Great News!!!
- Thread starter dbowers2008
- Start date
I think you are a bit confused on the role of government and private businesses.
The US government provided the dollars to support the vaccine development, enabled mass risk production of vaccines in development, provided the infrastructure to store a deliver the vaccine to the American people, and had to military to support the logistics and supply chain for the vaccine.
Further, the FDA has to approve and minimize the red tape that we have all heard about for years and this was minimized and led to fast review, approvals, and feedback to the vaccine developers.
There has been no claim that the US government "developed" the vaccines but just supported the private companies and enabled the warp speed implementation.
A lot of complete BS in your post. It sounds like a bunch of liberals now do not have any need for health regulations and pharma companies can go directly with drugs to the American people since now you seem to say the Federal government is not needed. The hyprocrisy of the left never ceases to amaze me!
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Good post but there are other vaccines that do not have the double dose and this severe of a storage requirement. We do not have to have the population fully vaccinated - it is current infections of 55 million (17%) plus vaccine immunity (20 million cases = 6%). Tcell immunity (or symptom reduction) also provide a positive impact towards herd immunity and reduced transmission. There will be hundreds of millions of vaccines available by February and we really only need 50-100 million vaccines to significantly slow the spread and reduce the risk to the most vulnerable.
true the J&J and AZ vax are one shot but are adenovirus and at earlier stage of trials so not likely to roll in Feb. and agree for every person we vax we reduce risk bc we eliminate a transmission vector.
You know that Joe Biden also used "Asthma" to dodge the draft right? The legendary high school football star had severe asthma. My uncle had asthma, he did multiple tours in Nam. Gunboat gunner and sniper
Someone else already put their foot knee deep in your butthole so I won't go too far down the fact presenting route but know this, Nike in 2013 made $25b in revenue......to avoid taxes in Oregon, they threatened to leave the state and got a special 30 year tax abatement done in the form of legislation (ie, a bill). So to constantly harp on the tax avoidance by Trump and his businesses is awfully one sided when all of corporate America does anything and everything to avoid tax.
Also, what if we do 2x my taxes under Biden? So an Option Call in 2023/2024? You can consider the battle for the senate a hedge against your call.
Why do the left resort to name calling to make their point? Most of us that voted for Trump sit in the 1% bracket so we can't all be that dumb.
A guarantee of $1.9B for an undeveloped product is the same as an R&D investment. It mitigates the risk of recouping any costs incurred during the development.
No matter which way Pfizer wants to spin it, they are under the guise of warp speed based on the commitment from the US government so the argument around our participation in the development is pretty moot.
Most of us that voted for Trump sit in the 1% bracket so we can't all be that dumb.
You are either really bad at math or just spouting crazy talk today.
This... All Trump had to do was stand around look Presidential and let the scientists do the talking ... and listen to them. He'd have beaten Biden worse than he did Hillary. But he simply can't do it... He can't keep that mouth shut, and he can't keep from mugging it up in front of the TV cameras. That would be fine, but he obviously knew NOTHING about virology and wouldn't bother to learn. He was so obsessed with the economy that he blew his shot (a 2 foot put). Hell, I DESPISE Trump and even I don't blame him for the economic downturn caused by the virus. ALL he had to do was just lead by example (wear a mask), make sympathetic noises and follow the scientists' recommendations.
As crass as it is, ANY national crisis is pure gold to a sitting President as long as he doesn't completely shit the bed.
I think this clarifies some of the Pfizer stuff, and also provides more context on support for Moderna. OWS is one of America's greatest scientific programs, and it's unfortunate that the current climate of partisanship (which both Trump and anti-Trump are responsible for) probably means that we'll never acknowledge how amazing it is that we developed multiple vaccines so quickly:
www.nytimes.com
Is Moderna in Operation Warp Speed?
Nov. 16, 2020, 5:19 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
By Carl Zimmer
Very much so. The United States government provided $1 billion in support for the design and testing of the Moderna vaccine. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health oversaw much of the research, including the clinical trials. Moderna also received an additional $1.5 billion in exchange for 100 million doses if the vaccine proved to be safe and effective.
Although Pfizer has its own advance purchase agreement for its vaccine, it did not take Operation Warp Speed money to support its design or testing.
Is Moderna in Operation Warp Speed? (Published 2020)
Is Moderna in Operation Warp Speed?
