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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.

by aazaa 7y ago

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. Like most American catastrophes, this one will only be slowly understood many years after the fact. There will be Congressional investigations and fact finding rituals. In the end it will come down to three things: 1. Pandemic preparedness was not taken seriously by the incoming administration. 2. Testing was screwed up from the start and never found its footing. 3. The administration actively discouraged testing through both political pressure (e.g. W. Virginia "doing a tremendous job") and rationing of tests.

asquabventured 7y ago
I don't understand this mentality when other Western Nations are going through the exact same thing. Did the administration cause every other countries problems with containing the virus too?
- ruytlm 7y ago
  In some regards, I'd argue yes; from my perspective, many western democracies have been following the US down its path to post-truth politics for years, as other countries' politicians have seen how effective the strategy of simply denying or ignoring anything you don't like is, and sought to replicate the success that (particularly) the Republican party has had in driving voters deeper into their partisan blocs.
  - nocorpwelfare 7y ago
    Saying that only Republicans do this is ridiculous. The Democrats are masters of identity politics, which was totally unproductive in all aspects by design. Handouts and freebies to buy votes and appeal to the most basest desires while ignoring all personal responsibility. Using mass illegal immigration to influence elections. Using outright voting fraud to influence elections. All in a total effort to cement power--it's all about the power, not what they will do with it once they have it. Which, news flash, isn't going to be good for the productive citizens of the US.
- rjvs 7y ago
  Similar mistakes were made by seemingly every country that hadn’t dealt with a SARS virus before. This might be partially explained by the leadership position the US has traditionally enjoyed on the world stage.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  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.
  - notJim 7y ago
    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.
    - kweinber 7y ago
      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).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sd8f9iu 7y ago
  The US has been far behind other Western countries in testing: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/us/coronavirus-testing-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/us/coronaviru... The per-capita chart is most notable. Other Western countries' responses haven't been stellar either, but the US's is particularly flawed.
  - humpty_drumpfty 7y ago
    For more up to date data see https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/ https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/
  - Lldjjxnn 7y ago
    The FDA had test kits which were flawed. It got caught with its pants down in public. The rest is damage control.
  - lurquer 7y ago
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ US is 21st in per capita deaths (and falling... that is, it was 18th a couple days ago.) Spin all you want about testing and the like. But, the fact remains that the US's medical system is doing a better job than the other western countries. Its striking that Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Belgium, UK, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria have more per capita covid deaths than the US. (Looks like Germany is about to be added to that list.) I do not see how any rational and objective analysis could characterize the US's response as 'particularly flawed'.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - sd8f9iu 7y ago
      There is no sense in comparing per-capita deaths this early in the pandemic, especially when the spread of the virus in the US trails a few weeks behind that in Europe. Talk to me in a few months. Furthermore, per-capita figures are meaningless when comparing areas of substantially different population size and density (e.g. Austria, Switzerland) to the US. _I_ do not see how a "rational and objective analysis" like yours can ignore these basic mitigating factors when making such comparisons.
- danmaz74 7y ago
  The US was weeks behind Italy in the initial spread of the virus. If the Chinese example wasn't enough to learn, at least what was happening in Italy should have been.
  - corpMaverick 7y ago
    At least for me and many other people, I suppose, when I saw what happened to Italy is when I saw what was going to happen here. It has been painful. It is like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion, and you are in front of the train.
- belltaco 7y ago
  Whatever happened to American exceptionalism? >Did the administration cause every other countries problems with containing the virus too The American people did not elect and pay other countries to take care of them, they did for their government. The administration dismantled the pandemic team from the highest levels and along with their media cronies, actively minimized it for several weeks[1][2] and made it political, which is costing lives now. The other countries did not do that to Americans. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA&feature=youtu.be&t=17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA&feature=youtu.be... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus...
