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It's absolutely depressing knowing that this all stems from a complete utter lack of leadership at the federal level. That states are having to implement their

It's absolutely depressing knowing that this all stems from a complete utter lack of leadership at the federal level. That states are having to implement their own policies and plans of attack for this virus is a total travesty. Massachusetts is undoubtedly leading the way here. But this is a global pandemic, that can only begin to be approached at the national level. With our society's level of interconnectedness, state level interventions are completely meaningless.

redis_mlc 6y ago
> It's absolutely depressing knowing that this all stems from a complete utter lack of leadership at the federal level. I only wish that was the half of it. Covid-19 appears to be a bioweapon engineered in the Wuhan Corona lab, and sponsored by the US govt. https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throu...
- mydongle 6y ago
  It is ?
- twalla 6y ago
  I'm going to go ahead and pull the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" card on this one.
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    probably this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-government-gave-3-7million-grant-Wuhan-lab-experimented-coronavirus-source-bats.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-governm... REVEALED: U.S. government gave $3.7million grant to Wuhan lab at center of coronavirus leak scrutiny that was performing experiments on bats from the caves where the disease is believed to have originated The US National Institutes of Health, a government agency, awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology The lab is the center of several conspiracy theories that suggest it is the original source of the coronavirus outbreak The institute experimented on bats from the source of the coronavirus They were captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to bats to Yunnan's caves The U.S. government funded research on coronavirus transmission in the lab over the past decade And https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-created-in-an-attempt-to-find-aids-vaccine-nobel-laureate-claims/ https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-created-i...
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    I know you're trying to sound wise, but you're just following the ignorant HN herd. Here is a link that analyzes the papers published by the Wuhan Corona Lab. It's a long read, but the conclusion is that likely Covid-19 was man-made, and US NIH partly paid for it. Nobody disputes either, but for some reason HNers are not paying attention to anything but "IFR vs. CFR." https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throu... I didn't add the link originally because I wanted to see how ignorant HN was to the reported events in Wuhan.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
traderjane 6y ago
I find it somewhat comical that the governor of Maryland had his wife pull South Korean connections to buy masks. So terribly ad hoc.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I dunno, that's what happens in a global shortage sometimes. Remember that the governor of Maryland isn't exactly a small-time official - Maryland's economy is about as large as Iran or Norway.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> That states are having to implement their own policies and plans of attack for this virus is a total travesty. Blame the constitution. In the US system of government health is largely a state matter. Setting aside trump, the federal agencies just aren't setup to lead. They can issue statements and guidelines but lack any actual authority on the ground. State governors have the power, but even then they cannot boss corporations around (hospitals/insurance companies). They cannot even divert masks from one hospital to another, let alone demand that a patient be moved. Now in other countries, the ones with government-provided healthcare, the national government has real authority. They can directly order policy changes. They can close individual hospitals and/or move patients. They can control the flow of equipment because they are the ones paying for that equipment. Canada just deployed soldiers into some care homes. It took less than 24 hours without any new legislation needed. A US state governor might be able to use the local national guard, but deploying the army within the US? Into a privately-run care home? That is a power trump doesn't have.
- stormbrew 6y ago
  In Canada health is constitutionally devolved to the provinces. Explicitly, since our constitution was actually written in the last 40 years so was written with the awareness that health care is a major government concern. In so far as the federal government sets health policy, it does so through the carrot and stick of federal funding through equalization and other programs. I am reasonably certain that this is also an approach the US federal government has used in areas of devolved authority (particularly education). And looking at the specific situation you're talking about, it appears the Ontario government requested military assistance, and it was granted, not the other way around. The US federal government may not have explicit authority, but the idea that it is absolutely helpless to coordinate efforts among the states (aka interstate commerce) seems kind of blatantly absurd. Never mind that they seem to, in fact, have done quite a lot of diverting masks from where they were going to elsewhere already. Just you know, not in a helpful way.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act Domestic use of US soldiers, even with a state request, is not a simple matter. Trump wanted to deploy troops along boarder --> no go. Federal troops cannot be used to implement domestic policy. New York probably couldn't get troops if it asked. Canadian troops, if asked by any level of government, can deploy domestically and do so regularly. That's the advantage of a single sovereign authority (the crown). Everyone is literally on the same team. The US fed exercises its health power indirectly, through spending. It can demand that certain hospitals, those that receive federal funds, act in certain ways. But it cannot dictate treatment regimes. (This fed-state split on health has been heavily influenced/reinforced by the abortion debate.)
Hermel 6y ago
