The WHO was put under tremendous pressure and suffered information-blackout by China. As a result of this blackout, not long-standing policy, the WHO suggested there was no proof of human to human transmission. As a result of this pressure the WHO re-iterated time and time again that banning flights from China would do nothing to curb the outbreak.

> a political posture at best

Even if it was encoded in policy (I will simply acede), it remains a policy based on politics and economic concerns, not a recommendation a scientist would ever give: an aerosolized h2h virus is out there, but it is has no effect to restrict travel from there.

It is weird to me that the opposition seems to be: banning flights is just playing politics. However, saying to not ban flights is science and based on sane protocol.

COVID was once in a 100 years. Not really apt to combat with political policies written in "peace time".

> No, "already Chinese tourists there" is never the reason behind their recommendation.

If the WHO is correct: China did extremely well with virus containment, and set a standard for the rest of the world. And Xi is correct: People fleeing from Wuhan are to be nailed on the pillars of shame for all of eternity. And you are correct: restricting travel is just political and does not nothing to help curb spread.

Then what is this inconsistent reality?

> No comment.

Then no links to ease your search for a truth.

> Interesting, why describe the situation like "a poor master of the house, unprepared to deal with a family"?

This pandemic showed that for maximum security for you and your loved ones, you have to rely on yourself and your own fact-finding. Health generals were telling you not to buy masks as these were not protective. Senators were saying that banning flights would be useless to help curb SARS (in response to Trump, not in response to fact-finding).

You listened, then you took your family to China Town without masks in early March 2020. You listened to the CDC, you were without toilet paper or medical supplies. You listened to China, and you would not prepare.

The officials first botched the response, heavily politicized it, then attacked the "misinformation pandemic" so your aunts facebook post on turmeric would be blocked for promoting false cures, and your uncles facebook post on the WIV would be blocked for racist conspiracy.

Or maybe you had an oxymeter, supplies of vitamins, masks, gloves, glasses, rubbing alcohol, vaporizer, routes to hospitals with occupancy, and 2 weeks of canned food. Maybe you informed your nearest ones, when doctors and virologists on TV were comparing COVID to heart attacks.

> You must be jesting, no?

A bit. I knew it would be perceived as a Trumpian: Just don't test, then we won't know, and what we won't know can't be a problem. But maybe you can re-read in the most favorable manner you can muster and take more from it than a joke: By the time we were bickering about tests, their availability, and effectiveness, there was already wide local community spread in the major cities. This stage demanded a different approach. Contact tracing resulting from a positive test would be a drop in a bucket. Test, say, 95%, and now you have exact numbers of something you already know in general to be true. Now what? Personalized quarantine efforts costing billions, while 5% goes on their merry way?

Italy dumped all their tests in a week to get an overview of their situation. Result: Formally, the problem got worse (they know the extend exactly), and a shortage of tests followed where doctors had to sail blind and just assume it was COVID for everyone with pneumonia.

> relevant and specific testing at the beginning of the pandemic was the biggest reason why data were hard to collect, why evidence of H2H transmission were delayed in confirmation, and why CFR, R+, and other stats were not correctly estimated.

It was a reason, I'll give you that. The biggest reason was China not being clear with information sharing. The WHO supporting that, because "now is not the time to point fingers", and countries either underestimating, or forced to overestimate (like the UK was forced to treat this very severely).

> more time enabled further study on the virus, and it's found to survive supply chains of frozen products.

No we already knew by then that coronavirus could survive on plastics for days. That active SARS was known to survive in sewage system for weeks, and demanded extra chlorination.

But there was more time to allow for a cover-up and produce an alternative story.

> You do realize that we are dealing with a new virus and scientist can make discovery about the new virus that could cause related policy to shift a 180.

No. It was extremely useful, and still is, to treat this virus as SARS-1. SARS-2 is unlikely to be constructively different, no matter if epistemic science takes years to validate a hypothesis.

Ask yourself why an initial policy was 180 different from a policy that would be sane for a precursor disease?

> Not sure what's your point? Again, travel restriction against a single country were not helping, nor going to help.

The point is that curbing travel from a country that is suffering an outbreak is effective against fighting that outbreak. Not 100%, but nobody is claiming that. There is water on the floor, you close the tap before you start mopping.

Banning travel from China helped, it would have helped a lot more if done earlier, and doing it the next time is going to help combat spread.

Asymptomatic spread is only a reason for travel bans (which target everyone from the epicenter, not just visibly ill people, who are "strongly advised" to not travel). Not a reason for throwing your hands in the air and going: Now it won't help at all!