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> An important part of CDC’s role during a public health emergency is to develop a test for the pathogen and equip state and local public health labs with testi
by aazaa 7y ago
> An important part of CDC’s role during a public health emergency is to develop a test for the pathogen and equip state and local public health labs with testing capacity.
Testing for COVID-19 has been an unmitigated failure in the US.
Whatever advantage may have accrued from closing travel routes has been fritted away by preventing local authorities from testing. Without testing, there's no way to say anything about the safety of the American people.
CDC needs to explain the American public how this was allowed to happen, especially since other governments seem to have had no problems despite being called into action much sooner.
Without a clear explanation, the public will have no confidence in what the CDC says as the disease spreads.
The self-congratulation on the presidential podium during the last two pressers has been disgusting and disgraceful. There's nothing to celebrate or congratulate here. The entire group dropped the ball.
- sizzle 7y agoThis is a failure of our politicians who have been slashing funding of said institution. How do you expect them to do their job properly when underfunded?
- TMWNN 7y agoNo. The CDC budget was never slashed. The president proposes budgets, but that's the starting point of negotiations within Congress. Congress has consistently increased the CDC budget. https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104 https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104
- newhere2020 7y agoThe Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs. Snopes TRUE https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
- TMWNN 7y agoCOVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else. Both the NBC News and Washington Post articles the Snopes piece cites describe the action as part of moving people to related departments as part of the new National Security Advisor's desire to have his own hierarchy, and the head of the dedicated team resigning after not getting his desire to keep the team the way it was. You may or may not agree with this. But please don't claim that this is somehow prima facie proof of the Trump administration's malfeasance/evilness.
- newhere2020 7y agoYes. The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- neuronic 7y ago> Testing for COVID-19 has been an unmitigated failure in the US. Same in Germany. Authorities have tracked and followed infection paths of several 10k people in China to contain the spread and reach a massive slowing in disease spread (confirmed by WHO) due to drastic containment measures. In Germany 35 (without the "k") people were infected in the state of NRW and authorities gave up following infection paths. They're barely testing despite crazy rising numbers and nationally we have discussions about containment measures. The conclusion is that we will likely not contain any communities or cancel events just yet. Because it would impede on individual freedom which is regarded as more important than preventing the spread of a dangerous pandemic.
- dennisgorelik 7y agoI think CDC "failed" testing for Covid-19 intentionally: in order to avoid panic and please Trump administration.