I am a scientist by education, banker at JPMorgan for a few years, then mature PhD student in Chemical Biology at Oxford under the supervision of Christofer Schofield (FRS) and Peter Ratcliffe (Nobel laureate in medicine in 2019).
Nicholas, I have been enjoying (if that is the right word) all the Coronadaily updates. On this most recent one, you touch on the desirability of avoiding a kneejerk reaction against Trump in relation to the WHO saga. If I may, I will comment on the slight mismatch in your article: you talk of Trump on the one hand, and the WHO on the other, whereas in fact your argument correctly addresses possible mis-steps on the part of the WHO leader, Dr Tedros. This perhaps risks taking the failings (alleged or real) of the leader of the WHO and tarring the whole organisation with them, while recognising that under the leadership of Dr Brundtland the WHO played a key role in getting China to open up about SARS. Perhaps one should compare the USA and WHO, or Trump and Tedros, but not Trump and the WHO. Anyway, thank you for your work and your thoughtful daily insights. Jolyon
Jolyon, thanking for taking the time to comment on my post. Very appreciated. As you rightly point out there needs to be a distinction between the narrative that is being played out in the media and the objective and multi-prong debate which needs to happen in this instance for the benefit of global health.
Global health supersedes nations and individuals, and you are right to say that if it gets unnecessarily tangled in rivalry between nations or partisan debates on POTUS, both global health and the WHO will suffer.
It was exactly this mismatch that I wanted to criticise because of how toxic it is and how it prevents us from properly assessing the accountability of leaders and organisations to better our global health ecosystem going forward.
So we need to move away from the various mismatches, objectively scrutinise the potential failings of individuals and organisation, learn from them and take the appropriate actions to move forward with a better ecosystems for the benefits of all.
Nicholas, I have been enjoying (if that is the right word) all the Coronadaily updates. On this most recent one, you touch on the desirability of avoiding a kneejerk reaction against Trump in relation to the WHO saga. If I may, I will comment on the slight mismatch in your article: you talk of Trump on the one hand, and the WHO on the other, whereas in fact your argument correctly addresses possible mis-steps on the part of the WHO leader, Dr Tedros. This perhaps risks taking the failings (alleged or real) of the leader of the WHO and tarring the whole organisation with them, while recognising that under the leadership of Dr Brundtland the WHO played a key role in getting China to open up about SARS. Perhaps one should compare the USA and WHO, or Trump and Tedros, but not Trump and the WHO. Anyway, thank you for your work and your thoughtful daily insights. Jolyon
Jolyon, thanking for taking the time to comment on my post. Very appreciated. As you rightly point out there needs to be a distinction between the narrative that is being played out in the media and the objective and multi-prong debate which needs to happen in this instance for the benefit of global health.
Global health supersedes nations and individuals, and you are right to say that if it gets unnecessarily tangled in rivalry between nations or partisan debates on POTUS, both global health and the WHO will suffer.
It was exactly this mismatch that I wanted to criticise because of how toxic it is and how it prevents us from properly assessing the accountability of leaders and organisations to better our global health ecosystem going forward.
So we need to move away from the various mismatches, objectively scrutinise the potential failings of individuals and organisation, learn from them and take the appropriate actions to move forward with a better ecosystems for the benefits of all.