alt Hacker NewsWHO tried to cover up the virus at the beginning; they also aided China in masking its origins.
The CDC did fine, but not WHO. I wouldn't even call WHO public health experts at this point - it's just a political racket that's pretty analogous to the UN generally in terms of how objective and useful they are.
I've had 12+ COVID vaccines and one of my degrees is a BSc so it isn't like I'm some antivaxxing conspiratorial anti-science hillbilly. WHO isn't really about science though, they're about funding and pushing particular agendas which is... antithetical to actual science.
I think it’s very arguable that the WHO tried to cover up the virus or aided China in masking its origins.
The WHO relies on voluntary cooperation by its member states. China did try to downplay the outbreak and delayed sharing data with the WHO that indicated human-to-human transmission. It didn’t look great for the WHO to praise China’s “cooperation”, but they could hardly excoriate China for not sharing information and then expect them to cooperate.
The CDC made its own share of mistakes during the beginning of the pandemic, including insisting _against_ masking at first. Frequently, the CDC’s own advice was influenced by the first Trump administration, so I would not say the CDC is any less exposed to US political influence than the WHO is to the political influence of its member states.
These days, given that the CDC has been hollowed out by the second Trump administration and the US defunded and left the WHO, I’m not sure either organization can be trusted to be effective. The CDC has gone on an anti-science bender and the WHO probably lacks the resources to maintain effectiveness. If anything, I’d be worried the WHO isn’t raising _enough_ concern about new disease outbreaks.
Also, you should probably specify what “agendas” the WHO is pushing such that warning countries to beware the spread of a deadly hemorrhagic virus is morally dubious.