Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

[moXJO]

That is false as the statement is wholly inconsistent with the charter of the United Nations.
The WHO can seek that Member States adhere to their obligations under the IHR, and make recommendations in the best interests of all parties.
As we have seen, nations continue to act as they see fit and the WHO is powerless to intervene.

You want to back your statement with something tangible?

So far you have used propaganda news as your source.

 

[rederob]

Are you blind or just stupid?

You have relied on poor information.
If you had credible information it would be from the source, not third parties.
Your claims are incorrect.

It would not matter in the slightest what powers the WHO are given. They do not have an army, so are powerless to intervene no matter what.

The WHO can act through the UN which has member states with armies.
The UN pays many nations to provide troops across the globe and can take offensive action should its members approve such a resolution.

 

[moXJO]

You have relied on poor information.
If you had credible information it would be from the source, not third parties.
Your claims are incorrect.
The WHO can act through the UN which has member states with armies.
The UN pays many nations to provide troops across the globe and can take offensive action should its members approve such a resolution.

WHO does not direct troops.
Did you finally achieve brain meltdown?

 

[rederob]

You want to back your statement with something tangible?
So far you have used propaganda news as your source.

Do yourself a favour and learn what the UN is about, because I use its source material as the basis of my comments.
For example, from its Charter:

Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

WHO does not direct troops.
Did you finally achieve brain meltdown?

You are good at winning strawman arguments, but poor at comprehension.

 

[moXJO]

Do yourself a favour and learn what the UN is about, because I use its source material as the basis of my comments.
For example, from its Charter:

Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

You are good at winning strawman arguments, but poor at comprehension.

The who can declare a pandemic.
The rest of your posts are off question rubbish.

 

[rederob]

The who can declare a pandemic.

The WHO does not declare pandemics as it has no practical effect.
The WHO can say they have assessed a disease to be characterised as pandemic, and this occurred:

"The characterization of COVID-19 as a pandemic does not change WHO’s risk assessment and recommendations, which stress that countries should adopt a mix of interventions based on an analysis of the local situation and context, with containment as a major pillar."​

You will find on the WHO's timeline that it declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
The distinction is important as a PHEIC declaration triggers the public health response set out under the IHR.
The IHR mention "pandemic" only once, and that's to describe pandemic influenza.

 

[satanoperca]

So if WHO cannot, who can?

 

[moXJO]

Pandemic were recently changed by who. So yes they do actually call pandemics.

Good afternoon.

In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled.

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives.

Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals.

In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher.

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.

We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.

Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.

Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do.

We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.

And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled, at the same time.

WHO has been in full response mode since we were notified of the first cases.

And we have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action.

We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.

That's from WHO

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/det...he-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020

 

[hja]

Pandemic were recently changed by who. So yes they do actually call pandemics.


That's from WHO

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/det...he-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020
We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.

It looks like WHO is the who's who of pandemic declaration.

 

[rederob]

So if WHO cannot, who can?

There is no internationally agreed definition of a pandemic, so if anyone thinks it meets their criteria, then they can call it one.
The WHO's assessment is highly regarded because they, as a representative body, have expertise in health matters. It is otherwise meaningless because they have a separate mechanism for initiating action on a public health emergency.

Pandemic were recently changed by who. So yes they do actually call pandemics.

Really - the IHR has no role for actions on a pandemic, and they were written in 2005 and last revised 4 years ago.
As I said, the WHO can characterise a disease as pandemic, and make an announcement to that effect. It is symbolic but otherwise ineffectual.

 

[moXJO]

There is no internationally agreed definition of a pandemic, so if anyone thinks it meets their criteria, then they can call it one.
The WHO's assessment is highly regarded because they, as a representative body, have expertise in health matters. It is otherwise meaningless because they have a separate mechanism for initiating action on a public health emergency.
Really - the IHR has no role for actions on a pandemic, and they were written in 2005 and last revised 4 years ago.
As I said, the WHO can characterise a disease as pandemic, and make an announcement to that effect. It is symbolic but otherwise ineffectual.

It doesn't matter if it's symbolic or not. They declared a pandemic, extremely late in the game mind you. But they called it. It was then widely covered from multiple news sources around the world that "WHO declared a pandemic". So no it's not really ineffectual.

You just move the posts when you get caught talking rubbish and side track down a lane no one asked you to go.

Can and did WHO call a pandemic:
Yes they can and did.

 

[rederob]

It doesn't matter if it's symbolic or not. They declared a pandemic, extremely late in the game mind you. But they called it. It was then widely covered from multiple news sources around the world that "WHO declared a pandemic". So no it's not really ineffectual.

You just move the posts when you get caught talking rubbish and side track down a lane no one asked you to go.

Can and did WHO call a pandemic:
Yes they can and did.

If what you are saying is credible then the WHO characterisation of the virus as pandemic must have some effect.
Please outline what this achieved.

