Maria Van Kerkhove, of the World Health Organization, is worried about Covid. If she's worried, then the shit has really hit the fan.
Van Kerkhove is well known to have said, over and over, that Covid-19 is not airborne so masks aren't necessary despite it being known to be airborne by January 2020. There's a compilation video of her near the bottom of this post. Some mark September 2023 as the very first time she acknowledged that it IS in fact airborne!! She's less well known for being pivotal in the virus being called Covid-19 instead of SARS2 due to the negative connotation of SARS. She's been a minimizer from the get go. Then something changed. It didn't go away; it got a lot worse.
On December 30th, she tweeted:
"JN.1 continues to rise in detection, but what matters to you is that Covid-19 is circulating in ALL countries. You CAN protect yourself from infection and severe disease. Mask, ventilate, test, treat, vaccinate: boost every 6-12 months depending on your risk group."
Telling people to wear a mask is absolutely huge for her!! I'm not surprised she advises boosters at 6-12 months instead of the 3-6 months recommended by studies that show how quickly we lose protection, but it's one of the best messages I've seen from the WHO.
Then on the 31st she said much more. She doesn't mention masks or N95s at all, but does refer to PPE (which could mean any protective equipment, like gloves).
"Long thread on Covid-19 and where we are. I'm worried.
We are entering the 5th year of the pandemic and we are certainly in a different phase. This phase is marked by an evolving virus (with the XBB and BA.2 sublineages circulating and JN.1 becoming dominant). It’s marked by reduced impact compared to the peak of Covid-19 a few years ago, but it’s still a global health threat and it’s still a pandemic causing far too many (re)infections, hospitalisations, deaths and long covid when tools exist to prevent them. It’s marked by co-circulation of many other pathogens eg flu, mycoplasma, RSV, etc. Cases and hospitalisations for Covid-19 have been on the rise for months. Hospitals in many countries are burdened and overwhelmed from Covid and other pathogens, and deaths are on the rise. It’s marked by complacency.
I will never accept that there is an “acceptable level of dearth” (something I’m asked) for Covid-19. We are talking about people, parents, children, people who laugh, love, dream. I wrote this last March and this still applies."
In the thread she links from March 11, 2023, she says, in part,
"WHO had published the first PCR test methodology so that the world could start testing and caring for patients . . . unfortunately, too few listened and too few took enough action to limit the spread. . . . We can, and I believe we will, end the emergency of Covid-19 this year."
Then in May 2023, the WHO declared the emergency over! She called it!
I have real issues with the way the WHO handled it all, and then to have the gall to suggest the problem was that we didn't listen!! It's like saying it's fine to drink and drive for years, doing it yourself often and publicly, then publishing something that shows it's dangerous, and complaining that nobody listened, so it's their own damn fault that so many people died! I've still never seen her wear an N95.
Anyway, back to the original thread from Dec. 31:
"Governments must not be complacent, individuals must not be complacent. We have all gone through something traumatic with Covid-19. The world shut down, we lost millions of our loved ones, billions have been personally affected by Covid. We cannot forget. WHO will not forget. The legacy of Covid-19 must be strengthened health systems, with agility to scale up and down, to protect communities and health workers, improve the air we breathe, to provide access to safe, reliable and affordable PPE, tests, treatments and vaccines to ALL people in ALL countries. To ensure we have comprehensive surveillance and sequencing systems that allow robust risk assessment to inform and empower people with good info. To protect and advance science. To support scientists and innovation and accept that as we learn, we change, we adjust, we course correct.
I’m worried that too many think Covid-19 is not something to worry about, that they need a new variant with a Greek letter to take this virus seriously. When we need to assign a Greek letter, we will not hesitate."
Okay, this is another huge issue raised by many, like T. Ryan Gregory and Arijit Chakravarty, because the WHO won't acknowledge significantly different variants, keeping a wide variety of mutations all under the label "Omicron" despite the vast differences between them, likely in order to keep the public placated. It's not that people need a new Greek letter, but that the WHO should be assigning new letters when variants are a significantly new mutation, instead of just, you know, doing nothing. Back to Maria's epistle:
"I’m worried we so badly want to move on that governments, many of whom have new leadership and have moved on, will forget the overflowing hospitals, the tents in parking lots for the sick, refrigerated trucks serving as morgues, burial grounds, fire pyres, exhausted health workers…We can’t forget those who died alone and the people dying now - thousands each week. The hundreds of thousands in hospital right now fighting for their lives. Those suffering from Long Covid struggling each and every day….These memories -still fresh- need to fuel and finance better health systems, equity, pandemic preparedness for current (Covid-19) and future threats IN THE CONTEXT of all of our other challenges of war, displacement, climate change. We have to do better. It’s hard. #PandemicAccord. As individuals, we are mourning, we are trying to heal, we are dealing with our own mental and physical health - I am trying to work on mine too - because what we went through was not “normal”. The Covid-19 pandemic was not normal. It didn’t have to be this bad… and this wasn’t even the worst pandemic we need to prepare for.
