest in the
criticisms of Bloomberg reporting before now, but this article incriminates
itself.

------
quantumwoke
Unpopular opinion (for HN maybe :) - the WHO, which does not solely deal with
infectious diseases, much to the world's chagrin, is doing the best job that
they can considering the situation. On average the advice from the WHO on a
whole range of medical topics has been nothing but excellent, and I am loathe
to discount them entirely based on a few press statements that have been taken
wildly out of context by the media and the internet as a whole. I feel like
I'm taking crazy pills when HN unfailingly dogpiles onto the WHO in yet
another thread. Are people missing the forest for the trees?

~~~
thdrdt
I'm also glad we have a WHO as central point of information and knowledge.

But the WHO could have been more careful with how they put out information.
For example: _"...no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission,..."_. This
was a true statement, there was no evidence at that time. But they also knew
what was going on in China. They could have asked themselves: what if it is
human-to-human transmittable? Then they would have never used those words,
because those words downplayed the potential risks.

I agree with you the media (and governments) blew this up later when the
evidence was there. The WHO never said it was not human-to-human
transmittable, but words were taken out of context and suddenly the WHO was to
blame.

~~~
jml7c5
It is worth noting thst the @WHO account tweeted clarification just a few
hours later. Whoever made that tweet did not consider their audience
correctly, and the resulting misinterpretation is partially on them. But the
way it's been spun as some sort of smoking gun is shocking given it is so easy
to debunk.

