The WHO is also, finally, finally, finally shifting. WHO, like the CDC, should quickly issue guidelines for best practices and sanitization. Time for them to step up and do what they are supposed to do, and can do.https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1246152974809915393 …
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I can't wait to put an end to this thread.
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The WHO finally "encourages" the public to wear masks. What a tragic waste of time and a needless squandering of medical authority amidst a pandemic. By March, there was enough evidence of presymptomatic and asymptomatic transmission for me to write this. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1268927569065324547 …pic.twitter.com/2Me0Sj9OlD
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted World Health Organization (WHO)
Also not only is there no evidence for this claim, there is emerging evidence for the opposite, and there is decades of evidence from other safety devices that this concern is not warranted, and if this was a thing, it would also apply to hand-washing.
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1268927995932225541 …zeynep tufekci added,
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Here's a preprint of a paper (I'm a co-author) where we review the "false sense of security" claim and explain why it doesn't stand to evidence at all, and why, on the contrary, universal masks would be expected to lessen stigma and heighten solidarity. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0203/v2 …pic.twitter.com/2tDzvYGNVr
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If some past person had told me I'd spend most of my energy in the first months of a pandemic arguing against CDC and WHO guidelines, that they would drag their feet despite mounting evidence, and that we'd rely on grassroots movements instead, I'd have dismissed them as nuts.
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Replying to @zeynep
So they got masks wrong. Most countries followed basic WHO guidance, made their own decision on masks, and did OK. You don't need to tear the whole WHO down for this. They're in a dangerous position as is and especially in the Global South we really depend on them.
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Replying to @indica
In a pandemic, they got one of the most important tools we have wrong; they also had human-to-human transmission issue covered up for too long; they got travel bans wrong. It's a pandemic. But I know why they're necessary. I wrote about how to fix it.https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-world-health-organization-failed/610063/ …
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Ignoring massive and institutional failures doesn't help anything in the long run, especially for poorer countries. Try to get them to do their job right isn't "tearing down".
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Replying to @zeynep
You're focusing on one rational actor that made mistakes and had limitations, while it was irrational actors like the US that completely messed this up. Whatever your intentions, it's fodder for people attacking the WHO.
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It was an across-the-board failure, and I think not trying to fix that gives more fodder to people who would like to destroy the kind of WHO that would fully carry out its mission. Again, I wrote a whole article about it.https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-world-health-organization-failed/610063/ …
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