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True, but as an American, it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced. We had the ability to w

True, but as an American, it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced. We had the ability to write a blank check and fire up mask, ventilator, and test production the second it was clear this was a global problem. So instead of sending excess equipment around the world, we're playing catch up on our own shortage, and the control measures have to be a lot stricter because of it.

Ericson2314 7y ago
Yes we could have tested the fuck out of everything in January and road it out the biggest functioning industrial power like WII. Instead we get effected like everyone else. On the other hand, for the sake of the world it's about time the US faced a real (non Perl Harbor / 9/11 bullshit) domestic crisis. The US needs to be humbled, and cede more power to the EU within the western world. So in that sense I am glad we didn't play the new-world-defense game and instead fucked this up, exposing the rot.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Awful to say but I think there's truth to this. Maybe people will respond more properly when their politicians move to defund important services.
- holler 7y ago
  > and cede more power to the EU within the western world Why would any nation cede power willingly to another? Would the EU willingly cede power to the US? What about Britain? That's not how sovereignty works. The US response has been massive and unprecedented.
- mantas 7y ago
  As a citizen of a EU member, EU is laughing stock these days.
  - 1996 7y ago
    Don't you have each state trying to steal supplies from each other? Like CZ stealing Chinese aid to IT, DE stealing masks made for BG etc?
    - mantas 7y ago
      What's exactly the failure of EU that I'm talking about. There's little cooperation at EU level. Only some members cooperate on ad-hoc basis. But in general everybody is out for themselves. More examples - Poland closing borders and not allowing people to pass it to return to their home countries. Or little centralised plan to close borders, both internal and external. Or countries essentially nationalising airlines en-masse, which was strictly forbidden by EU rules. Or Belgium citizens going to party to Netherlands since one has shut down everything and the other one is banking on herd immunity.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into political or nationalistic or ideological flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
toasterlovin 7y ago
> the second it was clear this was a global problem The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans discount that which they have no direct experience of. So it was never going to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too long. I mean, most people can't be bothered to not spend everything they make when the last recession was 12 years ago, so what do we expect when there hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years...
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  There have been multiple pandemics in living memory of ~all current world leaders, many of which killed millions.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    What pandemics have people in the west directly experienced in living memory? As far as I am aware, all pandemics in recent memory have happened in Africa or Asia.
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      AIDS, Swine Flu, probably MMR?
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        AIDS: easily avoided MMR: easily avoided That leaves swine flu. According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
rightbyte 7y ago
If it is any comfort Spain, UK and Italy also failed responding to the crisis, so it is not like the American authorities are obviously worse?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sgt101 7y ago
  Also France and the Netherlands....
- jacquesm 7y ago
  To some degree it is because (1) they had an even longer lead time and (2) they pissed even more away.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    The united states responded before the united kingdom and contemporaneously with spain.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Yes. Much. Too. Late.
- throw9o8765 7y ago
  It makes China’s failure to respond understandable.
23B1 7y ago
To what (honest) standard are you holding the United States to? Curious, given the totally black swan nature of the event and the wildly different geopolitical, cultural, legal, cultural, and even geographical differences between, say, Taiwan and the United States.
handedness 7y ago
We have a long history of bringing our B-game until we realize it's time to bring our A-game, make it happen, and almost entirely without meaning to, reshape the global order: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658475
- VLM 7y ago
  "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." A classic Winston Churchill quote. Even if he never said it, it sounds like something he would have said.
- oblio 7y ago
  I wish you luck with that strategy. Almost every historical US rival was smaller was isolated (no solid allies), from about 1880 until 2010. China is not smaller and it knows better than to become isolated. Note: I'm not rooting for China.
  - pyuser583 7y ago
    Nitpicky point: The USSR was larger geographically and in population than the United States. If you combine the “Communist block” in 1955, it was significantly larger than the “free world.” Of course, the “Communist block” quickly turned on itself. But still. The US has taken on larger powers before, but we had the advantage of strong social institutions. Our own social institutions have been decaying, but when I think of China’s strengths, “strong institutions” doesn’t come to mind.
    - oblio 7y ago
      Geographically, at some point it doesn't matter. Everything else being equal, Canada is equivalent to the US, to Brazil, to India, to China, to Russia, etc. The difference boils down to population and economy. The USSR was slightly ahead in population and significantly behind in economy. The "Communist block" was the USSR plus subjugated/unwilling allies. The US allies were much, much better, since: 1. They actually wanted to be part of their block. 2. Their resources, populations and economies were definitely far ahead of the "Communist block" ones. After all, the UK and France were still colonial empires in 1955. While Poland and Romania... yeah... You could count China, but China basically only got involved in wars near its borders: Korea, Vietnam. It was never going to join the USSR in an all-out, nuclear war against the West unless directly attacked for some reason. It was part of the reason the split happened between the USSR and China (China wouldn't fall in line like Hungary or Czechoslovakia). The US could still be ahead, but it's alienating all its allies right now.
ColanR 7y ago
> write a blank check and fire up mask, ventilator, and test production the second it was clear this was a global problem I think part of the problem is that we instead specifically prohibited pricing the masks in accordance with the extra costs associated with ramping up production.
- gindely 7y ago
  We prohibited price gouging i.e. increasing the price of masks that were already produced.
gentleman11 7y ago
> one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced Unfortunately, Covid probably will not be in the top 100 nastiest challenges. Our global history has some truly terrible things in it
malandrew 7y ago
> it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced That B game has been years in the making and predate the current administration since we exported our ability to bring our A game. Hopefully after this, these past short-sighted decisions are sharply corrected.
runawaybottle 7y ago
I will say that almost every national or state level decision so far (other than San Francisco) has a very tangible tardiness to it. Washington state started with 6 cases, in 2-3 weeks NY has over 4K. Is Texas on lockdown yet? They sure will be in exactly two weeks (tangibly tardy). God forbid a state pre-emptively goes on lockdown to shorten the overall downtime vs waiting too long, having to lockdown anyway, and dragging the whole mess out.
solidsnack9000 7y ago
The US always does this. Consider the response to World War I and World War II.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
My observation as well, it's China's dream coming true unfortunately

