9 ms·

Michael Lewis' 'The Premonition' Is a Sweeping Indictment of the CDC

70 points by evanb 5y ago

melling 5y ago
Play the audio. Michael Lewis is interviewed.
breck 5y ago
There's a trick to fixing the CDC. By forcing all their work to move to public git repos, you will dramatically accelerate collaboration, decentralization, and trust; the 3 biggest things the CDC's has failed hard on during the pandemic. https://breckyunits.com/how-to-fix-the-cdc.html https://breckyunits.com/how-to-fix-the-cdc.html
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Get ready for five levels of prepush approval signoffs after the first time the media discovers an embarrassing line in some internal document.
- nickff 5y ago
  Government agencies are structured in a manner which avoids attribution and accountability, the antithesis of revision control. If forced to implement Git, the agency would do so in a manner that would render it useless.
- the-dude 5y ago
  Classic let's solve the problem by creating a database.
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    Needs an XKCD link!
- chmod600 5y ago
  I'm not convinced that perfect transparency is a general fix. People will be more reserved when communications move onto a more transparent medium, and the real decisions will be discussed and made somewhere else.
- notJim 5y ago
  Government agencies hate him!
ars 5y ago
One missing question in this is, if the US was so bad, why is the death rate in the US inline with other large countries? Virtually all the large developed countries are 160/100K deaths/capita +-25%. Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality (make sure to look at the full table, not the small chart on top). Any analysis of the US response must also look at other countries, and compare.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  When large chunks of UK use the London Subway system (or other mass transportation), while the USA is filled with people in personal cars... you have to wonder why you want to compare ourselves to our European allies. The USA is far more rural and less urban than Europe. We should have had a major advantage in this fight.
  - DevKoala 5y ago
    Our population concentration is similar. New York by itself host as much people as London while being much smaller. https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-vs-london-comparison-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-vs-london-comp...
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      UK has 66-million people with 128k COVID19 deaths, or 0.2% of its population. North Dakota has 762k people with 1.5k COVID19 deaths, or 0.2% of its population. Except... I bet you that North Dakota is far more rural than UK on the average. North Dakota was supposed to have huge COVID19 advantages: its extremely rural. Its got a very car-centered independent culture. For North Dakota to have similar death rates as European centers (or urban US centers, like NYC), is a failure upon North Dakota. It squandered its advantage.
      - kingsuper20 5y ago
        >I bet you that North Dakota is far more rural than UK on the average. That appears to be pretty true. The UK is roughly as urban as Arizona.
DevKoala 5y ago
We keep rewriting history when we evaluate the decisions of the previous administration regarding their response. Thankfully there is the internet. I remember a Mayor who told us to go celebrate on the streets mid pandemic and many other health officials who claimed that acknowledging the virus was xenophobic. https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage-new-yorkers-to-visit-the-neighborhood-amid-coronavirus-scare/ https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage...
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  I am looking forward to actual studies of masks and social distancing in 5 years because right now independent studies are certainly suppressed.
- xadhominemx 5y ago
  Which health officials claimed acknowledging the virus was xenophobic? And it turns out celebrating in the streets is basically completely safe.
  - DevKoala 5y ago
    https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage-new-yorkers-to-visit-the-neighborhood-amid-coronavirus-scare/ https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage...
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      That’s a politician, not a health official.
      - DevKoala 5y ago
        Read the full article for the quote by Dr. Henry Chen.
        xadhominemx 5y ago
guyzero 5y ago
The headline seems at odds with this line from the body of the article: "But by 2020, the Trump administration had disbanded the pandemic response unit and these doctors were forced to go rogue."
- boston_clone 5y ago
  I was waiting for past examples of politicization of the CDC, but nothing really concrete was given. I do remember us dealing with a SARS variant during Obama’s admin, and that was seemingly handled scientifically. To hand-wave away the Trump admins effect on several government offices as just “missing the bigger picture” needs some proof, imo.
unanswered 5y ago
> But according to Lewis and his sources, then-CDC Director Robert Redfield refused to test them, saying it would amount to doing research on imprisoned persons. NPR doesn't understand informed consent? I'm shocked. The CDC could have offered testing, and perhaps it did. But forcing people to undergo a medical procedure — yes, a test is a medical procedure, and a particularly invasive one since it involves giving up personal information — to avail themselves of the right to come home is unconscionable. (ETA, because I thought of a way this could be uncharitably misinterpreted: Enforced quarantine for those who do not test would have been, while heavy-handed at the time, nevertheless morally and ethically acceptable. But I promise you the headline would have been "Xenophobic Trump puts more people in cages!")