  - someguydave 7y ago
    When you use the word “administration” are you thinking about a few hundred elected and directly appointed officials or the hundreds of thousands of government employees? Because it seems like the employees bungled the job.
    - mentalpiracy 7y ago
      Not for nothing, but we are 3 years into an administration that has done everything it could to push out career employees with lifetimes of expertise. There have been failures from the top to the bottom. But let’s not pretend that there hasn’t been a systematic, intentional degradation of these agencies that has only served to exacerbate those failures.
      - someguydave 7y ago
        I voted for the guy specifically because the agencies were rotten and the civil service needs deep reform. I’m very disappointed that the law has not need changed to so that more government employees can be immediately fired.
      - nocorpwelfare 7y ago
        The US is extremely top heavy with government workers, most of whom weren't doing much of anything. There are other considerations here, you can't just have it all. "Career employees with lifetime experience?" You have to be kidding me, most government employees are not very productive. Also, you're sitting here complaining while your way of life is going down the toilet. We need to be looking at how to move forwards. What's done is done.
- gt565k 7y ago
  No, but it offers a stark comparison of the actions taken by "leader" of the "free world" vs countries like South Korea and Taiwan who managed to control the outbreak. The United States is supposed to be the most prepared country to deal with a pandemic like this, yet the administration failed at its duty to protect its citizens and economy, even with ample warning from the world's best medical experts and intelligence agencies. If America is struggling to contain this, how are impoverished countries supposed to?
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    > The United States is supposed to be the most prepared country to deal with a pandemic like this Based on what? For years - long before the current administration - health experts in the US have been talking about how unprepared the US is for a pandemic. So where did you get this idea?
- Benmcdonald__ 7y ago
  Yes the western countries failed spectacularly. Even tho they had Asian counties as examples. There are no excuses
electriclove 7y ago
Don't forget the mask shaming that was perpetuated in the US.
- dboreham 7y ago
  I suspect it will be shown that disposable $0.50 N95 masks are largely effective and that the US population was deliberately misled about their effectiveness because the country has no way to provide such masks not only to the general public but to healthcare workers.
  - wideasleep1 7y ago
    Agree, but it's not so cut and dry. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t... edit: speaking of cut and dry..men should be clean-shaven to ensure snug fit.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      Interesting preface. In the UK we were told that masks were simply not effective, there was no need for them, they would not hinder the spread of infection. Similarly with closing schools: "the gov has this special plan that uses herd immunity, you idiot, so we don't need to close schools" [actually it's always "Boris has a plan", I can't understand why -- if it's the PM's plan then it's probably entirely ignorant of all the facts ...]. Anyway, yeah, the argument wasn't that >"[we] disagree on whether surgical masks alone help prevent the wearer from becoming infected" [from your link] it was "masks of any kind are ineffective". And we bloody well know that just the effectiveness of masks in preventing spread from infected patients makes them worthwhile. It's simply maths that 1 infected who spreads to 1 more is more than 1 infected spreading to zero more.
      - daveslash 7y ago
        I wonder if there was a lie of omission by the health professionals: "N95 Masks won't help the spread [because the general public will touch their face without washing their hands after removing the mask, thus masking the mask a moot point]" ~ the brackets representing the "lie of omission" part. I honestly don't know, just wondering out loud...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
omgJustTest 7y ago
The US government is only partially to blame here. Goldman Sachs apparently donated over 100k N95 masks to New York last week. As a personal critic, I did see some of this coming in my own finances and did divest. I should have done more to be outspoken about this risk, but I am daily surprised by how unprepared we were and how few people are speaking out in ways that matter. Kudos to Cuomo. EDIT: I do think the article is correct in the analysis that this _should_ be months of impact. This is likely from just considering the health impact, and not the correlated factors that 1. the stock market was damn high (inflated by stock by-backs) 2. there is currently a mess being made in federal reserve intervention in the pre-crash quantative easing measures, and the current precedents with 'unlimited liquidity' promised. 3. a lot of people are going to lose their jobs 4. a lot of people will lose their healthcare 5. soon to be bailed out corporations (ie Boeing) have flat rejected equity stake in the company, saying that they will seek private funding before they take a bail-out of that kind An interesting observation on (1), if companies had taken Trump tax breaks and invested in their businesses or kept that cash, they would likely have reduced their bail-out burden substantially. Boeing voluntarily committed to 2bn$ in dividends before the crash. They have not revoked that as of yet.
