> Telling countries they shouldn't close their borders for fear of "creating stigma"
That's a huge misrepresentation of why WHO made those recommendations. The main point is that closing borders is ineffective and so you end up with only the negatives of doing that (and WHO stressed more the negatives around how it affects global supply chains and such for medical things).
'World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that widespread travel bans and restrictions weren’t needed to stop the outbreak and could "have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit."' [1]
Of course now pretty much every country has closed their borders or at least severely restricted travel, and they did that because it works. But we have lost weeks without using a major tool to prevent virus spread, because of this virtue signalling that has cost lives.
That's a huge misrepresentation of why WHO made those recommendations. The main point is that closing borders is ineffective and so you end up with only the negatives of doing that (and WHO stressed more the negatives around how it affects global supply chains and such for medical things).