15 ms·
White House told federal health agency to classify coronavirus deliberations
- JohnFen 7y agoPeople are already largely suspicious of the US government's statements and responses about coronavirus. This sort of thing doesn't exactly improve that problem.
- munk-a 7y agoIn their defense - I don't know if the public getting access to minutes of the insanely self-centered and incompetent discussions happening at the highest levels would have really helped any. We've seen some fragments of evidence that the administration has been more concerned with the stock market's reaction than the actual disease.
- caseysoftware 7y agoUntil 2 weeks ago, the tech press was still mocking the "no handshakes" recommendation. Ironically, no ones hands are clean here. :(
- bigendian1234 7y agoI don't think this is much of a defense. This administration can't get its shit together, but they at least knew enough to cover up some of their incompetence?
- LanceH 7y agoClassifying deliberations allows people to speak freely. The last thing you want is to have someone afraid to speak up.
- JohnFen 7y ago> I don't know if the public getting access to minutes It's not a matter of the public getting access. That these meetings are classified means that important subject matter experts are being excluded.
- beamatronic 7y agoThe WHO and the US government have lost their credibility. I'm looking to state and local governments to step up. The California state government looks like they are doing and saying the right things ( better than the federal government at least ). Actions speak louder than words, look at what is working ( South Korea ) and what isn't.
- creaghpatr 7y agoUnfortunately the California government seems to support the Trump administrations' coronavirus response. https://www.newsweek.com/californias-democrat-governor-praises-trumps-coronavirus-response-every-single-thing-he-said-1491294 https://www.newsweek.com/californias-democrat-governor-prais...
- beamatronic 7y agoI am hoping, hope being the operative word here, that Governor Newsom is trying to telegraph to us that behind the scenes, he is having somewhat productive conversations with the Vice President.
- munk-a 7y agoHonestly, at a time like this, where California might need federal resources if a bad outbreak occurs in the state - it serves no one to needlessly antagonize the federal government. It's politics - everyone else should be criticizing the white house in particular, but government officials really need to remain on the administration's good side.
- vkou 7y agoThe administration's supporters won't be swayed by a bunch of critics having 'suspicions'. And convincing the administration's detractors has never been a priority.
- JohnFen 7y agoNone of which should matter. In a time of crisis, at the very least, the administration needs to start actually taking care of the entire citizenry rather than just the portion they like.
- vkou 7y agoIt matters to the only metric that we evaluate politicians on - their ability to get elected.
- smoyer 7y agoI am a US citizen and believe that I am rightly suspicious of our current government. It's also my opinion that, since the number of questionable situations has continued to rise for the last three years, there is no road to the administration recovering their credibility.
- rconti 7y agoLet's put it this way: If the administration had come out with strong actions and warnings about covid-19, those who still trust the administration would be better-informed, the messaging would be more consistent, and those who are inclined to think the president lies about everything would, for the most part, not be saying "it must be a hoax". So we would, in fact, be better off, even if it didn't restore their credibility.
- smoyer 7y agoThat's true ... my in-laws believe everything he says (or that's reported on Fox News) and they truly believe it's just the flu. They're 78 and 80 so they're in the high-mortality population - the logical reaction would be to take steps that might lead to self-preservation.
- derision 7y agoTrump closed the borders at the end of January when we first got word of the virus. That's a pretty strong action imo
- ygjb 7y agoChina, Iran, and South Korea don't stamp passports. If a traveler from one of those countries wants to bypass a "closed border" they can simply connect through an unblocked country. An interview might reveal that the traveler came from an affected region, but someone working to bypass border restrictions is probably less inclined to answer those questions honestly. Couple that with the fact that traveling to a country with far fewer cases and is not under quarantine related lock-downs, and being sick in another country but getting treatment, even if it's expensive, might be a compelling option when people in your home country are dying because there aren't enough facilities to care for them. It's a pretty shitty moral perspective, but it is a perfectly valid individual perspective. This is one of the reasons why the WHO pointed out early on that increased screening at borders was more effective, and why closing borders may actually accelerate the spread of the disease. Closing the borders wasn't a strong action, it was a misguided action intended to look strong and play well with the Republican base, and was the first in a string of shitty mistakes that the US Government, and other organizations within the US have made in handling this crisis.
- AlexandrB 7y agoThis is going to throw fuel on the fire of various COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
- jrs235 7y agoHere's one: A conversation about whether allowing this to turn into a national emergency could allow the cancelling or postponement of elections or executive hand over.
- Simulacra 7y agoHighly unlikely. In fact it really can't happen as elections are defined in the constitution. They would have to suspend the constitution, or pass some monumental law that would lead to not only a monumental meltdown at the court, but chaos in the streets. Good thought, fun conspiracy theory, but really so far out there it's unlikely.
