And then somehow noted scientists like Jon Stewart allowed for the discussion to be allowed.
This dilly dallying on the origins of Covid only shows the importance of free speech and the dangers of the mainstream media, Big Tech and their lies. Whether the real source is the Wuhan Lab is no longer relevant. Trying to force the discussion genie into the censorship bottle is the real story.
Unfortunately now they are pushing the Wuhan lab leak theory for different and nefarious purposes instead of the furtherment of medical research.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/16/jon-stewart-surprised-at-covid...
It really didn't matter that much, beyond the discussion that if proven we should be improving lab security, but that sort of improvement should be happening anyway.
I suspect in the US & UK it was inflamed by two things: 1. A political desire from certain groups to blame China for the pandemic. 2. Some confusion and conflation early on between the lab leak hypothesis and the fringe conspiracy theory of COVID-19 as being a Chinese 'bioweapon'.
Whatever the cause, it wasn't a universal controversy.
> Lord Ridley told MPs: “I also think it’s more likely than not because we have to face the fact after two months we knew the origins of Sars, and after a couple of months we knew Mers was though through camels, but after two years we still haven't found a single infected animal that could be the progenitor, and that’s incredibly surprising.
There have been tons of threads about this so we are just rehashing the same info mostly but this was an interesting point I hadn’t heard of on previously considered.
The bigger issue people have is that discussion has been so heavily censored in areas like the US where censorship is not the norm, or at least not desired. This throws fuel on the fire of censorship debate.
That does not mean that everything the WHO is false or a conspiracy. But it certainly should not be seen as a sole authority on anything really. And it also has the task to keep everyone at the table that trumps scientific accuracy. That is a compromise that is needed to keep nations cooperating.
Edit: the article seems a valid journalistic effort, and - specifying just in case - is richer in information than just mentioning a couple of opinions.
It's an international health agency that is entirely dependent on and beholden to UN member states, as it was designed from the start to be an avenue for voluntary co-operation and the setting of norms. It has no enforcement authority and no legal right to intervene in or investigate countries. It has no independent control over either its leadership or its budget, both of which are determined to an extremely granular level by UN member states.
The US cutting the WHO's funding was petulant and performative, because it just hurt people on the receiving end of valuable WHO assistance programmes and reduced the US's influence in global health debates. As a tactic, that sort of thing only works if you can induce the organisation you're withholding funds from to reform itself, but all of these controversial aspects of the WHO are external to it and come from its nature as an agency run by the world's countries in all their dysfunction.
So no, it's not the WHO's job to 'prove' that China isn't telling the truth, nor does it have any such powers. That sort of evidence would need to be obtained by other countries and used to build cases that allow them to use other mechanisms for a punitive response.
As a contrast, look at the IAEA, which is given broad investigative power through the UN Security Council.
The upside though is that the co-operative nature of the WHO means that overall when it does provide information, norms, or similar, they're usually reliable and have broad support. We'd be worse off without it. But we really need to improve civic education and people's understanding of what role international institutions can and can't play.
"The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain and share information in a timely and transparent fashion."..."The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts,"
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-eyes-withholding-us-funding-for...
Whether or not she is right is one question, but the phrasing here is implying that there has been a change in opinion, which is not true.
"A proposal was leaked showing that EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were developing a pipeline for inserting novel furin cleavage sites. So, you find these scientists who said in early 2018 ‘I’m going to put horns on horses’ and at the end of 2019 a unicorn turns up in Wuhan city."