- bradly 7y ago
  I’m curious... did GS already have those masks for some reason or did they purchase and then donate them? I thought the masks were is short supply so I’m surprised if a non-health care org was able to purchase 100k masks recently.
  - omgJustTest 7y ago
    I will do some reading, but it is my thinking that they had stockpiled them, pre-crash. Will update. to be explicit, GS has no other purpose to stockpile other than they anticipated... better than hospitals. EDIT: There are a few stories saying the stockpiled pre-crash. Though some claim they had them since the swine-flu epidemic in 2009. Given the read I had on how the markets might respond, and how much information there was screaming that China's economy had stopped (for example I couldn't get circuit boards etc)... I would bet a lot of money they called this a few weeks before. [1] https://www.cbs58.com/news/donations-of-respirator-masks-and-other-medical-supplies-needed-at-american-hospitals-coming-from-unlikely-sources https://www.cbs58.com/news/donations-of-respirator-masks-and... [2] https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-gives-face-masks-to-london-employees-still-stuck-at-their-desks-20200320 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-gives-face-masks-t... [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-institutions-share-stockpiles-of-face-masks-with-nyc-hospitals-11584479352 https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-institutions-share-st...
JDulin 7y ago
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 development & rollout of a pretty simple PCR assay. The CDC happily participated in the 'don't test, don't tell' cover-up of the real # of stateside cases. The CDC and FDA were in territorial pissing matches with one another around test regulation. The FDA has hindered the effective deployment of tests and therapies at every turn. The entire journalistic chattering class was lecturing the American public no more than 2 weeks ago about how over-reacting to the virus or calling it the wrong name was more dangerous than the virus itself. The American economy spent the last 3 decades moving every single manufacturing facility and shred of know-how that could make PPE, ventilators, and pharmaceutical precursors overseas to save a few pennies, and wasn't stopped by the government. And we've now learned Congress was given an accurate assessment of the pandemic threat months ago and chose to... sell their private stocks. This crisis is not going to result in happy little vision-less "to-do list" for future bureaucrats to improve upon, it is deepening the American people's awareness that the entire bureaucracy & elite class have been shown wanting and must be replaced in their entirety by massive reform of the federal civil service.
- meddlepal 7y ago
  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.
  - kweinber 7y ago
    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?
all_blue_chucks 7y ago
CCP deserves no credit for buying time. Any other government would have tried to stop the virus instead of trying to cover it up while it spreads far and wide.
barry-cotter 7y ago
> 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 Security Bureau brings in for questioning eight doctors who had posted information about the illness on WeChat. An official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission orders labs, which had already determined that the novel virus was similar to SARS, to stop testing samples and to destroy existing samples. > Jan. 14: WHO announces Chinese authorities have seen "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus." > The bottom line: China is now trying to create a narrative that it's an example of how to handle this crisis when in fact its early actions led to the virus spreading around the globe. https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coro...
- ntsplnkv2 7y ago
  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.
  - viklove 7y ago
    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.
eric_cc 7y ago
> The disaster could have been prevented As in: 100% prevented? > The administration and this is where you lost me..
nocorpwelfare 7y ago
I don't know why you are so obsessed with testing? In the US, if you have a medical problem, you go to the doctor. The doctor may order tests. If you are not sick, or the doctor doesn't think you need certain tests, they don't order the tests. It was never possible to ramp up test kits for 350M people and it's not going to help anyways. You test negative one day, then...what? You can still catch the virus! It's a false sense of security. Japan is handling the crisis the best of any nation so far--calmly, without idiots posting on web forums about their non-expertise and not giving in to who can yell the loudest.
- Kye 7y ago
  >> "without idiots posting on web forums about their non-expertise and not giving in to who can yell the loudest." What are your credentials?
  - nocorpwelfare 7y ago
    PhD Mathematics/Computer Science
    - Kye 7y ago
      So nothing that qualifies you to speak as an expert on matters of medicine. I refer you back to your own words: >> "without idiots posting on web forums about their non-expertise and not giving in to who can yell the loudest." I don't think you need credentials to learn enough about a topic to discuss it intelligently, but I do think people should be consistent in application of their own standards.

