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The CDC was also underfunded and the US's pandemic response budget had been slashed. The events of March are a damning indictment of letting small government do

by geofft 6y ago

The CDC was also underfunded and the US's pandemic response budget had been slashed. The events of March are a damning indictment of letting small government do a big government's job, but not more than that. Anyway, I'm happy to concede that the market will take about a month to figure out vaccine distribution. In fact, I said "a couple of weeks" in my original comment that said the market is "extremely slow." So I suspect we have the same actual time span in mind, it's just that you think that the description of that time is "quick" and I think it's "slow". In particular, it sounds like you think it's quick by comparison to potential alternatives. But I'm saying it's slow by comparison to the author's argument - that additional days or weeks of delay cause serious exponential growth. So we should at least ask what could be faster, before being satisfied with one month. I know of absolutely no way to make the market faster. I do know of ways to make the government more competent and faster, even if our current government agencies are not competent or fast. For instance - do you think the military would take more than a month to do this? (Also, the current government-run distribution regime is actually vaccinating healthcare workers, as we argue about this, and it's taken much less than a month from approval to getting real people vaccinated.)

roenxi 6y ago
> So we should at least ask what could be faster, before being satisfied with one month. I know of absolutely no way to make the market faster. I do know of ways to make the government more competent and faster, even if our current government agencies are not competent or fast. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would you unable to implement your ideas if given money & resources in proportion to the value you are creating? Why do you need a politically charged environment with an opposition who disagrees with every aspect of your decision making process to implement your ideas? And your ideas won't speed the government up, people keep putting good ideas up to improve government all the time then they get shot down in the political process. Congress is deeply unpopular for a reason, and it isn't that people are struggling to see where improvements could be made. The CDC isn't underfunded because the pandemic was unforeseeable, there have been warning signs that something like this could happen since SARS v1 in the early 2000s. It is underfunded because the political process is not an effective method of getting stuff done. As will probably be showcased again if there are any free market vs government rollout vaccine case studies of this next phase. As plans go it could be boiled down to wanting Congress & the Trump administration put in charge. That isn't a very fleshed out plan, and the fleshy bits to it could reasonably be described as dodgy and unreliable. > For instance - do you think the military would take more than a month to do this? Yes. It is a big job. > (Also, the current government-run distribution regime is actually vaccinating healthcare workers, as we argue about this, and it's taken much less than a month from approval to getting real people vaccinated.) The healthcare workers have been dealing with the virus for 9 months now, they either have protections worked out or have already caught it. The most important thing, as the article notes, is ramping up production and mass deployments. I'm glad that they're vaccinated, but the most important thing at the moment is safety and raw numbers of people vaccinated, and not so much the targetting. I'd bet most of the healthcare workers who catch Covid catch it outside of work. The fastest way to get mass vaccinations is to let companies sell vaccine shots to people who will pay them. The government can try to help by ordering a bunch of shots for people who can't otherwise pay.

by geofft 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago

> So we should at least ask what could be faster, before being satisfied with one month. I know of absolutely no way to make the market faster. I do know of ways to make the government more competent and faster, even if our current government agencies are not competent or fast. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would you unable to implement your ideas if given money & resources in proportion to the value you are creating? Why do you need a politically charged environment with an opposition who disagrees with every aspect of your decision making process to implement your ideas? And your ideas won't speed the government up, people keep putting good ideas up to improve government all the time then they get shot down in the political process. Congress is deeply unpopular for a reason, and it isn't that people are struggling to see where improvements could be made. The CDC isn't underfunded because the pandemic was unforeseeable, there have been warning signs that something like this could happen since SARS v1 in the early 2000s. It is underfunded because the political process is not an effective method of getting stuff done. As will probably be showcased again if there are any free market vs government rollout vaccine case studies of this next phase. As plans go it could be boiled down to wanting Congress & the Trump administration put in charge. That isn't a very fleshed out plan, and the fleshy bits to it could reasonably be described as dodgy and unreliable. > For instance - do you think the military would take more than a month to do this? Yes. It is a big job. > (Also, the current government-run distribution regime is actually vaccinating healthcare workers, as we argue about this, and it's taken much less than a month from approval to getting real people vaccinated.) The healthcare workers have been dealing with the virus for 9 months now, they either have protections worked out or have already caught it. The most important thing, as the article notes, is ramping up production and mass deployments. I'm glad that they're vaccinated, but the most important thing at the moment is safety and raw numbers of people vaccinated, and not so much the targetting. I'd bet most of the healthcare workers who catch Covid catch it outside of work. The fastest way to get mass vaccinations is to let companies sell vaccine shots to people who will pay them. The government can try to help by ordering a bunch of shots for people who can't otherwise pay.