So legit question...you are the Governor of your state...what do you do?

[CitizenBBN]

I agree. I have more to say on that but will post it in another thread.

Good GQ article on the subject. It starts of criticizing Trump (with little real supporting evidence), then goes on to show that the delay was bureaucratic from the FDA's procedures.

At one point they wouldn't consider an application for an emergency authorization b/c he had submitted online but he hadn't submitted hardcopies by mail.

Clearly they didn't see it as a threat either, not at that level.

https://www.gq.com/story/inside-amer...=pocket-newtab

Even the WHO test thing it's not clear that was "Trump" or if it was people in the bureaucracy saying the CDC needed to do it. Right now we don't know if he ignored advice from people or in fact was listening to their advice. I can easily see people at the FDA or CDC thinking they didn't trust a WHO test,and frankly I can't say I would disagree with them given the state of the UN's bias.

But it is clear that until this became such a threat it was being processed using procedures that are simply not time critical. Thus the FDA only approving the CDC for testing, etc.

Most of this delay seems to have not come from the White House as much as from the various agencies who were following procedures that work well in normal times but were far too cumbersome and even far too safety focused for a real crisis.

[ukpumacat]

Most of this delay seems to have not come from the White House as much as from the various agencies who were following procedures that work well in normal times but were far too cumbersome and even far too safety focused for a real crisis.

This is just patently untrue. I will fully admit Trump is not the only "failure". There is plenty of blame to go around. The GQ article you linked speaks to that as well as the newest one in The Atlantic (please note: both blame Trump almost as a "Duh").

As we have seen, when the President wants to cut through beaurocratic nonsense he can (as he since has). But when he isn't taking it seriously (as he clearly wasn't) then none of that is going to happen.
Not just that, but an entire book was written on his colossal failure and lack of organization in many different areas of government in his first 2 years in office (The Fifth Risk).

Here are several articles outlining just how Trump failed early on in this crisis and why it put us behind (I have dozens more of these I could send but is there a point? Its blatantly obvious he didn't take this as serious as he should. If someone can't see or admit that all the articles in the world won't change their opinion):

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ealth-disaster

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...demic-response

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...council-149285

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25...tory-covid-19/

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...e-failure.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...y-over/607969/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...ponse-n1158746

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-was...em-11584552147

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/o...ronavirus.html

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...e-coronavirus/

https://www.theamericanconservative....ntrol-failure/


Again, at this point, I'm not sure why this debate even matters. It likely will not hurt him politically in November and he has done a much better job since. As I said, plenty of others have failed as well and he isn't the reason this virus exists.
I would grade his response early on as a D- (and only not an F because of the Chinese travel ban which no doubt bought some time).
And since I would grade his response as a B (with plenty of time to move up or not).

What matters in all of this are lives. When he was talking about the Easter thing it scared me to death because it was obvious others were in his ear (as well as his own voice). I am so glad he listened to the Doctors.

[CitizenBBN]

Wow,lol

Did I type "took it seriously"? No I didn't. i have said he, nor many others, took it too seriously at that point.

My point is that, at a day to day level where doctors were trying to respond, they weren't held up by some kind of policy coming from the White House but by basic bureaucracy.

No doubt if Trump somehow saw this coming back in December and started everything we've started we'd have saved lives. It's also completely true that no POTUS would ever do such a thing at that point.

So we can debate weeks in February, etc., but the day to day roadblocks we first encountered in developing and approving tests, etc. came from knowledgeable federal agencies that ALSO clearly didn't see it as this kind of threat either.

So if the FDA isn't in a panic, and wasn't even after people were telling them to be, why expect the POTUS to be in one?

His "delays" are exactly the delays we expect to see in these situations. That's not good, but it's not specific to individual people.

We saw far worse ones in New York with De Blasio and others, we've seen them in Florida, etc. This level of response is unprecedented in the lives of most Americans, going to take some time for that to sink in to everyone. Even leaders.

[ukpumacat]

This level of response is unprecedented in the lives of most Americans, going to take some time for that to sink in to everyone. Even leaders.

Fair enough. Btw, I typed that quickly and it might have come across stronger than I meant. Ha. I came back on to edit the first line but it was too late.

[CitizenBBN]

Article on Germany's early and often testing. The secret per their people?

A free market. They don't have a FDA that has to approve every test so private companies were rolling them straight to market. Their 16 state governments each have their own oversight, there's no central CDC or FDA that does more than recommend.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/82059...=pocket-newtab

"We have a culture here in Germany that is actually not supporting a centralized diagnostic system," said Drosten, "so Germany does not have a public health laboratory that would restrict other labs from doing the tests. So we had an open market from the beginning."

In other words, Germany's equivalent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the Robert Koch Institute — makes recommendations but does not call the shots on testing for the entire country. Germany's 16 federal states make their own decisions on coronavirus testing because each of them is responsible for their own health care systems.

When Drosten's university medical center developed what became the test recommended by the World Health Organization, they rolled these tests out to their colleagues throughout Germany in January.

"And they of course rolled this out to labs they know in the periphery and to hospital labs in the area where they are situated," Drosten said. "This created a situation where, let's say, by the beginning or middle of February, testing was already in place, broadly."

Drosten said that has meant quicker, earlier and more widespread testing for COVID-19 in Germany than in other countries.

So here we are the nation of "Free markets" and every single lab, every single test, every single everything, has to be approved by the bureaucracy.

In fact the FDA has shut down the "in home" tests, done by companies that test for STDs all the time, b/c they may not be accurate enough. OK, fair enough, but clearly in Germany the medical community got these things out to those labs without all of those rules and got better results.

Even a test with some inaccuracy may be better than no tests at all.

[dan_bgblue]

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-f...-idUSKBN21B3K9

[CitizenBBN]

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-f...-idUSKBN21B3K9

This is nothing like anything Obama faced, or any other President since WWI.

Which in part explains the reluctance of many in the world to move quickly to these extreme measures. We haven't done this in anyone's lifetime.

[DanISSELisdaman]

[QUOTE=VirginiaCat;630378]I'll joing you. I am only 20 minutes away! Bear Chase Brewery by the trail now offering carryout![/QUOT


Good! We need 7 more to join us. You can gather in groups of 10 or less without any fear of getting the crony virus can't you?