by aazaa 7y ago

asquabventured 7y ago

I don't understand this mentality when other Western Nations are going through the exact same thing. Did the administration cause every other countries problems with containing the virus too?

ruytlm 7y ago
In some regards, I'd argue yes; from my perspective, many western democracies have been following the US down its path to post-truth politics for years, as other countries' politicians have seen how effective the strategy of simply denying or ignoring anything you don't like is, and sought to replicate the success that (particularly) the Republican party has had in driving voters deeper into their partisan blocs.
- nocorpwelfare 7y ago
  Saying that only Republicans do this is ridiculous. The Democrats are masters of identity politics, which was totally unproductive in all aspects by design. Handouts and freebies to buy votes and appeal to the most basest desires while ignoring all personal responsibility. Using mass illegal immigration to influence elections. Using outright voting fraud to influence elections. All in a total effort to cement power--it's all about the power, not what they will do with it once they have it. Which, news flash, isn't going to be good for the productive citizens of the US.
rjvs 7y ago
Similar mistakes were made by seemingly every country that hadn’t dealt with a SARS virus before. This might be partially explained by the leadership position the US has traditionally enjoyed on the world stage.
jeromegv 7y ago
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.
- notJim 7y ago
  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.
  - kweinber 7y ago
    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).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sd8f9iu 7y ago
The US has been far behind other Western countries in testing: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/us/coronavirus-testing-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/us/coronaviru... The per-capita chart is most notable. Other Western countries' responses haven't been stellar either, but the US's is particularly flawed.
- humpty_drumpfty 7y ago
  For more up to date data see https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/ https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/
- Lldjjxnn 7y ago
  The FDA had test kits which were flawed. It got caught with its pants down in public. The rest is damage control.
- lurquer 7y ago
  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ US is 21st in per capita deaths (and falling... that is, it was 18th a couple days ago.) Spin all you want about testing and the like. But, the fact remains that the US's medical system is doing a better job than the other western countries. Its striking that Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Belgium, UK, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria have more per capita covid deaths than the US. (Looks like Germany is about to be added to that list.) I do not see how any rational and objective analysis could characterize the US's response as 'particularly flawed'.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - sd8f9iu 7y ago
    There is no sense in comparing per-capita deaths this early in the pandemic, especially when the spread of the virus in the US trails a few weeks behind that in Europe. Talk to me in a few months. Furthermore, per-capita figures are meaningless when comparing areas of substantially different population size and density (e.g. Austria, Switzerland) to the US. _I_ do not see how a "rational and objective analysis" like yours can ignore these basic mitigating factors when making such comparisons.
danmaz74 7y ago
The US was weeks behind Italy in the initial spread of the virus. If the Chinese example wasn't enough to learn, at least what was happening in Italy should have been.
- corpMaverick 7y ago
  At least for me and many other people, I suppose, when I saw what happened to Italy is when I saw what was going to happen here. It has been painful. It is like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion, and you are in front of the train.
belltaco 7y ago
Whatever happened to American exceptionalism? >Did the administration cause every other countries problems with containing the virus too The American people did not elect and pay other countries to take care of them, they did for their government. The administration dismantled the pandemic team from the highest levels and along with their media cronies, actively minimized it for several weeks[1][2] and made it political, which is costing lives now. The other countries did not do that to Americans. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA&feature=youtu.be&t=17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA&feature=youtu.be... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus...
- someguydave 7y ago
  When you use the word “administration” are you thinking about a few hundred elected and directly appointed officials or the hundreds of thousands of government employees? Because it seems like the employees bungled the job.
  - mentalpiracy 7y ago
    Not for nothing, but we are 3 years into an administration that has done everything it could to push out career employees with lifetimes of expertise. There have been failures from the top to the bottom. But let’s not pretend that there hasn’t been a systematic, intentional degradation of these agencies that has only served to exacerbate those failures.
    - someguydave 7y ago
      I voted for the guy specifically because the agencies were rotten and the civil service needs deep reform. I’m very disappointed that the law has not need changed to so that more government employees can be immediately fired.
    - nocorpwelfare 7y ago
      The US is extremely top heavy with government workers, most of whom weren't doing much of anything. There are other considerations here, you can't just have it all. "Career employees with lifetime experience?" You have to be kidding me, most government employees are not very productive. Also, you're sitting here complaining while your way of life is going down the toilet. We need to be looking at how to move forwards. What's done is done.
gt565k 7y ago
No, but it offers a stark comparison of the actions taken by "leader" of the "free world" vs countries like South Korea and Taiwan who managed to control the outbreak. The United States is supposed to be the most prepared country to deal with a pandemic like this, yet the administration failed at its duty to protect its citizens and economy, even with ample warning from the world's best medical experts and intelligence agencies. If America is struggling to contain this, how are impoverished countries supposed to?
- BeetleB 7y ago
  > The United States is supposed to be the most prepared country to deal with a pandemic like this Based on what? For years - long before the current administration - health experts in the US have been talking about how unprepared the US is for a pandemic. So where did you get this idea?
Benmcdonald__ 7y ago
Yes the western countries failed spectacularly. Even tho they had Asian counties as examples. There are no excuses