- munk-a 7y agoI think it's more likely that low voter turnout in November (if this lasts that long) allows the administration to reject the results on the basis that "the people's voice was suppressed" - I agree they're not just going to call off the election, but I think it's pretty likely they'll try and cast doubt on the results if it goes against them.
- hammock 7y agoWouldn't be the first time
- catalogia 7y ago> but I think it's pretty likely they'll try and cast doubt on the results if it goes against them. That is certainly true whether or not there is a pandemic. I don't think that inevitability really has anything to do with pandemics; they'd blame it on the phase of the moon if nothing else came to mind.
- 7y ago
- MiroF 7y agoI'm looking to my state government. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a path for this administration to regain trust for many.
- ccktlmazeltov 7y agoI don't think anyone trust the government anymore, otherwise we wouldn't see such a dip in the market.
- ceejayoz 7y agohttps://twitter.com/julianborger/status/1237748572415762437 https://twitter.com/julianborger/status/1237748572415762437 > Robert Redfield, CDC Director, said there are no plans to set up drive through #COVID19 test centres because "We're tryinjg to maintain the relationship between individuals and their healthcare providers." Bunch of ostriches with their heads in the sand.
- a3n 7y ago> "We're tryinjg to maintain the relationship between individuals and their healthcare providers." ... ... because drive-throughs and their lines and problems are visible to everyone, but visits and phone calls to doctors aren't so easy to see by the general public.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThat, and the "can't have confirmed infections if we don't test!"
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoNobody dies in Iraq if we don't keep a body count.
- munificent 7y agoIt turns out that when you elect a celebrity, you get an administration that cares about image and not reality.
- dboreham 7y agoIt turns out we actually did need "government".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- beart 7y agoIt is my understanding that there needs to be a specific reason to classify something (national security, etc.). Is that true or can the President classify anything, in the same way he can unclassify anything?
- amhokies 7y agoIn theory, it's only for things that can "cause harm to national security"
- jrs235 7y agoI suppose one could argue knowing or perceiving incompetence could lead to a national security issue.
- danudey 7y agoPretty sure that ship has sailed years ago.
- shadowgovt 7y agoAlways worth noting when this topic comes up that the first time a classification was used to deny revelation of documents for "state secrets" reasons in a court of law, it turns out (we know this because the document has since been declassified as its classification expired) it was to shield the military from culpability in the death of civilian contractors in a plane that crashed due to a maintenance lapse.
- jerf 7y agoIn the spirit of the principle of charity, it isn't that hard to believe that part of the discussion is the impact the virus will have on classified activities, including but not limited to intelligence activities, military activities, or may have included information considered sensitive (like, just by way of example, proof that the virus was gene engineered, which may cause an undesirable international stink if publicized; I mention this just as an example of something that they might classify, not as a claim that it is engineered). I'd expect "the President" did not literally decide or not decide to classify this; it was probably driven by rules. What's in the classified briefings isn't really the question; it's what's in the unclassified briefings and actions that are the question. That classified briefings are taking place is to be expected, as it will certainly be impacting classified things, along with all the other "pretty much everything" it will be impacting. I'm sure all the other countries are having classified briefings as well.
- knowuh 7y agoI am old enough to remember when US media was lobbing criticism at China for downplaying the threat to the public. We are what we think China is.
- rolltiide 7y agoSo you mean like a week ago
- ajna91 7y agoHe's at least a baby
- CerealFounder 7y agoDude what? The US media has been criticizing the US government with significantly more fire than they gave to China. Take your purposely misleading half truths post them on Twitter.
- catalogia 7y agoAt the least, American media has certainly thrown more shade at the American government than Chinese media has thrown at the Chinese government.
- resters 7y ago> We are what we think China is. This sort of analysis always gets downvoted on HN, but it's true. In many ways we are further along in the direction of having an obedient population (compared to China) but we still have our own great firewall and social credit score systems in place to help keep everyone under control. China is more overtly authoritarian than the modern US, which is actually an advantage* in fighting a pandemic. So ironically most of the criticisms of China (as hypocritical as they may be) give China a leg up in this kind of crisis. * Note that I am not condoning authoritarian rule, just noting that it is in some cases effective.
- whylie 7y ago
- sizzzzlerz 7y agoI'm currently reading a book on the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. Following the accident, the Soviet government clamped down on any reports coming from the site. They didn't notify either the locals or other nations that something catastrophic had occurred and that people were at risk. Trump, in all his paranoia and psychoses, is becoming more and more like that regime. This is not going to end well.
- jrs235 7y agoI watched the HBO Chernobyl mini-series which tells a similar story about the clamping down of information. The "party" was most concerned about protecting itself and saving face rather than letting on to the seriousness of the issue and taking actions to protect the people. They only started admitting a problem after other countries picked up elevated radiation levels and were able to determine the isotopes involved would most likely come from a meltdown.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoIf they'd told us, I wonder if they'd have been believed? Would any country have taken action prior to the confirmations that we already got. (FWIW I'm old enough to remember the incident.)
