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16 HN mentions · mentioned in 13 months, 2020–2026
2:17 · 894K views · Mar 30, 2020
A short news clip of WHO official Bruce Aylward's 2020 interview with a Hong Kong outlet, in which he stalls and then ends the call when asked about Taiwan's WHO membership. He also says he would want to be treated in China if infected.
Cited, almost always critically, as evidence of Chinese influence over the WHO during the Covid pandemic.
16 comments from Hacker News
> You are missing the important bit: The lab leak would have to be covered up by the Chinese authorities and the WHO would some how have had to be in on it. Is that so inconceivable? The Chinese government has historically obfuscated facts and runs one of the largest media control operations in modern history. The WHO is also an organization of questionable trustworthiness and with suspicious subservience to China[1]. But the WHO wouldn't necessarily had to have been complicit. This could've easily been covered up by Chinese authorities during the many months of blocking external researchers into the country[2]. The research in the report you linked to started in January 2021. As for the report itself, I skimmed a few pages and noticed some issues. My understanding is limited in this area, so please correct me if I'm wrong. 0. First of all, the conflict of interest of it being reported by WHO and Chinese researchers should be a factor in judging the validity of any of its claims. 1. From the arguments in favour of the intermediate host scenario (p. 115): > Although the closest related viruses have been found in bats, the > evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated > to be several decades, suggesting a missing link (either a missing progenitor > virus, or evolution of a progenitor virus in an intermediate host). Why would this suggest a missing link? Couldn't gain of function research accelerate the mutations of the virus to make it seem far d
Could you explain why evidence that the virus evolved naturally contradicts the lab-leak theory? I'm all ears and waiting to hear the reasoning. As others have pointed out, lab-leak does not imply artificially developed. > I’m a bioscientist. And I'm a Bayesian analyst. Surely your position is that it is a coincidence that: - the virus appeared to originate in Wuhan - genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis - The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which are more than 900 kilometers away Wuhan - According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market - Wuhan is home to two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus - Within ~280 meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention (WHCDC). WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories for research purposes. In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang province - one of the researchers described that he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. In another accident, bats peed on him. He was once thrilled for capturing a bat carrying a live tick Not conclusive by any means, but I have yet to hear reasoning by which we should exclude
>Considering that Taiwan is already independent Not according to the PRC, and a lot of countries and international institutions either. Some (usually with close ties to China, but now always, e.g. Spain[1], probably because they do not want to give their own separatist movements any political ammunition) consider the ROC part of the PRC, others are deliberately vague on whether they consider Taiwan independent or even a nation, like e.g. the US[0]. The WHO for example is very adept at avoiding any position on Taiwan[2]. And then of course, there is this guy... [3]. (Just if you like some cringe about a serious topic) >China's goals of "peaceful reunification". (PR) China doesn't really talk about peaceful reunification. They officially consider Taiwan part of the country already, a part that is just a little rebellious at the moment. They are more talking about a peaceful end of the conflict, but recently use the word "peaceful" a lot less. [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] [2] this video [3] [LINK]
Respectfully, I think there is a lot of mistrust in WHO is because the PRC deliberately withheld information in the 2002-2004 SARS Outbreak: [LINK] This is where the saying "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice same on me" comes into play. The below source shows the PRC covering up the COVID-19 outbreak: [LINK] I peronsally feel like the WHO should have been a lot more suspicious of the PRC and how they were reporting. However, it appeared like they took information from the PRC at face value in January, where containment could have spared much of this pandemic. Was it political? Much like someone else pointed out. this video A senior WHO offical praises the PRC, even after it is come out the the PRC covered up the initial outbreak. It is very hard to not view that is political. To me, a lot of the mistrust of the WHO based on these sources are well founded.
>The WHO seems to be owned by China: this video From the video title alone: >Senior WHO official dodges questions about Taiwan’s WHO membership Isn't that... expected? Even the US (and most other western countries) doesn't recognize taiwan as a nation for the purposes of WHO/UN membership, so what's he supposed to do? Try to make a political statement and say "taiwan is a country too!", and piss off china in the process? What would such a statement achieve? >praises China That's also expected of an organization that's basically reliant on other countries to cooperate (provide infection numbers, virus samples, etc.). Praise is cheap, and scolding China is counterproductive. China's heavy handed measures to contain the outbreak might be a gross infringement of civil liberties, but from a public health perspective it was highly effective.