I repeat, neither you nor those you are relying on know what they are talking about in relation to this issue.
Your third party proclamations are factually baseless.
Unless you can cite from the source, which is the WHO and its IHR, you are just living in your own fantasies.

 

[hja]

Proclamations can, could and may, in effect, be declared as declarations. So effectively, by WHO proclaiming its position on pandemics, is a declaration in its own right, whether as a third party or otherwise.

 

[moXJO]

If what you are saying is credible then the WHO characterisation of the virus as pandemic must have some effect.
Please outline what this achieved.

I repeat, neither you nor those you are relying on know what they are talking about in relation to this issue.
Your third party proclamations are factually baseless.
Unless you can cite from the source, which is the WHO and its IHR, you are just living in your own fantasies.

You do know what "pandemic" means right?

 

[sptrawler]

This highlights the problem with not having the ability to produce our own testing equipment.
https://www.watoday.com.au/national...2-p54s2v.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
From the article:
Official scientific advice given to the federal government says that the 1.5 million COVID-19 fingerprick antibody tests it bought are not accurate enough to be of any use.

The federal government initially said the tests, which were supposed to be able to quickly tell if someone had recovered from COVID-19, would arrive in the country in late March and be rapidly rolled out to GP clinics.
The federal government did not reveal which companies it bought the tests from.


The British government is looking for a $20 million refund from two companies who sell antibody tests approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration after their tests were found to be useless.

“The reality is, at the moment, they are not useful,” said Professor Carola Vinuesa, one of the authors of the government report and co-director of the NHMRC Centre for Personalised Immunology at the Australian National University.
“At the moment, the quality does not seem to be good enough for these tests to be deployed in large scale.”

"The sensitivity is not very good. They are not useful in being able to say 'you were infected'."


Professor Vinuesa said no test currently developed was accurate enough to reliably detect antibodies.

“Most individual results will be false positives,” she said. “You cannot have most positive results being false.”

A spokesman later said the government ended up buying only 1 million tests, after a third supply contract was cancelled.

Professor Mueller’s team is currently trying to make their own accurate antibody test – a process which is proving difficult.

Because only a tiny proportion of Australians are likely to have been exposed to the virus, even a small level of inaccuracy – say 5 per cent – would throw up thousands of false-positive results.

 

[rederob]

Proclamations can, could and may, in effect, be declared as declarations. So effectively, by WHO proclaiming its position on pandemics, is a declaration in its own right, whether as a third party or otherwise.

No, when the WHO makes a declaration it has a specific meaning and effect in the context of its charter, and it is completely different to describing the characteristic of a virus, such as announcing its genetic structure.
Nations could and did act on the potential of COV19 to become pandemic even before the WHO declared it as a PHEIC in January, by implementing travel bans.
The question people here are overlooking is "what changed?"

 

[hja]

No, when the WHO makes a declaration it has a specific meaning and effect in the context of its charter, and it is completely different to describing the characteristic of a virus, such as announcing its genetic structure.
Nations could and did act on the potential of COV19 to become pandemic even before the WHO declared it as a PHEIC in January, by implementing travel bans.
The question people here are overlooking is "what changed?"

Yeah well kudos to you for your interpretation based on your perception.

But you should've heard the local Chinese ambassador's "declarations" over China's supposed job creation in Australia for example, or reactions to "pandemic" inquiries. He isn't very creative either on the defensive back foot with his "proclamations" which are dangerous... to China's prestige.

 

[rederob]

Yeah well kudos to you for your interpretation based on your perception.

But you should've heard the local Chinese ambassador's "declarations" over China's supposed job creation in Australia for example, or reactions to "pandemic" inquiries. He isn't very creative either on the defensive back foot with his "proclamations" which are dangerous... to China's prestige.

If you don't know what words mean then don't use them.
Our PM is a policy free zone, and has no capacity to understand the damage his idiot ideas do to our principal trading partner, which is now retaliating.
So if you want to appreciate what is dangerous, look at poor diplomacy as a starting point.

 

[SirRumpole]

Our PM is a policy free zone, and has no capacity to understand the damage his idiot ideas do to our principal trading partner, which is now retaliating.

What damage is that ?

I don't believe our PM even referred to China when calling for an enquiry, an action which is backed by the Opposition.

 

[hja]

If you don't know what words mean then don't use them.
Our PM is a policy free zone, and has no capacity to understand the damage his idiot ideas do to our principal trading partner, which is now retaliating.
So if you want to appreciate what is dangerous, look at poor diplomacy as a starting point.

If you want idiot ideas, you don't have to go further than your Chinese Ambassador, Cheng, Chung...

It's a 2-way street. China needs Australian beef as much as we need their trinkets. I doubt the Chinese people are prepared to go back to drinking melamine in their milk.

But thanks again for your your version of "meaning".