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> our leaders In the United States at least, that's a bit of a cop out. Lockdowns were applied at the local level and were originally meant to buy time and pre
by bob_roberts 6y ago
> our leaders
In the United States at least, that's a bit of a cop out. Lockdowns were applied at the local level and were originally meant to buy time and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. The Federal government could have then stepped in with mass manufacturing of masks and wide-scale testing. But Trump was reluctant to use the Defense Production Act, and Jared Kushner was put in charge of coordinating PPE supplies, and we saw how that worked out.
- barney54 6y agoTrump did use the Defense Production Act for ventilators. But ventilators didn’t turn out to be effective.
- bob_roberts 6y agoTrue - but arguably Trump was too slow to invoke it and it wasn't broad enough. And states had to bid against each other to get PPE, only to have the Feds then seize confiscate some of them. My main point was we should have had a coordinated response. Framing it as "leaders decided to indefinitely maintain crippling restrictions" is misleading. Lockdowns were necessary at the local level because there wasn't a coherent strategy at the national level. (Again, speaking only of the U.S.)