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I'm no fan of the CDC and FDA, but you'd have to be blind to ignore the failure of leadership at the top of the totem poll. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/

• zaroth 6y ago
  There’s no reason to play partisan politics here. If we want we can say Democrats were too busy trying to impeach Trump and calling Wuhan a “manufactured crisis” back when Trump ordered the borders closed Jan 30. The simple fact is non-partisan non-evil, simply incompetent bureaucrats at the State and Federal levels all failed to adequately prepare (PPE stockpiles) and had actively harmful policies set in place years ago which impeded the response or even actively worsened it, and too many remained in denial once community spread became apparent. Everything from a stranglehold on testing (FDA) to bungling the test kits (CDC) to flimsy border checks, poor initial contact tracing, to forcing COVID positive patients to nursing homes (Cuomo), to politicizing the quarantine to the point where they lose credibility (open letter from ‘healthcare professionals’ supporting protests). There’s nothing deep state or evil about it. It’s just the typical failure I expect from my government, blue or red, every time. Sad but true. To be fair, this was basically America’s first brush with a serious contagion in the modern era. Other countries that did better have had more practice. Frankly, I don’t think a full fledged multi-trillion dollar response (50-state hard quarantine) was politically possible on January 20th. Trump was acquitted on Feb 5, and Senators skipping impeachment hearings to get informed on COVID were literally being threatened that they would be dragged into the Senate to sit and listen to Ukraine testimony. From what I can tell, no one in either party was calling for measures stringent enough and early enough to have stopped the situation we have now. Senator Cotton was one who pushed particular hard to ground planes and is credited for that. Of course at the time the perplexing WHO guidance was against travel bans. Yes, the US certainly isn’t alone in the world in its missteps. And even if the lockdown had been harder and more consistent, there was still the flubbed testing, the flubbed medical response (ventilators), and the flubbed patient management. CDC initial tactical teams wanted to treat COVID patients like Ebola carriers, spending what looked like $100k per person in full isolation wards — I guess they were thinking this was going to be 10 or 20 people coming into the country. Then we end up sending sick people into common areas of nursing homes. Then they told people not to wear masks for weeks... Just totally nonsensical top to bottom.
  • cycomanic 6y ago
    So you are equating democratic legislators taking part in the impeachment hearings to the trump administration dismantling the CDC pandemic response team? Let's not even get into the "corona will just disappear... or it's just like the flu..." These arguments about "let's not make this a partisan issue" completely ignores the reality. The same about how news and politics are so divisive at the moment, yes they are but let's not forget one side of politics literally said people carrying swastikas are very fine people as well. Calling for "not politicising issues and all sides are bad" completely ignores the reality that who is in power at the moment and how exceptionally incompetent and corrupt the current administration is.
    • roenxi 6y ago
      That isn't a totally unfair equivalence; they were using the impeachment hearing to draw attention to what they considered the biggest problem facing America - Republicans winning the 2016 election. They could have been using the time to agitate for resilience and disaster preparedness. I wish someone would do that, Democrat or otherwise. COVID-19 will not be the last crisis. > literally said people carrying swastikas are very fine people as well. Trump, several seconds later [0]: "And you had people -- and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay?" [0] https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...
    • zaroth 6y ago
      So much for not playing politics, the only reply I get being one that falsely calls Trump a Nazi sympathizer. > yes they are but let's not forget one side of politics literally said people carrying swastikas are very fine people as well I'll assume you're not being sarcastic, and perhaps just inadvertently making my case. What Trump said about Charlottesville was literally the opposite of what the media reported him saying. Watch the actual video of his remarks, or read the full transcript. If you're willing to examine the actual primary source evidence in that case, perhaps it will help you take a fresh look at how COVID is reported w.r.t Trump as well. As to your question, no I was not equating that. I am saying just one of many, many flubs was when Democrats called COVID a "manufactured crisis" in the early stages as it was unfolding during impeachment. Instead of pushing the Administration to do me, COVID response was made out to be a red herring or a con used as a distraction. Before we even knew was SARS-CoV-2 was, the response was already being irreparably politicized.