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CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

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Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#101

Post by jeremyjh »

nohat wrote: post #90
grey-area wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This lacklustre response is still going on, the federal government simply isn’t taking this seriously. Trump saying things will open up in just a few weeks and it’s important to restart the economy will cost thousands of lives by encouraging states not to lock down. Full lock down is now the only way out, and as it has spread, that will take months. Testing needs to massively ramp up too. 2000 people died in one day…

Yes, its infuriating but hardly surprising. This is what happens when you don't have a responsible adult in charge during a crisis. The economy does matter, but the longer we wait, the longer we'll have to endure a crippling lockdown. So far some governors have filled in for the missing executive function of this country. Unfortunately that's localized and states simply cannot apply the same level of resources or coo…

All we can hope for from the federal government is that they keep the checkbook open. It would be nice if they would stop dispensing such terrible misinformation but I don't really think that's realistic.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#102

Post by pnw_hazor »

downerending wrote: post #38
acqq wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context matters: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trumps-statements-about-th... "Feb. 26: “And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero , that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” — Trump at a press conference." "Feb. 27: “ It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” — Trump at a White House meeting with African American…

FDA, CDC, etc., are a massive bureaucratic flywheel, and pay little attention to whoever is in the Whitehouse. I'm not sure I'm a fan of Trump's messaging, but I'm under no illusion that it made any difference at all in this.

SK reformed their pandemic response in 2014-2015, the rest of most developed countries left their old plans in place.

I am amazed that anyone expected the CDC, FDA, or other Fed, state, local public health bureaucracies to spring into action doing the best right thing.

They are government bureaucracies that historically bumble around, waste resources, act slowly, are led by career bureaucrats, and so on. Just like other large bureaucratic organizations, expecting them to work in times of crisis is unrealistic.

The CDC and FDA had a plan in place -- developed long before Trump took over, they executed that plan. Unsurprisingly, the plan under produced and came in behind schedule, like many government programs. It is unrealistic to think anything else would have happened.

We have all witnessed government agencies big and small completely drop the ball when it counts. This time is no different.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#103

Post by tobltobs »

watertom wrote: post #37

When China announced they had a mystery virus, travel from China should have been stopped. When China locked down their country, travel from China should have been stopped. When community spread was detected in Washington state, the U.S. should have been locked down. Testing wasn't the problem.

> When community spread was detected in Washington state ... Testing wasn't the problem.

If you detect community spread without testing you are too late anyway.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#105

Post by AlexCoventry »

cadlin wrote: post #66
roenxi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone saw the CDC couldn't scale up in time. Everyone knew the FDA regulation... No way that is possibly true. People realised they didn't have tests. A bunch of people of a liberterian bent or systems thinkers would have picked the FDA as the problem very quickly. But for most people diagnosing and rectifying that sort of snarl in a complex bureaucratic process would have taken about as long as it did. This hap…

Good systems would obviously be desirable, but this is basic executive competence. A US response to a potential pandemic brewing in China should have been a top White House priority since early January. When there are coordination problems, it's the responsibility of the person at the top to sort it out. They didn't even try and fail to fix the problem, they identified an entirely different concern: the threat to the…

The Trump administration has responded quite slowly compared to the Obama administration's response to H1N1. The CDC commenced emergency operations a week after the first H1N1 case was detected, and advised school closings less than a week after that [0]. It seems likely that Trump's unfavorable comparison of the Obama H1N1 response to his COVID-19 response will come back to haunt him [1]. We'd be extremely lucky to get away with only 12,000 US deaths, this time.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-pandemic-tim...

[1] https://www.countable.us/articles/42948-tale-2-pandemics-gov...

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#106

Post by kiba »

omgJustTest wrote: post #61

This article does not mention the WHO offered tests to the US before the CDC decided it should make its own[1]. This alone should have been enough to bring impeachment charges against public officials, for criminal neglect. If the WHO had proven these in China, and you have no other alternative, it make sense to do both 1. buy tests you know are in active use and 2. make your own tests if needed. Someone at the CDC m…

Can we stop threatening criminal negligence charge for every single mistakes people make?

It's not going to improve performance in the next pandemic if people are afraid of doing their job or engages in ass covering.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#107

Post by AlexCoventry »

nohat wrote: post #90
grey-area wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This lacklustre response is still going on, the federal government simply isn’t taking this seriously. Trump saying things will open up in just a few weeks and it’s important to restart the economy will cost thousands of lives by encouraging states not to lock down. Full lock down is now the only way out, and as it has spread, that will take months. Testing needs to massively ramp up too. 2000 people died in one day…

Yes, its infuriating but hardly surprising. This is what happens when you don't have a responsible adult in charge during a crisis. The economy does matter, but the longer we wait, the longer we'll have to endure a crippling lockdown. So far some governors have filled in for the missing executive function of this country. Unfortunately that's localized and states simply cannot apply the same level of resources or coo…

Michael Lewis wrote a whole book about potential scenarios like this which could arise from lack of capable executive leadership.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#108

Post by malandrew »

omgJustTest wrote: post #88
throwaway122378 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your point? The WHO lost all credibility. As late as January 14, 2020 the WHO tweeted that there is NO evidence of human to human transmission of covid-19 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China," - WHO. Sounds like these were preliminary results, which would have been well rectified by February. Wuhan was under quarantine Jan 23. There is a substantial difference in being wrong a month or so after a new virus is discov…

Wuhan was under quarantine on Jan 23rd.

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#109

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ykevinator wrote: post #104

People are blaming trump and while I'm no fan, the cdc is an embarrassment. How many decades did they have to prepare for disease control?

Didn't the Trump administration slash CDC funding?

This claims so:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-cuts-programs-respo...

And here we have him saying "I'm a businessperson. I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them," Trump said. "When we need them, we can get them back very quickly."

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-defend...

Re: CDC coronavirus testing decision likely to haunt nation for months to come

#110

Post by processing »

Getting the test was difficult enough here in California. A bigger problem that isn't being discussed is the delay to get the results. I had a test 10-days ago and still do not have results. Obviously, still self-isolating.

The local health county department have taken over issuing the results. Yesterday, after multiple calls they told me to call the hospital as they don't have an answer. Was able to contact someone today at the hospital - they told me to call the local health department again.

The city keeps issuing updates/running daily conferences with new data (more than likely 1-2 weeks old).

If the US had enough tests at the start - we would probably still be seeing similar data points in the news as the backend infrastructure of issuing results is in no way able to handle the amount of cases as is.

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