WHO is an organization with no real power; it was necessary to kiss China's ass so that they could gain access to the country and get early data on the virus. The alternative was that the rest of the world would have had to rely solely on the manipulated Chinese stats.
Why is gaining access a good idea? If China's being dishonest WHO should just recommend zero travel from/to China and let them stew in it -- they can manipulate their stats internally all they want.
Suppose the WHO did recommend a zero travel ban from/to China, what do you think would happen?
Nothing would have changed. It's still in the hands of the politicians in those countries to enact it. And let's be fair, in each country there's at least one politician in the parliament, congress,... that mocked the current, mild, response to the outbreak. Some said they would, or did in fact, defy quarantine rules to stop spreading the disease.
Countries are also running out of reagents to test for this virus so analysis of the situation is already going to be complex. If China is being dishonest, they'll see it in the data. If country X or Y are dishonest in reporting figures about infection, mortality rates and what not, they will also see it.
To summarize and put it bluntly:
1) I doubt China was the only superpower on the planet that used political force on the WHO to change their messaging.
2) The virus is new and currently raw data in any form is more important than issuing a medical recommendation that will be ignored because of country specific politics.
>I doubt China was the only superpower on the planet that used political force on the WHO to change their messaging
China is the only superpower who prioritizes "saving face" over world health. Nobody else would be stupid enough to falsify health data in the face of a pandemic to make themselves look better.
Otherwise, yeah, you have a point about having data about a new disease. But if we can't trust China to provide accurate data anyway, what did we gain? Arguably, the entire reason we saw such a delayed international response to the outbreak outside of China was their "only 300 infected! whoops it's actually 5k lol" campaign.
> China is the only superpower who prioritizes "saving face" over world health. Nobody else would be stupid enough to falsify health data in the face of a pandemic to make themselves look better.
The US has criminally undertested and is actively hiding information (classifying meetings) by order of the current administration.
Please remember that "China" is not one person, and that the dishonest actions of some in their government should not be used to condemn thousands of innocent others to danger or death.
Instead thousands of innocents not in China have been condemned to danger or death. Last I checked, there are way more people not in China than in China. The classic trolley car problem would have made the call easy: seal off China.