Would you really have preferred the states to have less and the federal government to have more authority in this matter? Yes, this is a global pandemic. But at the same time, I prefer a response that is fine-tuned to local circumstances and I’m glad the WHO does not have envy authority over the decision taking in my city. Corona does not strike every region equally and at the same time. Furthermore, diversity of regulation is very important for learning what works and what does not. For example, if the Swedish approach turns out to be successful, we can copy that in case of a second wave. There is a common misconception that a coordinated approach is necessary to make sure everyone does the optimal things. That’s wrong. Regions are free to copy each other if they see what works elsewhere. If there are local differences, there is often a good reason for it and you wouldn’t want a central authority to enforce a “one-size-fits-all” response.
- prox 6y ago
  I agree in general I agree, but sometimes speed can be of the essence. Unfortunately no country on earth was in a rush to stop the spread early on. So much could’ve been done in the early fase if a national and international response would’ve been coherent.
  - Hermel 6y ago
    What about Taiwan? We could have learned a lot from them, but WHO chose to ignore their advice for political reasons. Also, I generally think local decision-taking is faster than centralized decision-taking. So if speed is important, you should try to decentralize power and allow local governments to act on their own.
    - senderista 6y ago
      Shhhh. Taiwan doesn't exist. At least the leading international public health organization thinks so, and who am I to argue?
- senderista 6y ago
  The local response has been "fine-tuned" according to local political and cultural prejudices, nothing more.
namelosw 6y ago
The US government model and the mindset of people seems to make it very hard to do massive mobilization in a short period of time, compared to countries like China. From which mobilization is very useful in situations like pandemics, or more straightforward, wars. Of course, there are many advantages from this model. The comparison between these models of governments reminds me of 'the Prince' from Machiavelli. In that book, he compared France with the Ottoman Empire. French king has relatively weak power since the nobles own their fiefs. While the Ottoman Empire there are only province officers, and the sultan can easily move or fire those officers. The comparison seems to echo what the US and China's modern political systems and possibly the pros and cons remain the same. PS: There's a documentary from the BBC named 'the Chinese Mayor' that might help people have an initial understanding of the Chinese political system from a mayor's perspective. Chinese officers transfer from provinces to provinces in a very frequent manner, in order to avoid the local governments have too much power. This feature remains the same in China for two thousand years.
- enaaem 6y ago
  China has no free press and is not really transparant with their numbers, so we can't use them as an example. Here is what happens when someone tries to reveal to real situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U1VYck6KOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U1VYck6KOo The person filming is currently missing.
  - namelosw 6y ago
    I admit it's not transparent. First, they were downplaying it. Second, there were many cases of interrogation, detaining like what you've posted. With that being said, I didn't mention any number, but the situation turned to be optimal for quite a while - it's too obvious to anyone who lives here. It's quite a thing to see once the government realized the downplaying was a fault, how fast and effective they could implement their quarantine policy into every corner in the society. It's both incredible and terrifying to see the executive orders implemented by every community, village, malls, and every individual. The original point I wanted to make is, there were a lof people believed the history was ended by American style democracy, it wasn't. There is still quite a room for optimization.
roenxi 6y ago
> But this is a global pandemic, that can only begin to be approached at the national level. Why pick national? Almost any aspect of the response can be implemented on any level of governance except maybe individual. It isn't at all obvious that centralising on the federal level is sensible. Realistically; the optimal organisational unit for the response might be the catchments around each hospital and so somewhere around the local level.
- XorNot 6y ago
  Because the federal government has control over fiscal and (indirectly) monetary policy. It can literally print money and borrow at rates which no single state can. It has an independent power to levy taxation against the citizens of those states. If the US states were literally independent countries, then they'd be able to do more. They're not, so the federal government should be doing a lot more then it is. Your taxes pay for federal government. An entirely different set of taxes pay for state government. _Why_ are you not demanding better service?
  - roenxi 6y ago
    For me particularly I'm not American. But Australia is in the same boat where our states are doing most the heavy lifting around the response. Everyone needs food; not printed paper. Who controls monetary and fiscal policy isn't so important. Having a big pile of cash doesn't really change anything - the crisis is in the real world and responses need to be in the real world too. Any level of government can manage that. And note the US Federal government creaking under a historically high level of debt, it has already given people far more than any taxpayer is contributing to the tune of something like @3k per if https://usdebtclock.org/ https://usdebtclock.org/ is accurate.
  - senderista 6y ago
    Also: most state and local governments are legally prohibited from deficit spending. That is absolutely crippling in a crisis like this one, given that tax revenues have dropped massively.
- torgian 6y ago

redis_mlc 6y ago

> It's absolutely depressing knowing that this all stems from a complete utter lack of leadership at the federal level. I only wish that was the half of it. Covid-19 appears to be a bioweapon engineered in the Wuhan Corona lab, and sponsored by the US govt. https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throu...