Ericson2314 7y ago

Yes we could have tested the fuck out of everything in January and road it out the biggest functioning industrial power like WII. Instead we get effected like everyone else. On the other hand, for the sake of the world it's about time the US faced a real (non Perl Harbor / 9/11 bullshit) domestic crisis. The US needs to be humbled, and cede more power to the EU within the western world. So in that sense I am glad we didn't play the new-world-defense game and instead fucked this up, exposing the rot.

Waterluvian 7y ago
Awful to say but I think there's truth to this. Maybe people will respond more properly when their politicians move to defund important services.
holler 7y ago
> and cede more power to the EU within the western world Why would any nation cede power willingly to another? Would the EU willingly cede power to the US? What about Britain? That's not how sovereignty works. The US response has been massive and unprecedented.
mantas 7y ago
As a citizen of a EU member, EU is laughing stock these days.
- 1996 7y ago
  Don't you have each state trying to steal supplies from each other? Like CZ stealing Chinese aid to IT, DE stealing masks made for BG etc?
  - mantas 7y ago
    What's exactly the failure of EU that I'm talking about. There's little cooperation at EU level. Only some members cooperate on ad-hoc basis. But in general everybody is out for themselves. More examples - Poland closing borders and not allowing people to pass it to return to their home countries. Or little centralised plan to close borders, both internal and external. Or countries essentially nationalising airlines en-masse, which was strictly forbidden by EU rules. Or Belgium citizens going to party to Netherlands since one has shut down everything and the other one is banking on herd immunity.
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads into political or nationalistic or ideological flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

toasterlovin 7y ago

> the second it was clear this was a global problem The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans discount that which they have no direct experience of. So it was never going to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too long. I mean, most people can't be bothered to not spend everything they make when the last recession was 12 years ago, so what do we expect when there hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years...

