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The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

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Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#131

Post by msrpotus »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #115
icegreentea2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd make a stronger argument by instead of making a military or other things argument, and just make a 'fund other things more' argument. The reason I think you should stay away from pointing fingers, especially at a relatively divisive issue like military or especially aircraft carrier funding is because then you shift a question of "should American be world leading in commercial air travel regulation, pan…

$35 billion is an EXTRAORDINARY amount of money. It's the economic output of Vermont, a state with 630,000 people.

And the US as a whole is 500x the population of Vermont.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#132

Post by linuxftw »

mudsnail wrote: post #120
vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

Or maybe instead of throwing more money at the problem we can face up to the fact that our democratic system is broken. That these institutions have been politicized over the years and are being run by people who are good at playing the game versus being good at their jobs.

Right. It's not a question of money, it's a question of competence and corruption. When you point out that government agencies are a revolving door of industry executives people think you're insane.

Just look at the FAA and letting Boeing 'self-certify.' That seems to be how the FDA does business as well.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#133

Post by mav3rick »

hourislate wrote: post #53

Woulda,shoulda,coulda... We live in a very different world today where someone can get on a plane and spread a virus across the planet in a matter of days. The only hope in containment was that the virus didn't spread easily. The best solution that I can think of that may have stopped the spread of the virus would've been giving everyone as many N95 masks as needed and make wearing them mandatory. Unfortunately it wa…

The country still refuses to wear masks. Led behind a president who refuses to wear masks. This is literally the minimum he could do.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#134

Post by philwelch »

vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

Completely abolishing the FDA would have been an improvement in this case since the FDA became an impediment to testing, and would have saved money to boot. I’m not saying to abolish the FDA; I’m just saying that underfunding it wasn’t the problem.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#135

Post by fauigerzigerk »

Lineup wrote: post #121
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So instead of an exchange rate conversion, you should be doing a purchasing-power conversion. For these three countries, that means multiplying by 3x or 4x. Where did you get those numbers from? According to the OECD the renminbi PPP rate is 4.198 whereas the the current exchange rate is 7. That's 1.67x not 3x. https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...

Now equalize labor cost... tada!

PPP does include labour. Whether or not it adequately reflects the share of labour costs for the Chinese military I don't know.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#136

Post by afthonos »

DanBC wrote: post #55
ed-209 wrote: post #39

"Believing people without symptoms didn't spread the virus, the agency limited testing, discouraged masking..." This is false by Fauci's own account (see below interview) in which he states mask wearing was discouraged in order to secure availability for health workers. This is no small distinction as it raises questions about the importance of public trust/credibility during a health crisis. https://m.youtube.com/wa…

Can you link to the meta-analysis or RCT of mask wearing that were already published in March, or April, or June? But also, see this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/europe/coronavirus-...

Common sense dictates that the base belief should be “something that prevents my breath from going as far should be effective at reducing spread of an airborne illness.” The null hypothesis should be that masks help; alternatively, the prior should favor masks.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#137

Post by glitchc »

ethanbond wrote: post #109
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that "military" is a "divisive" issue proves the point of how we got to this point in the first place.

People are divided on what the US military‘s role in the world should be and how much money it should take to uphold that role. Sitting atop the longest stretch of global stability (largely enforced/maintained by the US military), it’s very hard to think clearly about what variables we can or should fiddle with.

> Sitting atop the longest stretch of global stability (largely enforced/maintained by the US military), it’s very hard to think clearly about what variables we can or should fiddle with.

Yes, if you only count the 20th century. Apparently the human race is only 100 years old. It’s time you read some history.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#138

Post by throwaway0a5e »

vikramkr wrote: post #5

Over the past few years a series of American agencies have lost their reputation and world standing. The FAA with the 737 max, the CDC with the test, the FDA with testing regulation and hydroxychloroquine. Its important to have institutions that work, but we've spent years deliberately gutting them and undervaluing them. All that money spent on the military and homeland security, and in the end we were caught utterly…

Many would argue that these agencies, vested with limited lawmaking ability by congress yet under the control of the executive, were always doomed to failure and it was just a question of time. I think it's a little more nuanced than that but those people kind of have a point. These agencies are subject to doing stupid things at the whim of the executive and having effective lawmaking authority behind them makes the damage worse when they do.

Re: The CDC lost control of the coronavirus pandemic, then the agency disappeared

#139

Post by glenneroo »

ed-209 wrote: post #39

"Believing people without symptoms didn't spread the virus, the agency limited testing, discouraged masking..." This is false by Fauci's own account (see below interview) in which he states mask wearing was discouraged in order to secure availability for health workers. This is no small distinction as it raises questions about the importance of public trust/credibility during a health crisis. https://m.youtube.com/wa…

Further in the article, this detail is mentioned (albeit without the reference to Fauci's own account):

> But following the CDC’s playbook on flu pandemics, Messonnier discouraged the public from using face masks, echoing similar advice from the WHO and US Surgeon General Jerome Adams. Since masks were thought to prevent the transmission of a virus from coughing, health officials feared a run on surgical masks would keep them from reaching vulnerable public health workers in hospitals, where most infectious patients driving a coronavirus outbreak would be located.

> In April, facing increasing pressure from public health experts, the CDC urged Americans to don cloth masks, citing the asymptomatic transmission risk first noted by Redfield and Fauci at the end of January. But the damage was done: Months later, the initial confusion over the utility of widespread use of face coverings has only made masks more of a political flashpoint.

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