mydongle 6y ago
It is ?
twalla 6y ago
I'm going to go ahead and pull the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" card on this one.
- olivermarks 6y ago
  probably this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-government-gave-3-7million-grant-Wuhan-lab-experimented-coronavirus-source-bats.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211291/U-S-governm... REVEALED: U.S. government gave $3.7million grant to Wuhan lab at center of coronavirus leak scrutiny that was performing experiments on bats from the caves where the disease is believed to have originated The US National Institutes of Health, a government agency, awarded a $3.7million research grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology The lab is the center of several conspiracy theories that suggest it is the original source of the coronavirus outbreak The institute experimented on bats from the source of the coronavirus They were captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan Sequencing of the Covid-19 genome has traced it to bats to Yunnan's caves The U.S. government funded research on coronavirus transmission in the lab over the past decade And https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-created-in-an-attempt-to-find-aids-vaccine-nobel-laureate-claims/ https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/20/coronavirus-created-i...
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  I know you're trying to sound wise, but you're just following the ignorant HN herd. Here is a link that analyzes the papers published by the Wuhan Corona Lab. It's a long read, but the conclusion is that likely Covid-19 was man-made, and US NIH partly paid for it. Nobody disputes either, but for some reason HNers are not paying attention to anything but "IFR vs. CFR." https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throu... I didn't add the link originally because I wanted to see how ignorant HN was to the reported events in Wuhan.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

traderjane 6y ago

I find it somewhat comical that the governor of Maryland had his wife pull South Korean connections to buy masks. So terribly ad hoc.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I dunno, that's what happens in a global shortage sometimes. Remember that the governor of Maryland isn't exactly a small-time official - Maryland's economy is about as large as Iran or Norway.

sandworm101 6y ago

>> That states are having to implement their own policies and plans of attack for this virus is a total travesty. Blame the constitution. In the US system of government health is largely a state matter. Setting aside trump, the federal agencies just aren't setup to lead. They can issue statements and guidelines but lack any actual authority on the ground. State governors have the power, but even then they cannot boss corporations around (hospitals/insurance companies). They cannot even divert masks from one hospital to another, let alone demand that a patient be moved. Now in other countries, the ones with government-provided healthcare, the national government has real authority. They can directly order policy changes. They can close individual hospitals and/or move patients. They can control the flow of equipment because they are the ones paying for that equipment. Canada just deployed soldiers into some care homes. It took less than 24 hours without any new legislation needed. A US state governor might be able to use the local national guard, but deploying the army within the US? Into a privately-run care home? That is a power trump doesn't have.

stormbrew 6y ago
In Canada health is constitutionally devolved to the provinces. Explicitly, since our constitution was actually written in the last 40 years so was written with the awareness that health care is a major government concern. In so far as the federal government sets health policy, it does so through the carrot and stick of federal funding through equalization and other programs. I am reasonably certain that this is also an approach the US federal government has used in areas of devolved authority (particularly education). And looking at the specific situation you're talking about, it appears the Ontario government requested military assistance, and it was granted, not the other way around. The US federal government may not have explicit authority, but the idea that it is absolutely helpless to coordinate efforts among the states (aka interstate commerce) seems kind of blatantly absurd. Never mind that they seem to, in fact, have done quite a lot of diverting masks from where they were going to elsewhere already. Just you know, not in a helpful way.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act Domestic use of US soldiers, even with a state request, is not a simple matter. Trump wanted to deploy troops along boarder --> no go. Federal troops cannot be used to implement domestic policy. New York probably couldn't get troops if it asked. Canadian troops, if asked by any level of government, can deploy domestically and do so regularly. That's the advantage of a single sovereign authority (the crown). Everyone is literally on the same team. The US fed exercises its health power indirectly, through spending. It can demand that certain hospitals, those that receive federal funds, act in certain ways. But it cannot dictate treatment regimes. (This fed-state split on health has been heavily influenced/reinforced by the abortion debate.)