- monksy 5y ago
  Theres nothing stopping the border from creating this restriction for entry. It's an emergency situation, and there are other medical requirements for entry into the US.
- xadhominemx 5y ago
  No, that would not have been the headline, and even if it were, when did a bad headline ever stop Trump from doing something?
- notJim 5y ago
  There may be some nuance I'm missing, but in fact the US currently has this requirement. > Effective January 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will require all air passengers two years of age and over entering the United States (including U.S. citizens and Legal Permanent Residents) to present a negative COVID-19 test, taken within three (3) calendar days of departure , or proof of recovery from the virus within the last 90 days. There are exemptions for emergencies and such, but otherwise it seems entirely possible to require people to get a negative COVID test. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/ea/covid-testing-required-us-entry.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...
  - handmodel 5y ago
the-dude 5y ago
About every country in the EU failed in the same way, and we don't have the CDC. Containing a pandemic is a political matter and there was no winning move. I compare it to the Year2000 effort : if somebody had taken proper precautionairy measures, we wouldn't have had a pandemic and this somebody would have been roasted over wasting everybody's money and sending the economy in a recession for nothing.
- ismaildonmez 5y ago
  We (the EU) have of course a CDC: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en
  - bhauer 5y ago
    I am certain the GP comment means "The EU does not have the [politically corrupted] United States CDC."
  - SamBam 5y ago
    ...don't have the CDC. The post is highlighting the failures of the US Centers for Disease Control. GP is showing that other countries failed in similar ways, despite not having the same organization.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Which is not the CDC relevant here. (and ECDC is pretty much irrelevant in general, since each country has its own health authorities that matter way more)
- ghaff 5y ago
  I was travelling in western and central Europe for a few weeks prior to a bit before the middle of February. Everything was 100% normal. I'm sure there would have been as little appetite for widespread shutdowns in Europe as there would have been in the US. I'm pretty much as little a fan of Trump and his administration as many people are but the idea that widespread restrictions in mid-February in western democracies was remotely an option on the table is delusional.
melling 5y ago
Nancy Messonnier put out a warning at the end of February 2020. This must be what Michael Lewis was referring to when he said they denied then said it was too late. "It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a media briefing Tuesday
monksy 5y ago
I'm extremely unsurprised about this. Even with the current administration, they're not doing much to stop the spread. Right now it's all about trying to get people to accept shots (fair.. but you still have other things about the pandemic to account for) If you consider the spread of new variants and where the numbers are: They're not dropping, they're pretty high. (Illinois is still at high 2k-low 3k new cases a day and is staying steady) They've refused to accept the other nation's work for citizen certified stronger masks. They're still in the "wear a t-shirt" as a mask days. In fact they've tried to enhance that with double masking. (Note: Their statement is that that involves laying a cloth mask over a surgeon mask and that is only how they make that recommendation) The media took that statement and has modified that to double mask always. I've sent the CDC examples of articles where their message has been changed, I've gotten back nothing but form responses about "wear a mask". Additionally, they've outright ignored findings from other nations about the spread patterns found in restaurants (In Korea it was identified to have traveled 18m in a restaurant), the asymptomatic spread in kids, ignoring long COVID, and spread in long haul flights. Instead they let things run rampant. Many health organizations even force you to downgrade your mask for their weak surgeon mask to be seen by them. On masks: Korea has the KF94 China has the KN95s (however, those certs on those have been faked) Europe has the FFP2 standard (Germany did the right thing and require it) For the numbers on effectiveness see Aaron Collin's work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3fF_rzkmZD0ufN685YE7lg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3fF_rzkmZD0ufN685YE7lg
pyronik19 5y ago
I'm old enough to remember Trump's COVID response being met with calls of racism and xenophobia.... no thanks on this whitewashing of history.
- snakeboy 5y ago
  Was Michael Lewis personally calling Trump's response racist and xenophobic? If not, then what does that have to do with what Michael Lewis has to say now?
- landryraccoon 5y ago
  I'm sorry, what policy are you talking about, exactly? I'm having a hard time remembering Trump supporting any Covid restrictions whatsoever. He did not, for example, stop air travel from China or Italy at any point. And he was famously against extending Covid testing.
- SamBam 5y ago
  Oh please. The only thing that you could pretend was "met with calls of racism and xenophobia" was closing the boarder to China, which was done in such an egregiously non-closing way (basically only barring Chinese nationals, while allowing tens of thousands of others to come from China every day) that it may as well not have happened. He then did barely anything else for a month except state that the US had nothing to worry about.
