Originally Posted by
slats11
There is more then enough blame to be shared around here.
However, as a WHO member state, China had a responsibility to report what it knew to the WHO in a timely manner. It would appear China crossed this reporting threshold well before the WHO was informed.
China reacted quicker than the US did to the 2009 H1N1 virus and notified the WHO quicker. I didn’t hear any criticism of the US then. Besides it’s up to other countries on how they prepare and how they react to gauge their response.
The countries that would’ve had a greater amount of Chinese travellers are the ones that it borders like South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Thailand and have done much better in controlling their outbreaks rather than Europe and the US who would’ve received a lesser number of travellers. And there was a break. Wuhan was locked down on the 26th of January but infections in Europe and the US didn’t begin to dramatically rise h til March. That means China bought the West at least 5-6 weeks of spare time for them to prepare but they collectively squandered it. South Korea and the US had their first infections confirmed on the same day, but the response of SK has undoubtedly been better than the US.