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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

#261

Post by wutbrodo »

greedo wrote: post #245
robomartin wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being kind. From my perspective, the ineptitude and mismanagement easily goes back 50 years, not 20. It's sad to see so many people blinded by the hatred aimed at Trump to be completely blind to how it is we got here. A simple example from data that came out today: Governor Cuomo refused to buy 16,000 ventilators in 2015, when he was told they would be needed for an event such as what we are experiencing. Rem…

Most of my life I've been told that government is horrible, and that the most terrifying thing to hear is "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." When an entire generation hears the demonization of civil service (though not military service), then it's no wonder that we end up with a government that can't serve us.

This is an odd conclusion to draw. You're saying that people call the government incompetent, and now they're demonstrating incompetence, and you're convinced that the causality flows from the former to the latter?

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

#262

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #221
aazaa wrote: post #121

The damage will be much longer lasting than this. The Chinese bought the US precious weeks to prepare while it locked down vast numbers of its own population. The disaster could have been prevented through a vigorous testing/quarrantine program in Washington and California. At every step of the way the US either bungled testing, or actively discouraged testing. It's been nothing but lies and mistakes from the start.…

> The Chinese bought the US precious weeks to prepare while it locked down vast numbers of its own population. This could all have been stopped if the CPC had acted earlier, not covered it up, not lied about human to human transmission, not advised that travel restriction and testing were unnecessary. > Dec. 27: Wuhan health officials are told that a new coronavirus is causing the illness. > Jan. 1: Wuhan Public Secu…

That's true but its impacts could have been significantly reduced here if the US government hadn't covered it up either, or if Trump didn't dismiss it as a hoax.

Trump did the same damn thing as China. And they all did it for the same damn selfish reason. Money and power.

The west has deteriorated, that much is clear, and a big reason why clearly incapable populists, benefiting from information warfare, have taken many positions in western government.

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

#263

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

air7 wrote: post #169
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feb 1st in Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/tests-for-coronavirus-us-mig... Feb 12th in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-k... Feb 12th in LiveScience: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-testing-kits-flawed.... Feb 12th from Physicians Weekly: https://www.physiciansweekly.com/some-u-s-states-launch/ Feb 13th on FoxNews: https://www.foxnews.com/health/some-co…

I think the Media the-boy-who-cried-wolf itself. There are scares all the time and people grew (rightly) indifferent. Imagine a responsible media that's not out looking for click grabbing headlines all of a sudden mentioning a would-be pandemic...

You're right. A fair, unbiased media is key for western government as we know it.

There is so much misinformation everywhere, and it has been exacerbated by the internet.

It's not hard to see why many distrust the media these days. And that's extremely problematic.

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

#264

Post by viklove »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #262
barry-cotter wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese bought the US precious weeks to prepare while it locked down vast numbers of its own population. This could all have been stopped if the CPC had acted earlier, not covered it up, not lied about human to human transmission, not advised that travel restriction and testing were unnecessary. > Dec. 27: Wuhan health officials are told that a new coronavirus is causing the illness. > Jan. 1: Wuhan Public Secu…

That's true but its impacts could have been significantly reduced here if the US government hadn't covered it up either, or if Trump didn't dismiss it as a hoax. Trump did the same damn thing as China. And they all did it for the same damn selfish reason. Money and power. The west has deteriorated, that much is clear, and a big reason why clearly incapable populists, benefiting from information warfare, have taken ma…

What did the US cover up? Yes Trump is incompetent, but that's pretty different than spreading known lies about it (like stating there was no human-human transmission), or hiding cases from the international community.

> and a big reason why clearly incapable populists

No, the reason is that in the west we're more resistive to storm troopers locking us into buildings and arresting people for being in public. An authoritarian nation that regularly suppresses free speech is obviously going to have an easier time dealing with this type of problem, but that's not something to admire.

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

#265

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

Gatsky wrote: post #119

The problem is a global lack of preparation for a pandemic of this nature, despite multiple warning shots in the last couple of decades. The problem is incompetent, complacent government, and the political processes which enable it, and lately, even reward it. Blaming the CDC seems pointless. There are any number of institutions which could have done better. The thing is you don't want to be relying on everything goi…

Complacency will always exist in places that are complacent.

There's a reason empires fall and superpowers crumble. Most of the time it isn't one decisive battle or event. It is slow, ever growing rot and corrosion, forever pushing forward while most don't even notice because they're comfortable.

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

#266

Post by kweinber »

meddlepal wrote: post #186
JDulin wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These problems are not due to an "administration". The rot of American institutions is deep. The competence and coherence of the entire American civil service and civil life has fallen precipitously in the last 20 years, and, in part because of their irrational fixation on this administration, people still cannot wrap theirs head around the fact that problem is in personnel and structure. The CDC botched the developm…

This so much. The system is absolutely corrupt and broken to the core. Poor leadership exacerbates the problem but it is not the fault of poor leadership. We've merely been coping with the horrible brokenness of our system for decades.