- xxxxxxx12 5y ago
  For all the people downvoting you, yes it's a bit obtuse to deny that his opponents (I'm very ambivalent about him, leaning towards distaste) didn't use any and every opportunity to call him a racist/xenophobe/authoritarian/etc. He was like a drug to both his supporters and detractors.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hcurtiss 5y ago
The problem with this thesis that the CDC has been "politicized" is that the level of precaution merited in the face of a novel virus is very much a question of policy, not science. All science can do is illuminate certain imperfect information. And as we saw at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, different people interpret those data in very different ways, and with an eye toward different priorities. Always taking the most precautious position in matters of public health is not a scientific position. It's a very expensive policy position that needs to be weighed against other priorities.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The CDC has always been politicized. This was obvious even back in the 80s with the AIDS crisis. The idea that any powerful government agency can even be non-political is very naive.
  - credit_guy 5y ago
    > The idea that any powerful government agency can even be non-political is very naive. The US military appears to be quite non-political actually. And quite well functioning too.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Other then all the issues about integration and equity, and all the pork involved in military procurement.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Personally, I consider that politicians should be overt about this. For example "The science is telling us that schools are a principle path of transmission for flu-like diseases, but we want to keep schools open to keep people in work and maintain our economic system". Rather than pretending that it was a big surprise that schools were a principle route of transmission, as one example. Of course people will vote for politicians who do insane things as long as those politicians don't tell people about it, or manipulate the news cycle to hide their idiocy, so ...
deanCommie 5y ago
I think the NPR using this headline is actively malicious. It's clickbait because it enrages both the people who believe the CDC hasn't done nearly enough (and Lewis is in that camp), and those that think the CDC has done way too much for a fabricated overly-exaggerated virus.
- entee 5y ago
  Those who think the CDC has done way too much because the virus was overly-exaggerated are simply wrong. I have my quibbles with the CDC, especially early reactions and subsequent messaging. I don't think people who say it exaggerated the threat have any evidence in their column. For data, I'd say look around, see India, see 500,000+ dead Americans, and the latter in the context of at least some efforts to contain the virus. The headline is fine, those who are enraged at the CDC probably should be, it failed us in so many ways, though probably gets a little too much of the blame. Those who are enraged because it did too much? Those people don't deserve consideration at this stage given the fairly obvious science.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    In 2020 more US Americans have died of Covid than Malaria globally. It sounds absurd.
  - chmod600 5y ago
    Perhaps the CDC did too much that was ineffective or counterproductive and too little that was effective. It's possible for both sides to be right, and not terribly far-fetched, honestly.
- subpixel 5y ago
  Agreed.
vmception 5y ago
Michael Lewis takes the most obtuse and dry topics and sensationalizes them to be very digestible exciting stories I cant wait to read this one
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  But finds/creates Mary Sue heroes in every book and casts everyone that ever gets in her way as a cackling villain or blithering idiot. It’s entertaining but it isn’t how the world actually works.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Yes, he does that and it makes for good stories by following story telling tropes Definitely not useful for introspection or a dissertation on an industry, but it does provide some insight to learn more about the current state of the world and how it got there on topics that might otherwise be too uninteresting
    - bradleyjg 5y ago
      It just seems like a pretty shitty thing to do when the people you’re caricaturing are real and you’re selling your books as non-fiction.
      - vmception 5y ago
        I see, I never thought too hard about it and wasn’t bothered by it Its obvious that in his first book - Liars Poker - that its shitty to dunk on everyone in investment banking that doesn’t work in new york city front office. I know people that think that way and I know plenty of people that dont. So from there I can just enjoy the story.
mudil 5y ago
How about Fauci stating in March that masks are not necessary, for what was clearly a respiratory virus... https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-dr-fauci-say-no-masks-like-trump-claiming-1540383 https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-dr-fauci-say-no-mask...
- xxxxxxx12 5y ago
  And for some reason people are dead-set on dropping conventional wisdom despite in most countries the experts having disastrously failed.
- boston_clone 5y ago
  What about it? Uncertainty around transmission rates/methods, uncertainty around being able to equip medical professionals, and uncertainty that the public would not touch their face/consistently wash hands and mask/wear it effectively are all significant pieces of context for that statement.
  - mudil 5y ago
