Some people have said that the WHO expressly ordered countries to stop using lockdowns. This is Patently false.
This is what the Covid-19 envoy said last October. As usual what is being said here is a vast over simplification of what the hated org actually said.
In response to: A COVID-19 envoy appointed by Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has appealed to world leaders to stop resorting to lockdown to control the pandemic.
Dr David Nabarro, who has spent his career working for the WHO and the United Nations (UN), seems to have marked a departure from the global health body’s early stance on the COVID-19 pandemic, warning about the economic and social consequences of lockdown as a means of controlling the spread of the disease.
On Sunday, Dr Nabarro appealed to world leaders to stop ‘using lockdowns as your primary control method’, insisting that such drastic measures can have a dire impact on global poverty rates.
Speaking to The Spectator, the British doctor stated: ‘We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus.
‘The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.’
Dr Nabarro went on to say that developing economies had been indirectly affected by lockdown measures, adding: ‘Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays.
‘Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world — look what’s happening to poverty levels.
‘It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.’
Dr Nabarro continued: ‘Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.
But lets actually check what WHO's policy actually is on Lockdowns. I know you will be shocked at this, but they don't say stop using lockdowns
In response to: What is WHO’s position on ‘lockdowns’ as a way of fighting COVID-19?
Large scale physical distancing measures and movement restrictions, often referred to as ‘lockdowns’, can slow COVID-19 transmission by limiting contact between people.
However, these measures can have a profound negative impact on individuals, communities, and societies by bringing social and economic life to a near stop. Such measures disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups, including people in poverty, migrants, internally displaced people and refugees, who most often live in overcrowded and under resourced settings, and depend on daily labour for subsistence.
WHO recognizes that at certain points, some countries have had no choice but to issue stay-at-home orders and other measures, to buy time.
Governments must make the most of the extra time granted by ‘lockdown’ measures by doing all they can to build their capacities to detect, isolate, test and care for all cases; trace and quarantine all contacts; engage, empower and enable populations to drive the societal response and more.
WHO is hopeful that countries will use targeted interventions where and when needed, based on the local situation.
As you can see its a much more nuanced approached, recognizing that lockdowns are a damaging tool that are to be used wisely and when necessary. Not forbidden. India could be a case for a lockdown by that definition, so WHO would probably agree with someone like Eprib.
In any case, screaming that situations are all because of WHO banning Lockdowns is hilariously false.