I see this logic a lot and I don’t understand it. The current administration dismantled the departments we needed, left whole organizations leaderless, and prompted the brain drain of nearly 1500 scientists from the federal government.

... yet your argument is that they are blameless in the poor performance that followed because of historical factors?

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

#267

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

viklove wrote: post #264
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true but its impacts could have been significantly reduced here if the US government hadn't covered it up either, or if Trump didn't dismiss it as a hoax. Trump did the same damn thing as China. And they all did it for the same damn selfish reason. Money and power. The west has deteriorated, that much is clear, and a big reason why clearly incapable populists, benefiting from information warfare, have taken ma…

What did the US cover up? Yes Trump is incompetent, but that's pretty different than spreading known lies about it (like stating there was no human-human transmission), or hiding cases from the international community. > and a big reason why clearly incapable populists No, the reason is that in the west we're more resistive to storm troopers locking us into buildings and arresting people for being in public. An autho…

> And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.

> So a number that nobody heard of that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it, 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? 35,000. That’s a lot of people. It could go to 100,000, it could be 27,000, they say usually a minimum of 27, it goes up to 100,000 people a year who die, and so far we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t, and we are totally prepared, it doesn’t mean we won’t. But think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people, and we’ve lost nobody, and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.

- POTUS

> No, the reason is that in the west we're more resistive to storm troopers locking us into buildings and arresting people for being in public. An authoritarian nation that regularly suppresses free speech is obviously going to have an easier time dealing with this type of problem, but that's not something to admire.

I think you've taken my paragraph out of context. I was talking about the deterioration of the west as a world leader and power - not the corona virus outbreak here.

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

#268

Post by gojomo »

JDulin wrote: post #170
aazaa wrote: post #121

The damage will be much longer lasting than this. The Chinese bought the US precious weeks to prepare while it locked down vast numbers of its own population. The disaster could have been prevented through a vigorous testing/quarrantine program in Washington and California. At every step of the way the US either bungled testing, or actively discouraged testing. It's been nothing but lies and mistakes from the start.…

These problems are not due to an "administration". The rot of American institutions is deep. The competence and coherence of the entire American civil service and civil life has fallen precipitously in the last 20 years, and, in part because of their irrational fixation on this administration, people still cannot wrap theirs head around the fact that problem is in personnel and structure. The CDC botched the developm…

Yes, it's not just the current heel in the top job, but there were a lot of unforced errors owing to his team's problems.

Trump's a germaphobe, & a deregulator, & big on border security.

But he left the pandemic office in the White House go unfilled, & his CDC eliminated an in-China monitoring position, & he proposed additional cuts.

After initially considering people like FDA critic & aggressive deregulator Balaji Srinivasan as FDA Chair, that was ignored as a priority – & FDA delays in approving alternate, distributed diagnostics added weeks or months of delay to testing capabilities. Even now FDA inspection delays have medical supplies from reliable, longtime suppliers held from delivery. The steps the FDA has finally taken are waivers they could have granted by administrative fiat months ago. And key discoveries of community-spread in the US required researchers to disregard CDC guidance. (The agency designed to sound the alarm had instead removed the batteries from the smoke detector!)

And while countries with a sense of seriousness about foreign disease threats have closely monitored visitors by origin-of-travel, recent countries visited, and fever-monitoring from early-on, even when Italy was in full outbreak there were no health-screenings or fever-monitoring on US arrivals from there. Trump responded late, with crude bans by entire country-of-origin, even when those countries have no greater prevalence-of-community-spread than the US itself.

So yes, the rot is deep and crosses multiple administrations. But the current Administration is also especially inept, even in areas like disease, deregulation, and borders where they've touted their vigilance.

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

#269

Post by kweinber »

notJim wrote: post #154
jeromegv wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the current growth of cases, it looks like the situation in the US will be way worse than other western nations. Even when you adjust for population size.

Is this true? I thought the hot spots in the US locked down earlier (in terms of case counts/deaths) than other countries. But I haven't looked into it very much.

It only feels like the US locked down earlier because we were under the false impression that we got the virus later than Europe.

Indeed we probably got the virus at the same time as European countries but had no idea because we didn’t test....that’s why we have more cases than any other nation except Italy and China (and soon will have more than Italy).

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

#270

Post by throwaway122378 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #86
throwaway122378 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On 1/24/20 the WHO said there’s no human to human transmission of covid-19 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20 They are to blame as much as anyone else

WHO isn't faultless, but that's a fairly misrepresentative version of what that Tweet actually says.. "WHO said there's no human to human transmission" vs. > 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.

It was 1/23/20. Wuhan was under lockdown but there was no clear evidence of human to human transfer? Cmon
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