    Should we give your long list of uncertainties to Trump as well? Or only to Fauci? And BTW, he was saying this as Italian hospitals were overwhelmed by a new respiratory virus.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      I’ll attribute the uncertainties chalked up to a lack of evidence as stated by a doctor to the doctor, and the uncertainties based on a fragile ego and willful ignorance to the doubly impeached former president. For now, we’re talking about the former and his advice during the pandemic.
  - bourgwaletariat 5y ago
    But that's not what he said is it? He didn't say, "Masks are important, but right now we need to save them for our frontline workers, so please, stay home, let us get this under control and stock our healthcare system appropriately, and then get your mask. Don't hoard masks like toilet paper. It will harm our society." No, he said masks aren't helpful. He lied to manipulate people. He caused people to mistrust the system because he isn't trustworthy.
todds_ratio 5y ago
I'm an epidemiologist, though not an infectious disease (ID) epidemiologist. I'm nowhere near the top of my field, and still fairly young, but I have good credentials and some idea of what I'm talking about (everyone is trained in ID epi in graduate school, regardless of what you go on to specialize in). I don't have much to contribute here except to say that where I was once very proud of my profession and American public health more generally, the pandemic has left me deeply embarrassed, so much so that I often wish these days I had something else to say when people ask me what I do for a living. The stuff Lewis (who I don't particularly love, by the way) talks about is barely scratching the surface on how bad things are behind the curtain in US public health. There are huge structural factors that are "not our fault" (e.g. the 70-year project to gut "government" at all levels in this country), but there are others that very much are, from scientific rigor to public communication to what happens when normally pretty powerless people are suddenly given some power, and what they do with it. HN readers will not like to read this, and I fully expect plenty of downvotes on this burner account, but the fact that a man like Anthony Fauci was (a) chosen to be our Covid guardian angel and intelligent-technocrat foil to Donald Trump at all after his abhorrent behavior during the AIDS crisis in the 80s [1], and (b) allowed to remain in this position throughout the past year, as hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of Covid, is ghastly. Even if the deaths are "not his fault" somehow, or that he's been trying his best in a bad system -- I'm sorry, but the buck stops at the top. If you're presiding over a disaster of this scale, you need to be replaced. That a country like Vietnam - poor and rural - could embarrass the US in handling this is deeply sad. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/whitewashing-aids-history_b_4762295 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/whitewashing-aids-history_b_4...
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > e.g. the 70-year project to gut "government" at all levels in this country And yet the government continues to expand in money, scope, and power at an incredible rate.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 5y ago
incomplete 5y ago
here's an interview w/lewis from 60 minutes yesterday (5/2/21): https://www.cbsnews.com/video/michael-lewis-premonition-covid19-book-60-minutes-2021-05-02/#x https://www.cbsnews.com/video/michael-lewis-premonition-covi...
vmception 5y ago
I keep thinking about ways that healthcare professionals and authorities undermined their own credibility from the very beginning Saying “ah young people are affected” but “young” meaning people in their 50s means that all of society is going to stop listening. The one time that their job was to inform the public but they stuck with industry specific colloquialisms. People wanted to know if it would debilitate “young people” like the 1918 flu. Just one example of the messaging being wrong and losing crucial support.
WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
I've read most of Lewis' books. I like his style and he does a pretty good job at explaining the problem. Usually he does it as a hero's journey that makes the story interesting. He also picks a villain. I have not read this book but the CDC seems to be the bad guy here. If not bad, incompetent. I'm no fan of big governmental agencies but I hate it when so many outstanding members of an organization get painted with a thick brush of incompetents'. I have no doubt that the agency will go through a period of reform and in a few years it will be billed as the best CDC ever. But at any time bad leadership can taint its abilities. The failure was really a failure of leadership. Incompetent people were picked to lead the agency. I think we need to keep in mind that leaders matter and we have to make sure that the best ones are selected and not be swayed by politics.
1e-9 5y ago
In spite of its mistakes, the CDC has still been one of our best sources of guidance throughout the pandemic. Many of our politicians, media personalities, and social media platforms have failed miserably in comparison. I’m all in favor of constructive criticism that can lead to improvement, but I suspect this book may do more harm than good. Lewis has a history of taking a narrow point of view and inappropriately extrapolating it in a way that evokes strong feelings of misguided righteous indignation. A prime example of this was Flash Boys, which demonized an entire segment of the financial industry that significantly enhances our economy. I still encounter repeated echos of his sensationalized misperceptions coming from intelligent people on HN and elsewhere. I hope we don’t see a repeat with the CDC.