Nov. 16, 2020, 5:19 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
By Carl Zimmer
Very much so. The United States government provided $1 billion in support for the design and testing of the Moderna vaccine. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health oversaw much of the research, including the clinical trials. Moderna also received an additional $1.5 billion in exchange for 100 million doses if the vaccine proved to be safe and effective.
Although Pfizer has its own advance purchase agreement for its vaccine, it did not take Operation Warp Speed money to support its design or testing.
I live in Charleston, and my office is closed until at least January 4th. It has been closed since mid-March. I’m thankful to have a job that allows for full-time telework in these times, but it still sucks.
Question here, how come Trump has to wear all of the negatives and blame for the 'Rona Virus when he clearly didn't create/cause it but he can't take credit for the multiple vaccine's being developed in record time and under his administration? I've seen many on here rip him to shreds for Corona because "it's on his watch" but then from the same keyboard, you're typing he had nothing to do with the vaccines.
And for those that don't think the Pfizer announcement timing was politically motivated, know this: Pfizer moved most of their operations and profit/revenue out of the states during Obama's tenure due to the 39% corp tax rates. They moved a good chunk of it back to the US in 2018 (Under Trump) and paid $15b in repatriation taxes. Why would they spend the capital to move back to the states under Trump when he gifted them massive tax benefits only to wait 24-48 hours after it looked like Biden was the winner to announce the positive state of the Vaccine? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest it was centered around drug price control and removing the ability for big pharma to set their own market prices.
Sure, maybe Pfizer bet on Biden ahead of the election and were pandering to the new administration but a positive press release from Pfizer even days before the election potentially moves votes.
And for those that don't think the Pfizer announcement timing was politically motivated, know this: Pfizer moved most of their operations and profit/revenue out of the states during Obama's tenure due to the 39% corp tax rates. They moved a good chunk of it back to the US in 2018 (Under Trump) and paid $15b in repatriation taxes. Why would they spend the capital to move back to the states under Trump when he gifted them massive tax benefits only to wait 24-48 hours after it looked like Biden was the winner to announce the positive state of the Vaccine? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest it was centered around drug price control and removing the ability for big pharma to set their own market prices.
Sure, maybe Pfizer bet on Biden ahead of the election and were pandering to the new administration but a positive press release from Pfizer even days before the election potentially moves votes.
I think he wears it because he chose to inject himself into every discussion. He insisted on being front and center for the press conferences. He insisted on spreading misinformation and confusing the issues ex. Hydroxychloroquine, inject bleach, mask wearing, gone by Easter, etc.
The story of the Trump presidency is a complete inability to tout his successes without being an absolute asshole. All he had to do was act empathetic and let the experts speak.
I am going to take a page from the @jakefest playbook and answer your question with a question.
Why should Trump get any credit for vaccines when he once said about our pathetic covid testing "I don't take responsibility at all"?
That has been a hallmark of the Trump administration... take credit for everything good and no blame for anything bad. Remember, our country was a post apocalyptic hell hole (think Mad Max) before dear leader took office and magically made America great again.
Do you feel the same way about Elon Musk? He falls into a similar camp in that he can't function without telling you how amazing he is. I bet you still buy Tesla stock though
I didn't realize I had a playbook,.......am I calling too many bubble screens or strong-side runs?
I know the press conference you're referring to and what he said was, it wasn't his fault the system put in place wasn't built for something this wide scale, which Fauci seconded right after Trump spoke. So in theory, do you think Obama & Biden were more prepared during SARS had it gone nuclear? You'll answer yes to that......not sure why I asked
Do you feel the same way about Elon Musk? He falls into a similar camp in that he can't function without telling you how amazing he is. I bet you still buy Tesla stock though
Not a big Musk fan, but I will say he is substantially less full of shit than Trump is. Musk has actually accomplished things without a massive handout from Daddy.
I think this clarifies some of the Pfizer stuff, and also provides more context on support for Moderna. OWS is one of America's greatest scientific programs, and it's unfortunate that the current climate of partisanship (which both Trump and anti-Trump are responsible for) probably means that we'll never acknowledge how amazing it is that we developed multiple vaccines so quickly:
Is Moderna in Operation Warp Speed? (Published 2020)
Is Moderna in Operation Warp Speed?
Nov. 16, 2020, 5:19 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
By Carl Zimmer
Very much so. The United States government provided $1 billion in support for the design and testing of the Moderna vaccine. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health oversaw much of the research, including the clinical trials. Moderna also received an additional $1.5 billion in exchange for 100 million doses if the vaccine proved to be safe and effective.
