I don't think we should just give up to the fact that it's normal to have errors coming from these big Orgs operating at such a sensitive front. Look what some small errors and delays are doing.
If an organisation gets too big to keep its act together, perhaps it's time to make it more decentralized and dynamic (the original proposition).
I also honestly don't think working as a volunteer would really get you to understand how something like the WHO is being actually run.
I'm not an expert (would never say otherwise). But the world is full of experts locked in dogmas and lacks those couragious enough to break free, look stupid and try new things.
> What WHO does is intergovernmental public health coordination
I'm afraid that's a normative and oversimplistic statement.
Have you seen, at least, the WHO Twitter/FB feeds? It's acting as a teacher for the global public. So "intergovernmental public health coordination" is definitely not its only job, which it doesn't seem to be doing well. There's no disagreement that it's inherently political but in any case, that wasn't a function I proposed to replace in the first place.
> The decentralized version is just local public health authorities acting without the WHO.
That actually goes with the original proposition and that's the way to go. But the early warning system for these authorities is broken - they got their intel too late.
I totally agree that startups aren't the solution to every single problem we have on the planet but I'm not sure you've tackled the original proposition, rather you expressed a general concern/dissatisfaction and that's understandable.
No, there would (almost) be no policy. That's the point. It's one planet - one health. Which country it is shouldn't matter much.
If a severe case was reported by medical staff in Taiwan, North Korea or where ever it would/should instantly show as potential breakout warning signal on some webpage or dashboard, without having to travel weeks through broken bureaucracies and press.
There has to be a policy. Either you deal with Taiwan though China and on China's terms, which is a political position, or you deal with Taiwan on its own terms, which is a political position, or you ignore Taiwan altogether because of the controversy around its status, which is a political position. Choosing to ignore bureacuracies and the press is a political decision. Choosing which data to post and what sources to trust is a political decision.
There's no such thing as an organization which operates internationally and is also apolitical.
In the broad definition of what makes something "political", that is definitely the case. No disagreement.
However, to not drift this discussion into definitions, I'll agree on your definition of "politics", which - correct me if I'm wrong - is any activity that involves decision making.
Let's assume, in that or any case, every decision and action to be political. Then the important question here becomes: how do we make political decisions that would ensure the most transparent, decentralised, instant and honest reporting? Would that mean trusting all medical facilities/staff of any kind or excluding some?
Point is: if every decision is political, then let's make the good ones with the best possible outcome, regardless of their nature/definition.
>I'll agree on your definition of "politics", which - correct me if I'm wrong - is any activity that involves decision making.
I'm actually trying to imply something more realpolitik - that China defines what's political in this case.
Because understand, anything less than fully recognizing that Taiwan is a province under the lawful control of the Chinese government and submitting to that authority means this organization would be recognized by China as extremist and any Taiwanese involved with it would be considered enemies of the state, and censored at best, or arrested at worst. And the more popular and useful this organization became, the harder China would crack down on it.
This is why I'm saying an organization like this can't be apolitical - that's not something the world recognizes or allows.
Data/reporting scope could be made anonymous and more local; on a city/town level (e.g. "Dec 22, 2019 | Severe flu case reported in X district of Wuhan (30°34'21.2"N 114°12'30.0"E) - potential for outbreak").
At high level of exposure, as you said, the Chinese gov may track down anyone behind such report, despite the anonymity. It may even block investigative entry/inquiry to the entire city. How do we solve that? I don't know but I suppose that, in the grand order of things and following this pandemic, we shouldn't be living in a world where any government is allowed to work against such public health efforts and get us into another quagmire that we could have simply avoided, which again rolls back to international relations, politics and trade and is tricky to solve but shouldn't stand in the way of trying these things out. We can't simply give up to the way the world is set up at any point in time.
Problem with that is that "best possible outcome" is all about perspective.
I'm not sure if there is a subjective way to quantify such a thing without first taking a stance.
Once you take a stance, the only difference between you and the existing WHO is the particular stance you have taken (assuming it's a different position)
I don't see the problem with taking stances. The very act of thinking about such thing is a stance by itself.
You can simply take stances that would reduce harm, avoid collapse and (optionally) maximize benefit for everyone. The current stance of WHO doesn't seem to be in that realm and something could/should be done about it.
I'm not arguing that taking a stance is bad per se, i'm arguing that almost anything you might want to take a stance on is subjective.
As an example:
Reduce harm: depends on perspective (define harm?), timeframe, priorities.
Avoid collapse of what?, current society? which one? all of them ?
Maximise benefit is the same as reduce harm in its subjectiveness and "everyone" is a big ask given that some perspectives on certain points are potentially mutually exclusive.
A somewhat topical example would be:
"Let everyone get covid-19 by not imposing measures designed to stop the spread, that way the stock market takes less of a plunge because [Insert economic reasons here]"
vs
"Impose measures to follow the model that most analysis(from current data) agrees will minimise the loss of life, at the cost of the stock market taking a hit"
How do you maximise benefit for both parties in that case? only impose half off the measures? who decides what is the fair middle ground ?
I think you already pushed the scenario too far. The best measure to the example you gave is clearly the one we arrived at now. Complete lockdown. Worldwide. There's no discussion about its subjectivity. But the original point/motivation was to avoid getting here in the first place: identify and report potential breakouts early enough. The WHO was too late on this because of the way it's set up and that contributed to getting us to the extreme example you mentioned.
As for subjectivity per se, that's a separate philosophical discussion to me and doesn't have to do much with epidemics. The initital proposition was simple but the discussion drifted (as expected); let's find a better and faster way to prevent outbreaks altogether. There can be no subjectivity/relativity about this - it's a universal imperative.
You simply report/label on a very local level (city/town level) because that's what will really matter for further action. If necessary, report coordinates.
It's a bit disappointing that all the discussion's momentum/energy here got wasted on the letter of the proposition and not the spirit.
Clearly and pragmatically, anyone certified to work directly with patients at a hospital, clinic, etc. is "medical staff" regardless of where they are.
Not entirely sure yet. However, that's exactly why verified, anonymous data reporting would be a good starting point. But I assume your concerns are more about [the difficulty of] neutral funding?
I very much agree here. Have recently ran part of the data through some NLP (incl. AWS Comprehend) and nothing signficant came out. Ended up doing simple free-text or keyword search and only landed on one interesting finding so far: https://twitter.com/yazijys/status/1240465780715683841
Been compiling this list à la patrickcollison.com. The core goal of this is to consolidate good practical and scientific knowledge on the topic in one easy-to-access place/repo, especially that there seems to be a lot of noise currently. Would love to get [critical] feedback from HN and/or connect with anyone who's interested in helping out.
If an organisation gets too big to keep its act together, perhaps it's time to make it more decentralized and dynamic (the original proposition).
I also honestly don't think working as a volunteer would really get you to understand how something like the WHO is being actually run.
I'm not an expert (would never say otherwise). But the world is full of experts locked in dogmas and lacks those couragious enough to break free, look stupid and try new things.