70 points by evanb 5y ago

Play the audio. Michael Lewis is interviewed.

There's a trick to fixing the CDC. By forcing all their work to move to public git repos, you will dramatically accelerate collaboration, decentralization, and trust; the 3 biggest things the CDC's has failed hard on during the pandemic. https://breckyunits.com/how-to-fix-the-cdc.html https://breckyunits.com/how-to-fix-the-cdc.html

whatshisface 5y ago
Get ready for five levels of prepush approval signoffs after the first time the media discovers an embarrassing line in some internal document.
nickff 5y ago
Government agencies are structured in a manner which avoids attribution and accountability, the antithesis of revision control. If forced to implement Git, the agency would do so in a manner that would render it useless.
the-dude 5y ago
Classic let's solve the problem by creating a database.
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  Needs an XKCD link!
chmod600 5y ago
I'm not convinced that perfect transparency is a general fix. People will be more reserved when communications move onto a more transparent medium, and the real decisions will be discussed and made somewhere else.
notJim 5y ago
Government agencies hate him!

ars 5y ago

One missing question in this is, if the US was so bad, why is the death rate in the US inline with other large countries? Virtually all the large developed countries are 160/100K deaths/capita +-25%. Source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality (make sure to look at the full table, not the small chart on top). Any analysis of the US response must also look at other countries, and compare.

dragontamer 5y ago
When large chunks of UK use the London Subway system (or other mass transportation), while the USA is filled with people in personal cars... you have to wonder why you want to compare ourselves to our European allies. The USA is far more rural and less urban than Europe. We should have had a major advantage in this fight.
- DevKoala 5y ago
  Our population concentration is similar. New York by itself host as much people as London while being much smaller. https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-vs-london-comparison-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-vs-london-comp...
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    UK has 66-million people with 128k COVID19 deaths, or 0.2% of its population. North Dakota has 762k people with 1.5k COVID19 deaths, or 0.2% of its population. Except... I bet you that North Dakota is far more rural than UK on the average. North Dakota was supposed to have huge COVID19 advantages: its extremely rural. Its got a very car-centered independent culture. For North Dakota to have similar death rates as European centers (or urban US centers, like NYC), is a failure upon North Dakota. It squandered its advantage.
    - kingsuper20 5y ago
      >I bet you that North Dakota is far more rural than UK on the average. That appears to be pretty true. The UK is roughly as urban as Arizona.

DevKoala 5y ago

We keep rewriting history when we evaluate the decisions of the previous administration regarding their response. Thankfully there is the internet. I remember a Mayor who told us to go celebrate on the streets mid pandemic and many other health officials who claimed that acknowledging the virus was xenophobic. https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage-new-yorkers-to-visit-the-neighborhood-amid-coronavirus-scare/ https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage...

fidesomnes 5y ago
I am looking forward to actual studies of masks and social distancing in 5 years because right now independent studies are certainly suppressed.
xadhominemx 5y ago
Which health officials claimed acknowledging the virus was xenophobic? And it turns out celebrating in the streets is basically completely safe.
- DevKoala 5y ago
  https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage-new-yorkers-to-visit-the-neighborhood-amid-coronavirus-scare/ https://qns.com/2020/02/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage...
  - xadhominemx 5y ago
    That’s a politician, not a health official.
    - DevKoala 5y ago
      Read the full article for the quote by Dr. Henry Chen.
      - xadhominemx 5y ago

guyzero 5y ago

The headline seems at odds with this line from the body of the article: "But by 2020, the Trump administration had disbanded the pandemic response unit and these doctors were forced to go rogue."

boston_clone 5y ago
I was waiting for past examples of politicization of the CDC, but nothing really concrete was given. I do remember us dealing with a SARS variant during Obama’s admin, and that was seemingly handled scientifically. To hand-wave away the Trump admins effect on several government offices as just “missing the bigger picture” needs some proof, imo.

unanswered 5y ago

> But according to Lewis and his sources, then-CDC Director Robert Redfield refused to test them, saying it would amount to doing research on imprisoned persons. NPR doesn't understand informed consent? I'm shocked. The CDC could have offered testing, and perhaps it did. But forcing people to undergo a medical procedure — yes, a test is a medical procedure, and a particularly invasive one since it involves giving up personal information — to avail themselves of the right to come home is unconscionable. (ETA, because I thought of a way this could be uncharitably misinterpreted: Enforced quarantine for those who do not test would have been, while heavy-handed at the time, nevertheless morally and ethically acceptable. But I promise you the headline would have been "Xenophobic Trump puts more people in cages!")