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
There have been multiple pandemics in living memory of ~all current world leaders, many of which killed millions.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  What pandemics have people in the west directly experienced in living memory? As far as I am aware, all pandemics in recent memory have happened in Africa or Asia.
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    AIDS, Swine Flu, probably MMR?
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      AIDS: easily avoided MMR: easily avoided That leaves swine flu. According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

rightbyte 7y ago

If it is any comfort Spain, UK and Italy also failed responding to the crisis, so it is not like the American authorities are obviously worse?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sgt101 7y ago
Also France and the Netherlands....
jacquesm 7y ago
To some degree it is because (1) they had an even longer lead time and (2) they pissed even more away.
- tathougies 7y ago
  The united states responded before the united kingdom and contemporaneously with spain.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Yes. Much. Too. Late.
throw9o8765 7y ago
It makes China’s failure to respond understandable.

23B1 7y ago

To what (honest) standard are you holding the United States to? Curious, given the totally black swan nature of the event and the wildly different geopolitical, cultural, legal, cultural, and even geographical differences between, say, Taiwan and the United States.

handedness 7y ago

We have a long history of bringing our B-game until we realize it's time to bring our A-game, make it happen, and almost entirely without meaning to, reshape the global order: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22658475

VLM 7y ago
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." A classic Winston Churchill quote. Even if he never said it, it sounds like something he would have said.
oblio 7y ago
I wish you luck with that strategy. Almost every historical US rival was smaller was isolated (no solid allies), from about 1880 until 2010. China is not smaller and it knows better than to become isolated. Note: I'm not rooting for China.
- pyuser583 7y ago
  Nitpicky point: The USSR was larger geographically and in population than the United States. If you combine the “Communist block” in 1955, it was significantly larger than the “free world.” Of course, the “Communist block” quickly turned on itself. But still. The US has taken on larger powers before, but we had the advantage of strong social institutions. Our own social institutions have been decaying, but when I think of China’s strengths, “strong institutions” doesn’t come to mind.
  - oblio 7y ago
    Geographically, at some point it doesn't matter. Everything else being equal, Canada is equivalent to the US, to Brazil, to India, to China, to Russia, etc. The difference boils down to population and economy. The USSR was slightly ahead in population and significantly behind in economy. The "Communist block" was the USSR plus subjugated/unwilling allies. The US allies were much, much better, since: 1. They actually wanted to be part of their block. 2. Their resources, populations and economies were definitely far ahead of the "Communist block" ones. After all, the UK and France were still colonial empires in 1955. While Poland and Romania... yeah... You could count China, but China basically only got involved in wars near its borders: Korea, Vietnam. It was never going to join the USSR in an all-out, nuclear war against the West unless directly attacked for some reason. It was part of the reason the split happened between the USSR and China (China wouldn't fall in line like Hungary or Czechoslovakia). The US could still be ahead, but it's alienating all its allies right now.

ColanR 7y ago

> write a blank check and fire up mask, ventilator, and test production the second it was clear this was a global problem I think part of the problem is that we instead specifically prohibited pricing the masks in accordance with the extra costs associated with ramping up production.

gindely 7y ago
We prohibited price gouging i.e. increasing the price of masks that were already produced.

gentleman11 7y ago

> one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced Unfortunately, Covid probably will not be in the top 100 nastiest challenges. Our global history has some truly terrible things in it

malandrew 7y ago

> it definitely feels like we're bringing our B game to one of the nastiest challenges the world has ever faced That B game has been years in the making and predate the current administration since we exported our ability to bring our A game. Hopefully after this, these past short-sighted decisions are sharply corrected.

runawaybottle 7y ago

I will say that almost every national or state level decision so far (other than San Francisco) has a very tangible tardiness to it. Washington state started with 6 cases, in 2-3 weeks NY has over 4K. Is Texas on lockdown yet? They sure will be in exactly two weeks (tangibly tardy). God forbid a state pre-emptively goes on lockdown to shorten the overall downtime vs waiting too long, having to lockdown anyway, and dragging the whole mess out.

solidsnack9000 7y ago

The US always does this. Consider the response to World War I and World War II.

NicoJuicy 7y ago

My observation as well, it's China's dream coming true unfortunately