BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

Pochsy wrote:

Ok, but can we add the qualification that Trump is only an aspiring authoritarian or dictator? I don't think he's consciously doing anything because he probably doesn't know what these words even mean. He's too incompetent to impose any sort of order. It's just pure chaos. I'd judge him as running a kakistocracy

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

old - Pritzker arranging secret flights from China to bring millions of masks and gloves to Illinois 4/14
The governor is worried President Trump might try to seize the supplies for the federal stockpile so he’s keeping the details quiet, a source said.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronaviru … oronavirus

Great coordination btw.

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

old - Pritzker arranging secret flights from China to bring millions of masks and gloves to Illinois 4/14
The governor is worried President Trump might try to seize the supplies for the federal stockpile so he’s keeping the details quiet, a source said.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronaviru … oronavirus

Great coordination btw.

sounds like a conspiracy theory

https://www.gq.com/story/trump-admin-co … s-supplies

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

sounds like a conspiracy theory

https://www.gq.com/story/trump-admin-co … s-supplies

That didn't really clear it up either, now did it? Halfway down they talked about PPE being redistributed to states based on need.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-13 18:18:59)

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

https://www.gq.com/story/trump-admin-co … s-supplies

That didn't really clear it up either, now did it? Halfway down they talked about PPE being redistributed to states based on need.

it's clearly working well. you have the worst outbreak of coronavirus IN THE WORLD.

it's almost like your federal leadership ... have totally ... dropped the ball ...

DesertFox- wrote:

I've had similar discussions with people who "don't follow politics" but have remarked, "why are you so angry about [various examples of blatant corruption/self-dealing/cronyism/incompetence]?" It does seem to be a case of if you're not angry, you aren't paying attention. So many people handwave away the unprecedented corrupt behavior by saying things like "all politicians lie" or "both sides are extreme" while citing no specific examples to those claims. It's a sort of eNlIgHtEnEd CeNtRiSm that allows them to remove the onus of knowing things and just getting that quick smug self-satisfaction. Even the Republicans I know who allegedly aren't pleased with the administration (and they shouldn't be, because a competent guy would've been way more effective) still just share Fox News things about hardcore leftists like *checks notes* Nancy Pelosi.

I have been interested to get in another argument recently because I've become very curious, similar to something that happened recently on here, to know what these right wingers consider "left". It was odd enough that CNN got so much flak from Trump and his ilk as a network that is pretty middle of the road to favorable for enabling him. Pretty much all TV news is garbage and generally, they don't seem to be super knowledgeable about politics, so I'm not expecting to hear anything like Jacobin or Current Affairs name-dropped.

uziq wrote:

do you need to be reminded for the fifth time of the early chronology of the outbreak?

officials and labs in washington were DENIED permission to test for covid-19 in december/january.

the federal government actually hampered/harmed efforts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/t … demic.html

It is generally accepted that widespread testing will be key to successful control of Covid-19. Identifying where the virus has (and has not) spread, who is infected, and who may be immune are all important. The tracing and isolation of infected and potentially infected individuals is essential if quarantine and containment efforts are to be targeted. Yet as ProPublica reports:

The lack of testing continues to be a source of deep frustration across the country, with worried patients unable to find out whether they have the ordinary flu, the coronavirus or something else entirely. The availability of testing in regions that aren't hot spots still faces an array of bottlenecks, from shortages of cotton swabs to the capacity of the labs processing the tests.

Why isn't there more testing? And why haven't we been able to ensure testing occurs where necessary? Among other things, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) focused on the development of its own test and discouraged the development of alternatives by others. This turned out to be a particularly bad misstep because the CDC's test was not particularly accurate.

A new investigative report from USA Today paints an even more damning picture of a CDC that simultaneously sought to monopolize testing while deceiving state officials about its capacity, As a consequence, parallel efforts to develop and produce tests in private labs were set back, placing the United States well behind the curve of where we needed to be.

From its biggest cities to its smallest towns, America's chance to contain the coronavirus crisis came and went in the seven weeks since U.S. health officials botched the testing rollout and then misled scientists in state laboratories about this critical early failure. Federal regulators failed to recognize the spiraling disaster and were slow to relax the rules that prevented labs and major hospitals from advancing a backup.

Scientists around the country found themselves shackled as the disease spread.

"We were watching a tsunami and standing there frozen," said Dr. Debra Wadford, director of the public viral disease laboratory in California, where some of the country's earliest patients were identified.

The nation's public health pillars — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration — shirked their responsibility to protect Americans in an emergency like this new coronavirus, USA TODAY found in interviews with dozens of scientists, public health experts and community leaders, as well as email communications between laboratories and hospitals across the country.

The result was a cascading series of failures now costing lives.

As they say, read the whole thing.

The reality is that if it were not for some of the actions taken by the CDC, and the Food and Drug Administration, the United States would have had a greater number of more reliable coronavirus tests available for use far more quickly. We might have even been ahead of the curve.

Another report from ProPublica further supplements the picture of a CDC that fumbled some of its key responsibilities, revealing some of the problems of trying to quarterback the nation's entire response from within a few expert offices.

These stories highlight that scientific and technical expertise does not necessarily translate into administrative expertise. Centralized bureaucratic structures face inherent limitations that make them brittle and magnify the costs of failure. No amount of medical expertise can overcome the Hayekian knowledge problem, and the more centralized the government response, the greater the downside risk if someone makes a mistake, such as by underestimating a threat or distributing a botched test.

Institutions such as the CDC and FDA are important, but they also have their limitations. One of the lessons from the Covid-19 outbreak thus far is that giving them to much power and responsibility can have serious negative consequences.

DesertFox- wrote:

I've had similar discussions with people who "don't follow politics" but have remarked, "why are you so angry about [various examples of blatant corruption/self-dealing/cronyism/incompetence]?" It does seem to be a case of if you're not angry, you aren't paying attention.

Even the Republicans I know who allegedly aren't pleased with the administration (and they shouldn't be, because a competent guy would've been way more effective) still just share Fox News things about hardcore leftists like *checks notes* Nancy Pelosi.

uziq wrote:

why did they refuse WHO tests?