monksy 5y ago
Theres nothing stopping the border from creating this restriction for entry. It's an emergency situation, and there are other medical requirements for entry into the US.
xadhominemx 5y ago
No, that would not have been the headline, and even if it were, when did a bad headline ever stop Trump from doing something?
notJim 5y ago
There may be some nuance I'm missing, but in fact the US currently has this requirement. > Effective January 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will require all air passengers two years of age and over entering the United States (including U.S. citizens and Legal Permanent Residents) to present a negative COVID-19 test, taken within three (3) calendar days of departure , or proof of recovery from the virus within the last 90 days. There are exemptions for emergencies and such, but otherwise it seems entirely possible to require people to get a negative COVID test. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/ea/covid-testing-required-us-entry.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...
- handmodel 5y ago

the-dude 5y ago

About every country in the EU failed in the same way, and we don't have the CDC. Containing a pandemic is a political matter and there was no winning move. I compare it to the Year2000 effort : if somebody had taken proper precautionairy measures, we wouldn't have had a pandemic and this somebody would have been roasted over wasting everybody's money and sending the economy in a recession for nothing.

ismaildonmez 5y ago
We (the EU) have of course a CDC: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en
- bhauer 5y ago
  I am certain the GP comment means "The EU does not have the [politically corrupted] United States CDC."
- SamBam 5y ago
  ...don't have the CDC. The post is highlighting the failures of the US Centers for Disease Control. GP is showing that other countries failed in similar ways, despite not having the same organization.
- detaro 5y ago
  Which is not the CDC relevant here. (and ECDC is pretty much irrelevant in general, since each country has its own health authorities that matter way more)
ghaff 5y ago
I was travelling in western and central Europe for a few weeks prior to a bit before the middle of February. Everything was 100% normal. I'm sure there would have been as little appetite for widespread shutdowns in Europe as there would have been in the US. I'm pretty much as little a fan of Trump and his administration as many people are but the idea that widespread restrictions in mid-February in western democracies was remotely an option on the table is delusional.

melling 5y ago

Nancy Messonnier put out a warning at the end of February 2020. This must be what Michael Lewis was referring to when he said they denied then said it was too late. "It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a media briefing Tuesday

monksy 5y ago

I'm extremely unsurprised about this. Even with the current administration, they're not doing much to stop the spread. Right now it's all about trying to get people to accept shots (fair.. but you still have other things about the pandemic to account for) If you consider the spread of new variants and where the numbers are: They're not dropping, they're pretty high. (Illinois is still at high 2k-low 3k new cases a day and is staying steady) They've refused to accept the other nation's work for citizen certified stronger masks. They're still in the "wear a t-shirt" as a mask days. In fact they've tried to enhance that with double masking. (Note: Their statement is that that involves laying a cloth mask over a surgeon mask and that is only how they make that recommendation) The media took that statement and has modified that to double mask always. I've sent the CDC examples of articles where their message has been changed, I've gotten back nothing but form responses about "wear a mask". Additionally, they've outright ignored findings from other nations about the spread patterns found in restaurants (In Korea it was identified to have traveled 18m in a restaurant), the asymptomatic spread in kids, ignoring long COVID, and spread in long haul flights. Instead they let things run rampant. Many health organizations even force you to downgrade your mask for their weak surgeon mask to be seen by them. On masks: Korea has the KF94 China has the KN95s (however, those certs on those have been faked) Europe has the FFP2 standard (Germany did the right thing and require it) For the numbers on effectiveness see Aaron Collin's work: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3fF_rzkmZD0ufN685YE7lg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3fF_rzkmZD0ufN685YE7lg

pyronik19 5y ago

I'm old enough to remember Trump's COVID response being met with calls of racism and xenophobia.... no thanks on this whitewashing of history.

snakeboy 5y ago
Was Michael Lewis personally calling Trump's response racist and xenophobic? If not, then what does that have to do with what Michael Lewis has to say now?
landryraccoon 5y ago
I'm sorry, what policy are you talking about, exactly? I'm having a hard time remembering Trump supporting any Covid restrictions whatsoever. He did not, for example, stop air travel from China or Italy at any point. And he was famously against extending Covid testing.
SamBam 5y ago
Oh please. The only thing that you could pretend was "met with calls of racism and xenophobia" was closing the boarder to China, which was done in such an egregiously non-closing way (basically only barring Chinese nationals, while allowing tens of thousands of others to come from China every day) that it may as well not have happened. He then did barely anything else for a month except state that the US had nothing to worry about.
xxxxxxx12 5y ago
For all the people downvoting you, yes it's a bit obtuse to deny that his opponents (I'm very ambivalent about him, leaning towards distaste) didn't use any and every opportunity to call him a racist/xenophobe/authoritarian/etc. He was like a drug to both his supporters and detractors.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hcurtiss 5y ago

