Sunday, May 03, 2020


World Health Organization Unresponsive to Queries on COVID Recommendations and Timelines

"We haven't any alternative pitched to us [from the World Health Organization] at all. There could be perhaps an alternative pitch, which we would consider."
We asked for him [Canadian Dr.Bruce Aylward, WHO senior advisor] just to show up for an hour knowing that his time is valuable, but just one hour knowing that we would work around his time zone."
Canadian Member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux

"WHO has stated its strong commitment to a timely review of the global response in a transparent, independent and comprehensive manner."
"We are in the initial phase of the most complex and time-sensitive public health response in the history of the organization and our single-minded focus is thus on working with countries in the fight against the [global SARS-CoV-2] pandemic."
Canadian House of Commons Committee letter to WHO 

 "To me this is not about politics. I am not there [on the committee] to delve into the politics of the WHO. I am purely interested in their information and the way they responded to the COVID-19 crisis."
"I don't understand the difference. If he is prepared to come forward and on the record answer questions, why wouldn't he want to do that with our committee."
Member of Parliament Don Davies
Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organisation (WHO) attends a news conference of the WHO-China Joint Mission about its investigation of the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, China, Feb. 24, 2020. Thomas Peter/Reuters

The World Health Organization has been criticized for giving the impression by its actions and statements clearly in favour of the Chinese response to the novel coronavirus, that its behaviour toward the Chinese Communist Party leadership is simply too deferential when its mandate is meant to be strictly objectively scientific in orientation, ensuring its guidance and advice to the world's nations is without bias, based strictly on medical science and factual evidence.

Not only has its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, come under suspicion for the perceived unctuousness he displays toward China's Xi Jinping but that suspicion has now extended toward the former assistant director general of the World Health Organization who led an expert group examining the coronavirus' emergence in China. Dr.Aylward, in an interview with a television station out of Hong Kong where the issue of Taiwan was raised, terminated the interview rather than respond.

And because the WHO through Dr.Tedros initially praised the Chinese response and parroted its findings on human-to-human transmission, and played down the impending seriousness of the growing infection and death rate just as China did, leading to the international community being lulled into a state of complacency when a state of immediate alert should have been mandated, many countries' authorities have questions they would like answers to from the WHO.

COVID-19
Resident doctor Kelvin Lou puts a CVC line into a patient in a COVID suspect room in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul's hospital in downtown Vancouver, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Jonathan Hayward)

To that end, the Canadian House of Commons committee looking into the issue had twice invited Dr. Aylward to come before them to respond to a number of queries relating to the novel coronavirus. To each of those invitations, Dr.Aylward responded in the negative. Had he recommended the presence of a senor aid to represent him, who would answer those questions, the committee would have accepted that as a reasonable alternative, but no such offer was forthcoming.

The UN agency's legal counsel responded to the committee by letter following the first invitation when counsel Derek Walton advised the agency is prepared for its decisions to undergo a full review, but not at the present. To which the head of the parliamentary committee, MP Jeneroux pointed out that Dr.Aylward has given time for media interviews, and as such it appears reasonable for him to spare time for an appearance before the committee representing his own government as a citizen of Canada.

That, since the Canadian response to the crisis of this global pandemic that has impacted so heavily around the world as an infectious disease afflicting over a million people worldwide with steadily growing numbers, while 244,000 people have died so far from its complications, the issues are of monumental importance. All the more so that the crisis and its response, driven by recommendations from the WHO, makes it incumbent on that body to be responsible for itself to the very audience so dependent on its guidance.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer,  Blair Gable / Reuters


The World Health Organization had been unequivocal, recommending against travel restrictions and border closings initially, with a side note that it would be 'racist' to close borders to China. They also advised against the use of protective masks by the public. Recommendations which Canada's chief public health officer, Dr.Theresa Tam, was guided by as she agreed with the WHO's recommendations before eventually changing her opinion over those issues.

PHAC Coronavirus Map of Canada
Provided by: Public Health Agency of Canada



COVID World Cases

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, May 03, 2020

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Efficient Agronomy

"Food is the mother of all sustainability challenges."
"We can't get below two degrees without major changes to this system."
Janet Ranganathan, vice-president, World Resources Institute

"We wanted to avoid relying on magic asterisks."
"We could imagine a significant shift from beef to chicken, and that by itself goes a long way [since poultry production has a far lesser impact on the climate as opposed to beef production]."
Timothy D. Searchinger, researcher, Princeton University, New Jersey

"In the past, we've often seen agricultural policies and conservation policies moving in parallel without a lot of interaction."
"The big challenge is to link the two, so that we get more intensive farming without using more land."
Linus Blomqvist, director, Breakthrough Institute, California
We’re not managing our crops to support global nutritional needs: In fact, we use a disproportionate amount of land used to grow grains, fats, oils, and sugar, and not enough land to grow the fruits and vegetables that we need to survive    Motherboard


A new study by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group in Washington, concluded that if meaningful progress on climate change is to be achieved agriculture will have to change. Radically different, more efficient farming and cultivation will have to be part of the picture as well as demands for cleaner operating vehicles and factories. Wheat fields and cattle will have to be part of the picture. Both to feed a larger world population and to deal with the reality of climate change.

The world's agricultural system, warns the report, requires dramatic alternation in the coming decades before a climate catastrophe is triggered. Agriculture occupies about 40 percent of the world's land, is responsible for roughly a quarter of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions at the present time. By 2050 it is anticipated that the world population will grow to ten billion from its current 7.2 billion, leading to more people eating more meat with its concomitant environmental impact.

The report's authors state world agricultural production would require a 45 percent increase in calories in 2050 as compared to 2010. Farmers and ranchers, they suggest, clearing more forests and using other ecosystems for cropland and pasture would transform an area twice the size of India to meet that growing demand if they proceed as has traditionally been the response to a growing need to produce more foodstuffs.

Global food production (blue bars) are from FAO (2011) data and nutritional recommendations (orange ...

Doing so would make it impossibly difficult to remain below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, the target agreed as an international goal. When forests are cleared, there is a release of carbon they have stored in trees, and that release results in atmospheric change. Most agree that consumers for their own health and the health of the environment should turn to consuming more vegetables and less meat, and waste less food already available.

The recommendation is to cut meat consumption to 1.5 servings a week of beef and lamb, the two meat types typically involving large environmental footprints. Broad strategies to grow more food on existing agricultural land while cutting emissions is the goal, requiring a major shift in farming techniques worldwide, along with technological advances; new chemical compounds to help prevent nitrogen fertilizer produce nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, as an example.

Feed additives where cattle burp up less methane -- a recognized contributor to global warming -- is being explored by scientists. Strategies meant to improve productivity of existing croplands and pastures, paired with more rigorous conservation policies in protection of existing forests in Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa, represents yet another vision for the future, as an example.

Untitled



Labels: , , ,

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 26, 2019

Follow @rheytah Tweet