Hermel 6y ago

Would you really have preferred the states to have less and the federal government to have more authority in this matter? Yes, this is a global pandemic. But at the same time, I prefer a response that is fine-tuned to local circumstances and I’m glad the WHO does not have envy authority over the decision taking in my city. Corona does not strike every region equally and at the same time. Furthermore, diversity of regulation is very important for learning what works and what does not. For example, if the Swedish approach turns out to be successful, we can copy that in case of a second wave. There is a common misconception that a coordinated approach is necessary to make sure everyone does the optimal things. That’s wrong. Regions are free to copy each other if they see what works elsewhere. If there are local differences, there is often a good reason for it and you wouldn’t want a central authority to enforce a “one-size-fits-all” response.

prox 6y ago
I agree in general I agree, but sometimes speed can be of the essence. Unfortunately no country on earth was in a rush to stop the spread early on. So much could’ve been done in the early fase if a national and international response would’ve been coherent.
- Hermel 6y ago
  What about Taiwan? We could have learned a lot from them, but WHO chose to ignore their advice for political reasons. Also, I generally think local decision-taking is faster than centralized decision-taking. So if speed is important, you should try to decentralize power and allow local governments to act on their own.
  - senderista 6y ago
    Shhhh. Taiwan doesn't exist. At least the leading international public health organization thinks so, and who am I to argue?
senderista 6y ago
The local response has been "fine-tuned" according to local political and cultural prejudices, nothing more.

namelosw 6y ago

The US government model and the mindset of people seems to make it very hard to do massive mobilization in a short period of time, compared to countries like China. From which mobilization is very useful in situations like pandemics, or more straightforward, wars. Of course, there are many advantages from this model. The comparison between these models of governments reminds me of 'the Prince' from Machiavelli. In that book, he compared France with the Ottoman Empire. French king has relatively weak power since the nobles own their fiefs. While the Ottoman Empire there are only province officers, and the sultan can easily move or fire those officers. The comparison seems to echo what the US and China's modern political systems and possibly the pros and cons remain the same. PS: There's a documentary from the BBC named 'the Chinese Mayor' that might help people have an initial understanding of the Chinese political system from a mayor's perspective. Chinese officers transfer from provinces to provinces in a very frequent manner, in order to avoid the local governments have too much power. This feature remains the same in China for two thousand years.

enaaem 6y ago
China has no free press and is not really transparant with their numbers, so we can't use them as an example. Here is what happens when someone tries to reveal to real situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U1VYck6KOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U1VYck6KOo The person filming is currently missing.
- namelosw 6y ago
  I admit it's not transparent. First, they were downplaying it. Second, there were many cases of interrogation, detaining like what you've posted. With that being said, I didn't mention any number, but the situation turned to be optimal for quite a while - it's too obvious to anyone who lives here. It's quite a thing to see once the government realized the downplaying was a fault, how fast and effective they could implement their quarantine policy into every corner in the society. It's both incredible and terrifying to see the executive orders implemented by every community, village, malls, and every individual. The original point I wanted to make is, there were a lof people believed the history was ended by American style democracy, it wasn't. There is still quite a room for optimization.

roenxi 6y ago

> But this is a global pandemic, that can only begin to be approached at the national level. Why pick national? Almost any aspect of the response can be implemented on any level of governance except maybe individual. It isn't at all obvious that centralising on the federal level is sensible. Realistically; the optimal organisational unit for the response might be the catchments around each hospital and so somewhere around the local level.

XorNot 6y ago
Because the federal government has control over fiscal and (indirectly) monetary policy. It can literally print money and borrow at rates which no single state can. It has an independent power to levy taxation against the citizens of those states. If the US states were literally independent countries, then they'd be able to do more. They're not, so the federal government should be doing a lot more then it is. Your taxes pay for federal government. An entirely different set of taxes pay for state government. _Why_ are you not demanding better service?
- roenxi 6y ago
  For me particularly I'm not American. But Australia is in the same boat where our states are doing most the heavy lifting around the response. Everyone needs food; not printed paper. Who controls monetary and fiscal policy isn't so important. Having a big pile of cash doesn't really change anything - the crisis is in the real world and responses need to be in the real world too. Any level of government can manage that. And note the US Federal government creaking under a historically high level of debt, it has already given people far more than any taxpayer is contributing to the tune of something like @3k per if https://usdebtclock.org/ https://usdebtclock.org/ is accurate.
- senderista 6y ago
  Also: most state and local governments are legally prohibited from deficit spending. That is absolutely crippling in a crisis like this one, given that tax revenues have dropped massively.
torgian 6y ago