Although Pfizer has its own advance purchase agreement for its vaccine, it did not take Operation Warp Speed money to support its design or testing.
You've always been a reasonable person and I would like your honest thoughts here.
One valuable metric I keep in mind when judging anyone's performance in a thing is their Value over Replacement - how much better or worse are they at the thing than an average replacement for them. With regards to Operation Warp Speed, I think that sort of initiative would have been undertaken by literally any warm bodied President. Sure, Trump was the President at the time but I don't think he deserves specific credit for fulfilling a basic expectation. Did his administration do something here that you think another administration would not have?
I really can't say. I think you're right that there would've been some sort of moonshot effort to create a vaccine under any administration. I don't know if it would've been done the same way under different people, and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I do think there's a kind of optimism about American ability to beat this virus that comes from Trump, whether or not it's realistic. That kind of optimism might be necessary to keep pushing for something like this that didn't seem possible 7 months ago.
I think Trump's obsession with his own person clearly created obstacles to promoting the work of OWS, and that the political environment (which Trump is partly responsible for, but not entirely) is an obstacle to a mass vaccination campaign.
But I still think the administration deserves credit for what looks like great success on a vaccine development and distribution program. Also, if we're thinking purely along "value over replacement" lines, I'm not sure you can fault the Trump administration for one of its major failings- not having widespread testing ready to go in early March. The biggest thing you can fault Trump for, and which I don't think almost any other president would've done, is the way he's communicated about the pandemic. Trump being president is already evidence of a high level of cynicism, but he's created even more cynicism by lacking any kind of messaging discipline.
One reason is that Trump was typical Trump when talking about the virus, and bragged that everything would be fine. Even when everything wasn't fine, he continued to make unrealistic predictions about things being fine soon. The difficulties aren't all his fault- the virus might be like the dinos in Jurassic Park: "nature finds a way"- but he's framed his administration's response to the pandemic very poorly by not giving people realistic expectations, or accurate information about what his administration has been doing.
If Trump had not disbanded the pandemic team, we would have been in much better shape to fight the virus. As part of that team (which was bipartisan, started by Bush and continued by Obama), we had an american epidemiologist stationed in Wuhan. We had teams in place to facilitate development of testing. We qualified people (not Pence and Jared) who could have gotten the jump on this thing early and had us prepared.
Here is a video of trump in 2018 explaining shy he cut the team: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...eo-trump-pandemic-team-cut-2018-a9405191.html
I don't really think having a special carve out for a pandemic response team versus having them folded into the rest of the National Security Council would've made a difference in the CDC screwing up their testing. As far as I know, the Trump administration did nothing to change the CDC's ability to follow their own protocol. And it doesn't seem that other countries (besides South Korea) were any better prepared to deal with the virus early on than the US was. I find it hard to believe that keeping one epidemiologist in Wuhan would've led to the rest of the world recognizing how serious the potential for a pandemic was much earlier than they did. Remember, non-partisan public health experts didn't believe there was much threat from the virus in the US until March. The only intervention that might've changed thing would've been changing the FDA's barriers around test development, and I'm not sure that anybody else would've done that any sooner.
Also, you may not like Pence or Kushner, but Pence proved that he was a competent administrator as Governor of Indiana, and Kushner at least had some background in running a business. Those two were not the problem.
Remember, non-partisan public health experts didn't believe there was much threat from the virus in the US until March.
This is simply not true. The media and scientists were sounding the alarms earlier than March. The CDC was holding briefings on the severity of the virus in February and were muzzled by Trump because it negatively affected the stock market.
CDC official who made early warning about coronavirus silenced by Trump, documentary reveals
‘She was 100 per cent right, and they silenced the messenger’
www.independent.co.uk
Remember, non-partisan public health experts didn't believe there was much threat from the virus in the US until March.
This is simply not true. The media and scientists were sounding the alarms earlier than March. The CDC was holding briefings on the severity of the virus in February and were muzzled by Trump because it negatively affected the stock market.
CDC official who made early warning about coronavirus silenced by Trump, documentary reveals
‘She was 100 per cent right, and they silenced the messenger’
The media and scientists might have been sounding alarms but Dr. Fauci wasn't on the same page as said scientists. So you're either suggesting that Trump suppressed Fauci (could be true maybe) or Trump shouldn't have listened to Fauci and gone full lockdown in January. Which argument are you making?