electriclove 7y ago

Don't forget the mask shaming that was perpetuated in the US.

dboreham 7y ago
I suspect it will be shown that disposable $0.50 N95 masks are largely effective and that the US population was deliberately misled about their effectiveness because the country has no way to provide such masks not only to the general public but to healthcare workers.
- wideasleep1 7y ago
  Agree, but it's not so cut and dry. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t... edit: speaking of cut and dry..men should be clean-shaven to ensure snug fit.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Interesting preface. In the UK we were told that masks were simply not effective, there was no need for them, they would not hinder the spread of infection. Similarly with closing schools: "the gov has this special plan that uses herd immunity, you idiot, so we don't need to close schools" [actually it's always "Boris has a plan", I can't understand why -- if it's the PM's plan then it's probably entirely ignorant of all the facts ...]. Anyway, yeah, the argument wasn't that >"[we] disagree on whether surgical masks alone help prevent the wearer from becoming infected" [from your link] it was "masks of any kind are ineffective". And we bloody well know that just the effectiveness of masks in preventing spread from infected patients makes them worthwhile. It's simply maths that 1 infected who spreads to 1 more is more than 1 infected spreading to zero more.
    - daveslash 7y ago
      I wonder if there was a lie of omission by the health professionals: "N95 Masks won't help the spread [because the general public will touch their face without washing their hands after removing the mask, thus masking the mask a moot point]" ~ the brackets representing the "lie of omission" part. I honestly don't know, just wondering out loud...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

omgJustTest 7y ago

The US government is only partially to blame here. Goldman Sachs apparently donated over 100k N95 masks to New York last week. As a personal critic, I did see some of this coming in my own finances and did divest. I should have done more to be outspoken about this risk, but I am daily surprised by how unprepared we were and how few people are speaking out in ways that matter. Kudos to Cuomo. EDIT: I do think the article is correct in the analysis that this _should_ be months of impact. This is likely from just considering the health impact, and not the correlated factors that 1. the stock market was damn high (inflated by stock by-backs) 2. there is currently a mess being made in federal reserve intervention in the pre-crash quantative easing measures, and the current precedents with 'unlimited liquidity' promised. 3. a lot of people are going to lose their jobs 4. a lot of people will lose their healthcare 5. soon to be bailed out corporations (ie Boeing) have flat rejected equity stake in the company, saying that they will seek private funding before they take a bail-out of that kind An interesting observation on (1), if companies had taken Trump tax breaks and invested in their businesses or kept that cash, they would likely have reduced their bail-out burden substantially. Boeing voluntarily committed to 2bn$ in dividends before the crash. They have not revoked that as of yet.

