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Officials likely get told about many potential crises, but only a small percentage of those pan out. Can we really hold officials accountable for when the crisi

Officials likely get told about many potential crises, but only a small percentage of those pan out. Can we really hold officials accountable for when the crisis actually happens? If we locked down society or accepted draconian measures at every single instance of a possible crisis, we would always be living in crisis because there are always potential crisis of some kind that could happen soon.

fao_ 7y ago
You seem to be talking about the possibility that they overreacted though. That's not really the point. The point is that they did nothing. They took no steps to prevent the spread of the virus. The first, lightest, basic-fucking-step was to start screening people by body temperature at airports. Anyone with an abnormal body temperature is taken into quarantine for a few days. They had three months from November to set it up. (For reference, China almost eradicated the virus in three months from December to Feburary. And South Korea managed to almost completely halt the spread of the virus in that time). Let's look at how that went: I couldn't find anything from December or November. January: "Travelers at 3 U.S. airports to be screened for new, potentially deadly Chinese virus" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/17/coronavirus-us-airports-screening/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/17/coronavirus...) Febuary: "CDC considering expansion of airport health screenings for novel coronavirus" https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-airport-screening-expansion-cdc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-airpor... March (15th): "The US administration has imposed a ban on non-Americans travelling from the 26 European countries in the Schengen free movement zone." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51895246 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51895246 March (23rd): "Travelers shocked by barebones coronavirus screening at US airports" https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/travelers-shocked-by-barebones-coronavirus-screening-at-us-airports/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/travelers-shocked-by-barebones... The point is that the United States had three months of advance warning to do something. And they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing. And now 14,696 people have died, and almost 500,000 people are infected. This rate is rapidly rising. What's more, we don't even know if this data is accurate, it is very likely a lower bound given how difficult it is to obtain a test in the United States at the moment (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-challenges.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-ch... | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51860529 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51860529 | https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-testing-hard-to-get-despite-roche-abbott-cepheid-20200401.html https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-test...). Again, they had three months of advance warning to set this testing up, within which South Korea had almost nullified the spread of the virus.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  It's easy to be right in hindsight. There was some probability it would've never left China. Let's say the probability was 10% of it leaving. If we need airport screening for a mere 10% chance of a virus potentially entering the U.S., we will always and forever screen people's temperatures at airports -- because there is always that (small) probability of a novel infection entering our borders from somewhere (China is one of 195 countries, after all). Is that what we want? I think it seems to be the case. We could be entering a new normal.
  - joshstrange 7y ago
    > It's easy to be right in hindsight. I'll follow HN guidelines and I won't assume what you mean by that so I'll just ask. When did "hindsight" start? What date do you feel is a good marker for when it was obvious?
    - ectospheno 7y ago
      If you personally weren't arguing that people should beware of a pandemic in November then for you hindsight is likely the entire time you've been discussing it.
      - joshstrange 7y ago
        That literally makes no sense. I never said that the minute they got that report they should have jumped into action but rather they got a constant stream of warnings starting in November or around that time. Waiting until March to really act was incorrect. The statement I opposed was that we shouldn’t blame the administration for acting slowly so I’ll rephrase: at what point do you feel like there was enough information to act on? As in, people dragging their feet after this point can be held accountable for their actions (or lack thereof).
      - fao_ 7y ago
        It isn't that they needed to act in November. The virus was only taken seriously by the Chinese in December. However by mid-December no action has been taken by the US government. Only marginal action was seen in January, when it was a sure-fire knowledge that people would have gone to the US not knowing they had it. Even now, there is inadequate provisions and action by the US. It was only in March when the US gov started rolling out testing and screening, finally fully committing to it. If they had started doing what they're doing now, in January, it's likely the US would have been on the tail-end of the pandemic by now.
joshstrange 7y ago
> Officials likely get told about many potential crises, but only a small percentage of those pan out. Probably very true, but it's literally their job to identify which ones are important and which aren't. > Can we really hold officials accountable for when the crisis actually happens? Absolutely. The behavior of the administration verges on criminal. They had experts they ignored over and over. Why did 3M ramp up mask production in January but the administration did nothing until March really (And no, the partial ban on flying from China doesn't count). Why does a private company have more foresight than the government? > If we locked down society or accepted draconian measures at every single instance of a possible crisis, we would always be living in crisis because there are always potential crisis of some kind that could happen soon. Is it draconian to start working on test for COVID-19? Is it draconian to ramp up PPE production/procurement? Is it draconian to do some basic screening at airports?
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  >Is it draconian to start working on test for COVID-19? To be fair, it is unclear when the CDC started working on a test. It was first used January 20th [1] and submitted to the FDA on Feb 3rd [2]. This means they may have started in January or December. Unfortunately, their test did not work out and they had not submitted the WHO test to the FDA as a backup. The entire issue could have been avoided with some redundancy planning. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pa... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/testing.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/testing.html
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  If you listened to every expert, you'd be living in an underground bunker 99.9% of the time. We're on the precipice of nuclear winter; the market is always about to collapse. Bad things are always about to happen. There is always data and models that point to inevitable collapses. Sometimes these models are good, sometimes they aren't. Models are complex and have many variables. You have to pick and choose which are credible or probable. The models for COVID impact still vary widely. FiveThirtyEight discusses why it's so hard to model. [0] It's okay to be critical. But it's unrealistic to expect administrations to always get it right. The costs would be far too high to address every risk at the earliest potential signals. A broken clock is right twice a day. Can we be reactively responding to this with more testing, more PPE, etc.? Absolutely. [0]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-forecasting-covid-19-is-harder-than-forecasting-elections/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-forecasting-covid-19-...

