5 ms·

This has largely _not_ been a Federal response, this has largely been in the hands of the States, at least in regards to setting the policies. State epidemiolog

This has largely _not_ been a Federal response, this has largely been in the hands of the States, at least in regards to setting the policies. State epidemiologists are currently more "powerful" than the CDC in most states, so blaming the response on who is in majority control of the Federal government is short-sighted. Yes, the (lack of) organized Federal response influenced the severity of the issue in the early days, but we can't lay blame at that level for what has taken place in each state since that time. The issue isn't whether lockdowns work. Of course they do. People spread disease to one another, limit the number of people that contact each other and the disease will abate. That isn't what is worthy of debate. Rather, we should be debating if lockdowns are worth the cost, and what other methods could we use to mitigate the disease while still maintaining some amount of normalcy. If we have that debate, it needs to be super local. Density is the driver of any pandemic with human to human transmission. NYC is the most dense city in the United States, and has a huge reliance on densely packed public transit. Dallas is incredibly sprawled and has very little transit use. They need fundamentally different responses. It is this lack of nuance that is troubling.

matthewdgreen 6y ago
This is nuts. Large portions of the response were absolutely in the hands of the Federal government, which failed catastrophically. These range from the elimination of our pandemic response team [0] to the early testing debacle, which resulted from bad tests distributed by CDC (and early failures to scale up private testing using Federal powers and expedited FDA approval) [1], to the lack of coordination between states —- typically an essential function of the Federal government —- to reticent distribution of stimulus funds that were needed to bolster an effective lockdown and support state budgets [2]. Let’s not even start with the weird Federal PPE hijackings that nobody has ever properly gotten to the bottom of. My own state governor (a Republican) had to send state police to protect imports of testing kits, so they wouldn’t be stolen by the Federal government [3]. This isn’t even close to complete, and it’s just the official response. I won’t even get into the totally catastrophic and shifting moral leadership we received from the White House, the weird stuff about opening for Easter. And ugh, the fact that close allies of WH cabinet members were deliberately funding astroturf “anti-lockdown” movements that argued for opening up even against the administration’s own recommendations [4]. Honestly, from your response I can only assume that you haven’t been reading the news since January. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/t... [2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/4/22/21231122/mitch-mcconnell-stimulus https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/4... [3] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/30/politics/larry-hogan-coronavirus-masks-national-guard/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/30/poli... [4] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/coronavirus-protests-astroturf.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opin...
- salmon30salmon 6y ago
  I totally agree with you, that the Federal response was pretty terrible. And I understand and am aware of the topics you provided. However, that does not change where we are today. It would have probably helped us get to "today" a lot earlier, and it would have probably saved many, many lives which were unfortunately lost. But my argument is how we respond _today_ to new information, and how the partisanship endemic in our culture today does not allow for us to pivot in a meaningful way. If we knew what we know today 160 days ago, I doubt we would still want to lock down in the same way that we did. But unfortunately, despite now being armed with that knowledge, we are not pivoting on the plan we made back in March. Even our knowledge of treating it has improved. The CFR is down across the board. We now know oxygen replacement therapy is better than invasive ventilators. We know that a majority of the spread is in nosocomial or in nursing homes. We know that remdisivir shows promise. We know that treating with anti-inflammatory drugs is helpful. We know better ways to prevent cytokin storms. We know better how to respond to clotting. Focusing just on the ventilator learnings, we can treat people with oxygen replacement therapy without them being in the ICU, while invasive ventilator treatment requires an ICU. This lowers the number of ICU beds needed, and thus should shift the hospital capacity discussion. But I am seeing none of that. It is all partisan bickering over "full lockdown" or "full reopen" and both sides claiming the other is "anti-science" I will ignore the personal attack, beyond saying that questioning someones understanding of a topic at such a basic level has no place in proper debate.
  - tunesmith 6y ago
    > If we knew what we know today 160 days ago, I doubt we would still want to lock down in the same way that we did. I don't know how to respond to that - I technically agree with you, the loudest least educated voices probably wouldn't have wanted to lock down. The lack of info and the panic level probably positively contributed to saving more lives. I'm totally okay with that. I believe that knowing then what we know now, we absolutely should have done what we did, and then some. We didn't have enough testing capacity. We know that if we had locked down even earlier, we would have saved a significant number of additional lives. It's true that part of the argument was based on hospital capacity. But the models today are still consistent with the view that the capacity in many areas would have been overwhelmed in many places had we done nothing. I think the key there is that civilians were going to "do something" and stay at home even if the government didn't tell them to, no matter what. > But I am seeing none of that. It is all partisan bickering over "full lockdown" or "full reopen" and both sides claiming the other is "anti-science" It's best to step away from that kind of absolutist language (none, all) - it just tends to bait people.
tunesmith 6y ago
In my state we have leaders looking at data on county and zip code levels, and assigning "stages" to counties that affect how open the businesses can be, based off of how stable their numbers are looking. What's it like in yours?
- NotSammyHagar 6y ago
  That sounds like what we are doing in Wa state. It's too early to know how it will pan out.