bradly 7y ago
I’m curious... did GS already have those masks for some reason or did they purchase and then donate them? I thought the masks were is short supply so I’m surprised if a non-health care org was able to purchase 100k masks recently.
- omgJustTest 7y ago
  I will do some reading, but it is my thinking that they had stockpiled them, pre-crash. Will update. to be explicit, GS has no other purpose to stockpile other than they anticipated... better than hospitals. EDIT: There are a few stories saying the stockpiled pre-crash. Though some claim they had them since the swine-flu epidemic in 2009. Given the read I had on how the markets might respond, and how much information there was screaming that China's economy had stopped (for example I couldn't get circuit boards etc)... I would bet a lot of money they called this a few weeks before. [1] https://www.cbs58.com/news/donations-of-respirator-masks-and-other-medical-supplies-needed-at-american-hospitals-coming-from-unlikely-sources https://www.cbs58.com/news/donations-of-respirator-masks-and... [2] https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-gives-face-masks-to-london-employees-still-stuck-at-their-desks-20200320 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-gives-face-masks-t... [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-institutions-share-stockpiles-of-face-masks-with-nyc-hospitals-11584479352 https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-institutions-share-st...

JDulin 7y ago

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 development & rollout of a pretty simple PCR assay. The CDC happily participated in the 'don't test, don't tell' cover-up of the real # of stateside cases. The CDC and FDA were in territorial pissing matches with one another around test regulation. The FDA has hindered the effective deployment of tests and therapies at every turn. The entire journalistic chattering class was lecturing the American public no more than 2 weeks ago about how over-reacting to the virus or calling it the wrong name was more dangerous than the virus itself. The American economy spent the last 3 decades moving every single manufacturing facility and shred of know-how that could make PPE, ventilators, and pharmaceutical precursors overseas to save a few pennies, and wasn't stopped by the government. And we've now learned Congress was given an accurate assessment of the pandemic threat months ago and chose to... sell their private stocks. This crisis is not going to result in happy little vision-less "to-do list" for future bureaucrats to improve upon, it is deepening the American people's awareness that the entire bureaucracy & elite class have been shown wanting and must be replaced in their entirety by massive reform of the federal civil service.

meddlepal 7y ago
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.
- kweinber 7y ago
  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?

all_blue_chucks 7y ago

CCP deserves no credit for buying time. Any other government would have tried to stop the virus instead of trying to cover it up while it spreads far and wide.

barry-cotter 7y ago

> 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 Security Bureau brings in for questioning eight doctors who had posted information about the illness on WeChat. An official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission orders labs, which had already determined that the novel virus was similar to SARS, to stop testing samples and to destroy existing samples. > Jan. 14: WHO announces Chinese authorities have seen "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus." > The bottom line: China is now trying to create a narrative that it's an example of how to handle this crisis when in fact its early actions led to the virus spreading around the globe. https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coro...

ntsplnkv2 7y ago
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.
- viklove 7y ago
  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.

eric_cc 7y ago

> The disaster could have been prevented As in: 100% prevented? > The administration and this is where you lost me..

nocorpwelfare 7y ago

I don't know why you are so obsessed with testing? In the US, if you have a medical problem, you go to the doctor. The doctor may order tests. If you are not sick, or the doctor doesn't think you need certain tests, they don't order the tests. It was never possible to ramp up test kits for 350M people and it's not going to help anyways. You test negative one day, then...what? You can still catch the virus! It's a false sense of security. Japan is handling the crisis the best of any nation so far--calmly, without idiots posting on web forums about their non-expertise and not giving in to who can yell the loudest.

Kye 7y ago
>> "without idiots posting on web forums about their non-expertise and not giving in to who can yell the loudest." What are your credentials?
- nocorpwelfare 7y ago
  PhD Mathematics/Computer Science
  - Kye 7y ago
    So nothing that qualifies you to speak as an expert on matters of medicine. I refer you back to your own words: >> "without idiots posting on web forums about their non-expertise and not giving in to who can yell the loudest." I don't think you need credentials to learn enough about a topic to discuss it intelligently, but I do think people should be consistent in application of their own standards.