The problem with this thesis that the CDC has been "politicized" is that the level of precaution merited in the face of a novel virus is very much a question of policy, not science. All science can do is illuminate certain imperfect information. And as we saw at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, different people interpret those data in very different ways, and with an eye toward different priorities. Always taking the most precautious position in matters of public health is not a scientific position. It's a very expensive policy position that needs to be weighed against other priorities.

WalterBright 5y ago
The CDC has always been politicized. This was obvious even back in the 80s with the AIDS crisis. The idea that any powerful government agency can even be non-political is very naive.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  > The idea that any powerful government agency can even be non-political is very naive. The US military appears to be quite non-political actually. And quite well functioning too.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Other then all the issues about integration and equity, and all the pork involved in military procurement.
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
Personally, I consider that politicians should be overt about this. For example "The science is telling us that schools are a principle path of transmission for flu-like diseases, but we want to keep schools open to keep people in work and maintain our economic system". Rather than pretending that it was a big surprise that schools were a principle route of transmission, as one example. Of course people will vote for politicians who do insane things as long as those politicians don't tell people about it, or manipulate the news cycle to hide their idiocy, so ...

deanCommie 5y ago

I think the NPR using this headline is actively malicious. It's clickbait because it enrages both the people who believe the CDC hasn't done nearly enough (and Lewis is in that camp), and those that think the CDC has done way too much for a fabricated overly-exaggerated virus.

entee 5y ago
Those who think the CDC has done way too much because the virus was overly-exaggerated are simply wrong. I have my quibbles with the CDC, especially early reactions and subsequent messaging. I don't think people who say it exaggerated the threat have any evidence in their column. For data, I'd say look around, see India, see 500,000+ dead Americans, and the latter in the context of at least some efforts to contain the virus. The headline is fine, those who are enraged at the CDC probably should be, it failed us in so many ways, though probably gets a little too much of the blame. Those who are enraged because it did too much? Those people don't deserve consideration at this stage given the fairly obvious science.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  In 2020 more US Americans have died of Covid than Malaria globally. It sounds absurd.
- chmod600 5y ago
  Perhaps the CDC did too much that was ineffective or counterproductive and too little that was effective. It's possible for both sides to be right, and not terribly far-fetched, honestly.
subpixel 5y ago
Agreed.

vmception 5y ago

Michael Lewis takes the most obtuse and dry topics and sensationalizes them to be very digestible exciting stories I cant wait to read this one

bradleyjg 5y ago
But finds/creates Mary Sue heroes in every book and casts everyone that ever gets in her way as a cackling villain or blithering idiot. It’s entertaining but it isn’t how the world actually works.
- vmception 5y ago
  Yes, he does that and it makes for good stories by following story telling tropes Definitely not useful for introspection or a dissertation on an industry, but it does provide some insight to learn more about the current state of the world and how it got there on topics that might otherwise be too uninteresting
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    It just seems like a pretty shitty thing to do when the people you’re caricaturing are real and you’re selling your books as non-fiction.
    - vmception 5y ago
      I see, I never thought too hard about it and wasn’t bothered by it Its obvious that in his first book - Liars Poker - that its shitty to dunk on everyone in investment banking that doesn’t work in new york city front office. I know people that think that way and I know plenty of people that dont. So from there I can just enjoy the story.

mudil 5y ago

How about Fauci stating in March that masks are not necessary, for what was clearly a respiratory virus... https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-dr-fauci-say-no-masks-like-trump-claiming-1540383 https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-dr-fauci-say-no-mask...