fao_ 7y ago

You seem to be talking about the possibility that they overreacted though. That's not really the point. The point is that they did nothing. They took no steps to prevent the spread of the virus. The first, lightest, basic-fucking-step was to start screening people by body temperature at airports. Anyone with an abnormal body temperature is taken into quarantine for a few days. They had three months from November to set it up. (For reference, China almost eradicated the virus in three months from December to Feburary. And South Korea managed to almost completely halt the spread of the virus in that time). Let's look at how that went: I couldn't find anything from December or November. January: "Travelers at 3 U.S. airports to be screened for new, potentially deadly Chinese virus" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/17/coronavirus-us-airports-screening/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/17/coronavirus...) Febuary: "CDC considering expansion of airport health screenings for novel coronavirus" https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-airport-screening-expansion-cdc/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-airpor... March (15th): "The US administration has imposed a ban on non-Americans travelling from the 26 European countries in the Schengen free movement zone." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51895246 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51895246 March (23rd): "Travelers shocked by barebones coronavirus screening at US airports" https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/travelers-shocked-by-barebones-coronavirus-screening-at-us-airports/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/travelers-shocked-by-barebones... The point is that the United States had three months of advance warning to do something. And they chose to sit on their hands and do nothing. And now 14,696 people have died, and almost 500,000 people are infected. This rate is rapidly rising. What's more, we don't even know if this data is accurate, it is very likely a lower bound given how difficult it is to obtain a test in the United States at the moment (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-challenges.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-ch... | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51860529 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51860529 | https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-testing-hard-to-get-despite-roche-abbott-cepheid-20200401.html https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-test...). Again, they had three months of advance warning to set this testing up, within which South Korea had almost nullified the spread of the virus.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
It's easy to be right in hindsight. There was some probability it would've never left China. Let's say the probability was 10% of it leaving. If we need airport screening for a mere 10% chance of a virus potentially entering the U.S., we will always and forever screen people's temperatures at airports -- because there is always that (small) probability of a novel infection entering our borders from somewhere (China is one of 195 countries, after all). Is that what we want? I think it seems to be the case. We could be entering a new normal.
- joshstrange 7y ago
  > It's easy to be right in hindsight. I'll follow HN guidelines and I won't assume what you mean by that so I'll just ask. When did "hindsight" start? What date do you feel is a good marker for when it was obvious?
  - ectospheno 7y ago
    If you personally weren't arguing that people should beware of a pandemic in November then for you hindsight is likely the entire time you've been discussing it.
    - joshstrange 7y ago
      That literally makes no sense. I never said that the minute they got that report they should have jumped into action but rather they got a constant stream of warnings starting in November or around that time. Waiting until March to really act was incorrect. The statement I opposed was that we shouldn’t blame the administration for acting slowly so I’ll rephrase: at what point do you feel like there was enough information to act on? As in, people dragging their feet after this point can be held accountable for their actions (or lack thereof).
    - fao_ 7y ago
      It isn't that they needed to act in November. The virus was only taken seriously by the Chinese in December. However by mid-December no action has been taken by the US government. Only marginal action was seen in January, when it was a sure-fire knowledge that people would have gone to the US not knowing they had it. Even now, there is inadequate provisions and action by the US. It was only in March when the US gov started rolling out testing and screening, finally fully committing to it. If they had started doing what they're doing now, in January, it's likely the US would have been on the tail-end of the pandemic by now.

joshstrange 7y ago

> Officials likely get told about many potential crises, but only a small percentage of those pan out. Probably very true, but it's literally their job to identify which ones are important and which aren't. > Can we really hold officials accountable for when the crisis actually happens? Absolutely. The behavior of the administration verges on criminal. They had experts they ignored over and over. Why did 3M ramp up mask production in January but the administration did nothing until March really (And no, the partial ban on flying from China doesn't count). Why does a private company have more foresight than the government? > If we locked down society or accepted draconian measures at every single instance of a possible crisis, we would always be living in crisis because there are always potential crisis of some kind that could happen soon. Is it draconian to start working on test for COVID-19? Is it draconian to ramp up PPE production/procurement? Is it draconian to do some basic screening at airports?

s1artibartfast 7y ago
>Is it draconian to start working on test for COVID-19? To be fair, it is unclear when the CDC started working on a test. It was first used January 20th [1] and submitted to the FDA on Feb 3rd [2]. This means they may have started in January or December. Unfortunately, their test did not work out and they had not submitted the WHO test to the FDA as a backup. The entire issue could have been avoided with some redundancy planning. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pa... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/testing.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/testing.html
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
If you listened to every expert, you'd be living in an underground bunker 99.9% of the time. We're on the precipice of nuclear winter; the market is always about to collapse. Bad things are always about to happen. There is always data and models that point to inevitable collapses. Sometimes these models are good, sometimes they aren't. Models are complex and have many variables. You have to pick and choose which are credible or probable. The models for COVID impact still vary widely. FiveThirtyEight discusses why it's so hard to model. [0] It's okay to be critical. But it's unrealistic to expect administrations to always get it right. The costs would be far too high to address every risk at the earliest potential signals. A broken clock is right twice a day. Can we be reactively responding to this with more testing, more PPE, etc.? Absolutely. [0]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-forecasting-covid-19-is-harder-than-forecasting-elections/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-forecasting-covid-19-...