In this thread, I will show that WHO has been promoting sketchy Chinese data without question since the pandemic started while ignoring human rights abuses.

(I'm not picking on China - my own country is hardly a bastion of freedom - but without Chinese data there's not a shred of evidence that the pandemic originated in China)

I will show that the Chinese Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology (PUE) passive surveillance system is unreliable and that WHO failed to show evidence of an unusual rise in influenza-like-illness in adults in Wuhan during the initial outbreak.

I will show that public health authorities implemented the lockdowns and healthcare slowdowns based on case studies, before a measure of association between the virus and disease was produced.

I will show that once the lockdowns and healthcare slowdowns were implemented, the virus became associated with a multitude of confounding variables that would be expected to increase mortality and morbidity even if the virus isn't unusually virulent, making all subsequent research showing an association between the virus and disease impossible to interpret.

These confounding variables include but aren't limited to: healthcare worker absenteeism, canceled and delayed medical appointments, avoidance of in-person health care due to fear of infection, isolation and quarantine, and reductions in in emergency department utilization during the spring 2020 wave.

Wu, F., Zhao, S., Yu, B. et al. A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China. Nature 579, 265–269 (2020). Reporting Summary
doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-200

WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2:China Part
who.int/publications/i/item/wh
Annex E1 - ILI surveillance supplementary data

Bovbjerg ML. Foundations of Epidemiology. Oregon State University; 2020. open.oregonstate.education/epi

ourworldindata.org/grapher/exc

@covid19
@auscovid19
@bioinformatics

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"China suspends social media accounts criticizing COVID policy...

...Criticism has largely focused on heavy-handed enforcement of regulations, including open-ended travel restrictions that saw people confined to their homes for weeks, sometimes sealed inside without adequate food or medical care.

Anger was also vented over the requirement that anyone who potentially tested positive or had been in contact with such a person be confined for observation in a field hospital, where overcrowding, poor food and hygiene were commonly cited.

The social and economic costs eventually prompted rare street protests in Beijing and other cities, possibly influencing the party’s decision to swiftly ease the strictest measures."

China suspends social media accounts criticizing COVID policy. PBS NewsHour. January 7, 2023. pbs.org/newshour/world/china-s

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