Oddbean

I want to point out that at the start of that pandemic, Taiwanese medical professionals sent a notice to the WHO saying there were concerns of a SARS-like flu outbreak happening in Wuhan. (Literally it was some dude scrolling through posts on the internet and was like "uhh, something sounds fucked"). In the midst of the outbreak, some districts in Wuhan then held a massive hot pot festival, ignoring all warnings. Taiwanese sent a team to Wuhan to investigate to follow up on lab leak rumors. Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. Their results were inconclusive as they could not investigate fully. A whistleblower doctor by the name of Li Wenliang came forward when their hospital was overrun with cases. He died in February 2020 Taiwan then closed their borders. Italy kept theirs opened along with most nations at the WHO guidelines. Closing borders to China was deemed as racist at the start of the pandemic. WHO Director-General Tedros even deemed this closing borders to China as an attack on the WHO by Taiwan (literal nonsense) Taiwan operated fairly normally throughout 2020. Taiwan didn't have it's coronavirus outbreak until mid-2021. World could have been much different if the WHO weren't operating like Chinese lapdogs and closed borders at first warning.