- dboreham 7y agoFor reference: the western governments didn't tell us the truth about Chernobyl either.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoIn what way?
- dboreham 7y agoThey said that it was "just steam explosion" and "not nuclear explosion in any way", even though they must (through sigint, atmospheric sampling, and remote sensing) have known otherwise at the time.
- alwillis 7y agoThis appears to be an attempt to criminalize the dissemination of some critical healthcare information. Even if state and local officials are briefed by federal officials, they may not be able to talk about what they know or face possible legal repercussions.
- chvid 7y agoMy interpretation is that the Trump administration maximized the effect the virus outbreak had in a trade and propaganda war against China but in return sacrificed America's internal preparation for a potential outbreak.
- Simulacra 7y agoI work in government relations and this is neither news, nor anything new. Deliberations at the highest level have to be confidential at times, because the players are speaking brutally honest. They need to be able to make decisions and speak their mind without the media and the public second guessing everything. Passing legislation or making policy over time is one thing, but in a crisis like this, they have to move fast. I think the last thing we want is for policymakers to have to stop and keep justifying every single thing they do, that will just lead to paralysis.
- fredgrott 7y agoat the expense of not hearing from the experts they need to hear from? is your IQ only room warm?
- grkkr 7y ago> The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified, an unusual step that has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government’s response to the contagion, according to four Trump administration officials. There's the first para of the article which contradicts most of the arguments you're trying to make. This is according to officials dealing with this problem today.
- AWildC182 7y agoThey're allowed to have discussion that exist off the record. Classifying things mean they are forcing such discussions to happen in secure facilities and under very specific terms in order to prevent foreign interception. That seems a bit like overkill to me.
- kryogen1c 7y agoi wonder how people can think that targeted ads are dangerous but also think discussions like this should be public. kay from the cloak and dagger, memory-erasing men in black knew: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals"
- take_a_breath 7y ago==I work in government relations and this is neither news, nor anything new. == Lots of people in this article disagree: > A high-level former official who helped address public health outbreaks in the George W. Bush administration said “it’s not normal to classify discussions about a response to a public health crisis.” > Attendees at the meetings included HHS Secretary Alex Azar and his chief of staff Brian Harrison, the officials said. Azar and Harrison resisted the classification of the meetings, the sources said. > One of the administration officials suggested the security clearances for meetings at HHS were imposed not to protect national security but to keep the information within a tight circle, to prevent leaks. “It seemed to be a tool for the White House - for the NSC - to keep participation in these meetings low,” the official said
- thoraway1010 7y agoNo surprise. We had Larry Kudlow saying a week or two ago that the virus was "fully contained" in the US. [1] We had the CDC take down the number of folks tested from their website because it was embarrassingly low and different then the Pence / Trump narrative of a million tests. [2] We've had a weird / crazy argument being made by at least some at the top that masks don't help with transmission reduction of a viral disease. While not perfect, they are low cost, low impact and even surgical masks, while likely not used by doctors treating patients may help general population by reducing hand to mouth / nose transmission, transmission from sick to healthy and environment when sneezing and/or touching face mouth and then environment etc. Other countries are going the other way (masks distributed via post offices, mask wearing mandatory in high impact areas etc). [1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/larry-kudlow-says-us-has-contained-the-coronavirus-and-the-economy-is-holding-up-nicely.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/larry-kudlow-says-us-has-con... [2] - https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1234536619270688768 https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1234536619270688768 [3] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662657/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662657/ - Adherence to mask use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of ILI-associated infection.
- nabla9 7y ago(Kudlow is the Director of the National Economic Council and advises WH) The book Superforecasting (2015) uses Larry Kudlow as an example of 'hedgehog forecaster' that is consistently wrong. Not only is Kudlow consistently wrong in forecasting, he also fails nowcasting. When Financial crisis was unfolding Kudlow did not realize that something was going wrong. >The National Bureau of Economic Research later designated December 2007 as the official start of the Great Recession of 2007–9. As the months passed, the economy weakened and worries grew, but Kudlow did not budge. There is no recession and there will be no recession, he insisted. When the White House said the same in April 2008, Kudlow wrote, “President George W. Bush may turn out to be the top economic forecaster in the country.”20 Through the spring and into summer, the economy worsened but Kudlow denied it. “We are in a mental recession, not an actual recession,”21 he wrote, a theme he kept repeating until September 15, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Wall Street was thrown into chaos, the global financial system froze, and people the world over felt like passengers in a plunging jet, eyes wide, fingers digging into armrests.