So let’s talk the positive and the future because, while I’m worried, I’m also hopeful and optimistic. I’m inspired by science, by innovation, by spirit and drive, by health workers and by my WHO colleagues who - every single day - are on the front lines helping people whether this is in war zones or driving scientists to address unknowns to provide health solutions for people. I’m grateful for science and innovation of PPE, improving ventilation, improving trust and communication, diagnostics, medications and clinical care, vaccines, I’m thankful for the global advancements in surveillance, PCR and sequencing capacities, IPC, clinical care, emergency……medical teams, vaccine delivery, supply chain management, risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management, mass gathering management, emergency operations and coordination, R&D, etc. These advancements must be maintained to deal with Covid-19 and all pathogens that have epidemic and pandemic potential: flu, dengue, mpox, cholera, nipah, Marburg, Ebola, RVF, CCHF, plague, MERS-CoV … and the next disease X. I’m optimistic because of the good in people around the world despite the challenges we face. I’m optimistic because of the good in my colleagues WHO led by Dr. Tedros and Dr. Mike Ryan."
Ummm... It definitely didn't have to be this bad, absolutely, but Dr. Tedros and Dr. Ryan are the very people who caused so many people to wash their hands instead of wearing an N95! They caused the spread to increase by willfully communicating inaccurate information to the masses. On February 11, 2020, Tedros said it's airborne (at 40:29 - "Corona is airborne; it's more contagious [than Ebola] and you have seen it how it went into 24 countries"), and Ryan whispered something to him, then Tedros corrected himself (at 46 minutes in) with, "Sorry I used the military word airborne. It meant to spread by a droplet or respiratory transmission. Please take it that way, not the military language," which has got to be one of the all time most botched cover ups ever. And then millions died despite having squeaky clean hands, like in that choir superspreader in March 2020, where they followed the WHO's directions to the letter, all carefully used hand sanitizer and didn't hug each other and stood well apart inside a closed room and believed that kept them safe, and then people died.
Maria goes on,
"About a year ago, I ended a talk at RPI with four questions and most of my talks now are structured around versions of these questions:1) Do you remember? Do you really remember the first time you heard of this virus, this cluster of pneumonia in China? The fear of the unknown? The waiting for patients to reach your hospitals? 2) What will you do different? The next time … because it will happen again? 3) How will your work contribute now and for the next one? In whatever role you have… Because each of you played a role in this one and will in the next…. Thank you for your work. 4) How can you do better? I ask myself that every day, and I get up and try. WHO is a learning organization and we have incredible people who work so hard - with the abilities provided to us by our member states - every. single. day.
We make mistakes. I make mistakes. But I get back out there every day and try to do better. I’m in the arena. This is a huge responsibility I take seriously. Last question: what are you doing? Your life is precious. You have so much to contribute. Make a positive difference. Be kind. Stay alive. Live a happy, healthy and fulfilled life. Thank you health workers. Thank you public health professionals and scientists. Thank you community and youth leaders. Thank you CSOs and @WHO partners. Thank you all Happy 2024 everyone!"
On the one hand, it's great she sees the errors of her ways and has corrected them, but this is by no means an apology for that. This is an "Oh well, we all make mistakes" brush off. "Stay alive"?? Gee, thanks for the advice. How do we do that when it's not possible to walk into a store, school, or healthcare facility or take public transit without being surrounded by people unmasked despite the virus mainly spreading through asymptomatic transmission?? We're on our own, folks. Here's hoping we can make it through another year of this bullshit, and please wear an N95 whenever you're in a public place.
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BASICS REMINDER: Most Covid transmission is from people who look and feel completely healthy. Exhaling unmasked can send Covid across a room in minutes, where it hangs in the air for hours like cigarette smoke. Vaccines help reduce severity of cases, but can't eliminate transmission and wane in effectiveness within months because Covid mutates so fast (because of all the spread!). It takes seconds to inhale Covid where it gets into cells all over the body, able to hibernate and affect the brain, heart, and other organs. N95s trap Covid using inertial impaction, diffusion, interception, and electrostatic attraction. They really work!! Covid's the #3 killer in Canada, and we don't know how many people it has disabled. Avoid being one of them. There is no treatment, only prevention. Be wise with N95s!
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