xxxxxxx12 5y ago
And for some reason people are dead-set on dropping conventional wisdom despite in most countries the experts having disastrously failed.
boston_clone 5y ago
What about it? Uncertainty around transmission rates/methods, uncertainty around being able to equip medical professionals, and uncertainty that the public would not touch their face/consistently wash hands and mask/wear it effectively are all significant pieces of context for that statement.
- mudil 5y ago
  Should we give your long list of uncertainties to Trump as well? Or only to Fauci? And BTW, he was saying this as Italian hospitals were overwhelmed by a new respiratory virus.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    I’ll attribute the uncertainties chalked up to a lack of evidence as stated by a doctor to the doctor, and the uncertainties based on a fragile ego and willful ignorance to the doubly impeached former president. For now, we’re talking about the former and his advice during the pandemic.
- bourgwaletariat 5y ago
  But that's not what he said is it? He didn't say, "Masks are important, but right now we need to save them for our frontline workers, so please, stay home, let us get this under control and stock our healthcare system appropriately, and then get your mask. Don't hoard masks like toilet paper. It will harm our society." No, he said masks aren't helpful. He lied to manipulate people. He caused people to mistrust the system because he isn't trustworthy.

todds_ratio 5y ago

I'm an epidemiologist, though not an infectious disease (ID) epidemiologist. I'm nowhere near the top of my field, and still fairly young, but I have good credentials and some idea of what I'm talking about (everyone is trained in ID epi in graduate school, regardless of what you go on to specialize in). I don't have much to contribute here except to say that where I was once very proud of my profession and American public health more generally, the pandemic has left me deeply embarrassed, so much so that I often wish these days I had something else to say when people ask me what I do for a living. The stuff Lewis (who I don't particularly love, by the way) talks about is barely scratching the surface on how bad things are behind the curtain in US public health. There are huge structural factors that are "not our fault" (e.g. the 70-year project to gut "government" at all levels in this country), but there are others that very much are, from scientific rigor to public communication to what happens when normally pretty powerless people are suddenly given some power, and what they do with it. HN readers will not like to read this, and I fully expect plenty of downvotes on this burner account, but the fact that a man like Anthony Fauci was (a) chosen to be our Covid guardian angel and intelligent-technocrat foil to Donald Trump at all after his abhorrent behavior during the AIDS crisis in the 80s [1], and (b) allowed to remain in this position throughout the past year, as hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of Covid, is ghastly. Even if the deaths are "not his fault" somehow, or that he's been trying his best in a bad system -- I'm sorry, but the buck stops at the top. If you're presiding over a disaster of this scale, you need to be replaced. That a country like Vietnam - poor and rural - could embarrass the US in handling this is deeply sad. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/whitewashing-aids-history_b_4762295 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/whitewashing-aids-history_b_4...

WalterBright 5y ago
> e.g. the 70-year project to gut "government" at all levels in this country And yet the government continues to expand in money, scope, and power at an incredible rate.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 5y ago

incomplete 5y ago

here's an interview w/lewis from 60 minutes yesterday (5/2/21): https://www.cbsnews.com/video/michael-lewis-premonition-covid19-book-60-minutes-2021-05-02/#x https://www.cbsnews.com/video/michael-lewis-premonition-covi...

vmception 5y ago

I keep thinking about ways that healthcare professionals and authorities undermined their own credibility from the very beginning Saying “ah young people are affected” but “young” meaning people in their 50s means that all of society is going to stop listening. The one time that their job was to inform the public but they stuck with industry specific colloquialisms. People wanted to know if it would debilitate “young people” like the 1918 flu. Just one example of the messaging being wrong and losing crucial support.

WheelsAtLarge 5y ago

I've read most of Lewis' books. I like his style and he does a pretty good job at explaining the problem. Usually he does it as a hero's journey that makes the story interesting. He also picks a villain. I have not read this book but the CDC seems to be the bad guy here. If not bad, incompetent. I'm no fan of big governmental agencies but I hate it when so many outstanding members of an organization get painted with a thick brush of incompetents'. I have no doubt that the agency will go through a period of reform and in a few years it will be billed as the best CDC ever. But at any time bad leadership can taint its abilities. The failure was really a failure of leadership. Incompetent people were picked to lead the agency. I think we need to keep in mind that leaders matter and we have to make sure that the best ones are selected and not be swayed by politics.

1e-9 5y ago

In spite of its mistakes, the CDC has still been one of our best sources of guidance throughout the pandemic. Many of our politicians, media personalities, and social media platforms have failed miserably in comparison. I’m all in favor of constructive criticism that can lead to improvement, but I suspect this book may do more harm than good. Lewis has a history of taking a narrow point of view and inappropriately extrapolating it in a way that evokes strong feelings of misguided righteous indignation. A prime example of this was Flash Boys, which demonized an entire segment of the financial industry that significantly enhances our economy. I still encounter repeated echos of his sensationalized misperceptions coming from intelligent people on HN and elsewhere. I hope we don’t see a repeat with the CDC.