- cletus 7y agoUS corporate culture is primarily one of absolute loyalism. Absolute loyalty is demanded and expected all the way up the management chain and it trumps (no pun intended) all else, including job competence. What some Americans may not realize is that this isn't universally true globally. What we have now is a president who comes from and exemplifies this culture so his administration absolutely reflects that. Jeff Sessions recusing himself on the Russia investigation instead of blocking it even if it cost him everything, personally, was an unforgivable sin to an absolute loyalist. So I guarantee you that the prime consideration for this pandemic (which it now officially is, according to the WHO) in the US government is how this impacts the GOP in general and Trump's reelection in particular. Nothing else matters. Go back to, say, the Watergate era and you had behaviour by a president that even his own party ultimately found unacceptable. If Watergate repeated today, it would be "fake news", painted as partisan Democratic slander aimed at the administration and defended beyond all reason. The sad and scary part of this is that we now have 40% of the population who will absolutely eat this up and refuse to believe anything that makes the president look bad. To be fair, there are absolute devotees on the other side too but objectively we've seen nothing to the degree of GOP blind loyalism on from the Democrats (yet). There was a time when our representatives held higher loyalties to the institutions they represent because undermining those is incredibly dangerous. Those days seem to be a distant memory as we have a mass organized effort to disenfranchise those who tend to vote Democrat (under the guise of removing "felons" from voter rolls), a refusal by the Senate to take up legislation that would pass at a completely unprecedented rate, a Senate whose only priority is filling lifetime judicial nominees with more loyalists and the refusal to even take up a president's Supreme Court nominee with flimsily-constructed justification you know for a fact wouldn't apply if the situation was reversed. This is the trait of dictators and despots. Why do you think Trump admires Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un? So yes, it should come as no surprise that the planning, messaging and response to this pandemic is being seen through the exact same filter: how does this help or hurt Trump? And it will kill people. I don't wish ill on anyone here but it's hard not to see the irony that the most at-risk groups of death from Covid-19 are, well, Trump's core voters and Fox News's core target market for fearmongering and dog-whistle racism. Classifying public health responses is unprecedented. Yet as long as Trump's base (40% of voters) don't hold the government to account absolutely nothing will change. And the only time that's happened that I recall is the family separation for detained illegal immigrants. Has there been any other reversal of policy like this?
- oneng 7y ago#DontTestDontTell https://www.epsilontheory.com/dont-test-dont-tell/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/dont-test-dont-tell/
- jmull 7y agoIt looks like the national response to the conronavirus here in the US is going to be, "Let's hope it's not much worse than a seasonal flu." It's really not looking good. I'm still hopeful, though that's because it's the only thing I've got.
- samstave 7y agohttps://gist.github.com/62726164/a501e13ae9bec8ac8a3b5a440d93803d https://gist.github.com/62726164/a501e13ae9bec8ac8a3b5a440d9... This is the predictive infection rate vs the actual CDC daily report.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- joosters 7y agoYes, let's trust anonymous user 62726164 on github.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y agojust use the official numbers from WHO or JHU and double the value every 4 days. very similar result
- samstave 7y agoThats what this does - it ysed that, but pulls the daily cdc for comparison. So far, its pretty accurate.
- DyslexicAtheist 7y agothese numbers look really scary when you have them in front of you. it's easy to miss in scales and charts. the date here goes only to May which is even more alarming.
- tejtm 7y ago
- davidw 7y agoI have written off the federal government. I am writing to state and local officials here in Oregon - the mayor and state rep and state senator - to encourage them to start putting aggressive measure in place now. Like Paul Graham just tweeted: "When you're dealing with exponential growth, the time to act is when it feels too early." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1237801364023017472 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1237801364023017472
- gentleman11 7y agoDid twitter break mobile copy pasting? I can’t get the text of the tweet to copy paste
- leptoniscool 7y agoI've heard that the CDC has stopped collecting statistics on total tests and positive/negative counts. Are there other government agencies collecting this data?
- therealcamino 7y agoUnbelievably, apparently the best numbers available are from a volunteer effort, in a google docs spreadsheet. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-testing-numbers/607714/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/coronavir... The spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRwAqp96T9sYYq2-i7Tj0pvTf6XVHjDSMIKBdZHXiCGGdNC0ypEU9NbngS8mxea55JuCFuua1MUeOj5/pubhtml https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRwAqp96T9sY... It's not clear to me if this includes numbers from private labs. My kid's pediatrician now has access to a test from Quest Diagnostics and they can make their own determination as to whether testing is needed. They said that they can't use the local health department testing "for many reasons". I'm glad to hear that the private tests are rolling out, still concerned that it's so hard to get testing through public health labs.
- koheripbal 7y agoWhat's the value in tabulating the negative tests?
- gentleman11 7y ago> Staffers without security clearances, including government experts, were excluded from the interagency meetings > “We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go,” So... is there any justification for this? It sounds entirely political
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tectonic 7y agoNot great, not terrible.