matthewdgreen 6y ago

This is nuts. Large portions of the response were absolutely in the hands of the Federal government, which failed catastrophically. These range from the elimination of our pandemic response team [0] to the early testing debacle, which resulted from bad tests distributed by CDC (and early failures to scale up private testing using Federal powers and expedited FDA approval) [1], to the lack of coordination between states —- typically an essential function of the Federal government —- to reticent distribution of stimulus funds that were needed to bolster an effective lockdown and support state budgets [2]. Let’s not even start with the weird Federal PPE hijackings that nobody has ever properly gotten to the bottom of. My own state governor (a Republican) had to send state police to protect imports of testing kits, so they wouldn’t be stolen by the Federal government [3]. This isn’t even close to complete, and it’s just the official response. I won’t even get into the totally catastrophic and shifting moral leadership we received from the White House, the weird stuff about opening for Easter. And ugh, the fact that close allies of WH cabinet members were deliberately funding astroturf “anti-lockdown” movements that argued for opening up even against the administration’s own recommendations [4]. Honestly, from your response I can only assume that you haven’t been reading the news since January. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/t... [2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/4/22/21231122/mitch-mcconnell-stimulus https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/4... [3] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/30/politics/larry-hogan-coronavirus-masks-national-guard/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/30/poli... [4] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opinion/coronavirus-protests-astroturf.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/opin...

salmon30salmon 6y ago
I totally agree with you, that the Federal response was pretty terrible. And I understand and am aware of the topics you provided. However, that does not change where we are today. It would have probably helped us get to "today" a lot earlier, and it would have probably saved many, many lives which were unfortunately lost. But my argument is how we respond _today_ to new information, and how the partisanship endemic in our culture today does not allow for us to pivot in a meaningful way. If we knew what we know today 160 days ago, I doubt we would still want to lock down in the same way that we did. But unfortunately, despite now being armed with that knowledge, we are not pivoting on the plan we made back in March. Even our knowledge of treating it has improved. The CFR is down across the board. We now know oxygen replacement therapy is better than invasive ventilators. We know that a majority of the spread is in nosocomial or in nursing homes. We know that remdisivir shows promise. We know that treating with anti-inflammatory drugs is helpful. We know better ways to prevent cytokin storms. We know better how to respond to clotting. Focusing just on the ventilator learnings, we can treat people with oxygen replacement therapy without them being in the ICU, while invasive ventilator treatment requires an ICU. This lowers the number of ICU beds needed, and thus should shift the hospital capacity discussion. But I am seeing none of that. It is all partisan bickering over "full lockdown" or "full reopen" and both sides claiming the other is "anti-science" I will ignore the personal attack, beyond saying that questioning someones understanding of a topic at such a basic level has no place in proper debate.
- tunesmith 6y ago
  > If we knew what we know today 160 days ago, I doubt we would still want to lock down in the same way that we did. I don't know how to respond to that - I technically agree with you, the loudest least educated voices probably wouldn't have wanted to lock down. The lack of info and the panic level probably positively contributed to saving more lives. I'm totally okay with that. I believe that knowing then what we know now, we absolutely should have done what we did, and then some. We didn't have enough testing capacity. We know that if we had locked down even earlier, we would have saved a significant number of additional lives. It's true that part of the argument was based on hospital capacity. But the models today are still consistent with the view that the capacity in many areas would have been overwhelmed in many places had we done nothing. I think the key there is that civilians were going to "do something" and stay at home even if the government didn't tell them to, no matter what. > But I am seeing none of that. It is all partisan bickering over "full lockdown" or "full reopen" and both sides claiming the other is "anti-science" It's best to step away from that kind of absolutist language (none, all) - it just tends to bait people.

tunesmith 6y ago

In my state we have leaders looking at data on county and zip code levels, and assigning "stages" to counties that affect how open the businesses can be, based off of how stable their numbers are looking. What's it like in yours?

NotSammyHagar 6y ago
That sounds like what we are doing in Wa state. It's too early to know how it will pan out.