On Jan. 26, Fauci gave an interview to John Catsimatidis, a syndicated radio host in New York. “What can you tell the American people about what’s been going on?” Catsimatidis asked. “Should they be scared?”
“I don’t think so,” Fauci said. “The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States, but it’s something we, as public health officials, need to take very seriously.”
Fauci reiterated that COVID-19 “isn’t something the American people need to worry about or be frightened about” because, at the time, it was centered in China and the U.S. could screen travelers from that nation.
But Fauci also twice described the virus as “an evolving situation,” and said, “Every day, we have to look at it very carefully.”
Again, in March.....
MARGARET BRENNAN: You just- you just heard that report from our Liz Palmer about Italy. Are we on the same trajectory as Italy?
DR. FAUCI: No, not necessarily at all. I mean, obviously, things are unpredictable. You can't make any definitive statement. But if you look at the dynamics of the outbreak in Italy, we don't know why they are suffering so terribly. But there is a possibility and many of us believe that early on they did not shut out as well the input of infections that originated in China and came to different parts of the world. One of the things that we did very early and very aggressively, the president, you know, had put the travel restriction coming from- from China to the United States and most recently from Europe to the United States, because Europe is really the new China. Again, I don't know why this is happening there to such an extent, but it is conceivable that once you get so many of these spreads out, they spread exponentially and you can never keep up with this tsunami, and I think that's what unfortunately our colleagues and our dear friends in Italy are facing. They are very competent. It isn't that they don't know what they're doing.
So at what point did Fauci tell Trump "shut it all down, we are f*cked" at any point before April?
You are not telling the whole story though. During that same period Fauci and every other scientist was saying that the best way to fight the virus was with adequate testing and contact tracing. On that, Trump failed miserably. He can blame the CDC sure, but he was the one who refused help from the WHO, which was purely a political move. Hilariously, he also tried to blame Obama for not having the testing in place for a virus that did not exist while Obama was president.
You see, I am one that thinks that the shutdown was a terrible idea and a huge mistake by Trump. 30 days to stop the spread was a debacle. It made perfect sense to shut down NYC and parts of NJ, but why did Iowa have to shut down at the same time? If we had adequate testing, we could do contact tracing and shut down counties instead of whole states. Today is November 19th and we still don't have adequate testing.
That is all on Trump. He can't blame Fauci. The buck stops with the president. And believe me, if Hilary was president and failed the same way Trump did, you would agree 100% with everything I said.
First of all, the briefing referred to in that article was on the 26th of February. That's three days before March, which pretty closely reflects what I said. By that time, the FDA had finally realized that the CDC had screwed up its test development and that it needed to let private companies and states develop their own tests. So even while Trump was downplaying the virus, the government had been working to prepare. The prophetic Messonnier, in the article you linked to, had this to say about the preparations that were taken for a pandemic:Remember, non-partisan public health experts didn't believe there was much threat from the virus in the US until March.
This is simply not true. The media and scientists were sounding the alarms earlier than March. The CDC was holding briefings on the severity of the virus in February and were muzzled by Trump because it negatively affected the stock market.
CDC official who made early warning about coronavirus silenced by Trump, documentary reveals
‘She was 100 per cent right, and they silenced the messenger’
CDC and other federal agencies have been practicing for this since the 2019 influenza pandemic. In the last two years, CDC has engaged in two pandemic influenza exercises that have required us to prepare for a severe pandemic and just this past year we had a whole of government exercise practicing similarly around a pandemic of influenza. Right now CDC is operationalizing all of its pandemic response plans working on multiple fronts including specific measures to prepare communities to respond to local transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Before I take questions, I want to address the issue of the test kits CDC is developing. I am frustrated like I know many of you are that we have had issues with our test. I want to assure you that we are working to modify the kit and hope to send out a new version to state and local jurisdictions soon. There are currently 12 states or localities around the U.S. That can test samples as well as we are testing at CDC 400 samples were tested overnight. There is no current backlog or delay for testing at CDC. Commercial labs will also be coming online soon with their own tests. This will allow the greatest number of tests to happen closer to where potential cases are.
Last, I want to recognize that people are concerned about this situation. I would say rightfully so. I’m concerned about the situation. CDC is concerned about the situation. But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. And now is the time for businesses, hospitals, community schools, and everyday people to begin preparing as well. Over the last few weeks, CDC has been on dozens of calls with different partners in the health, retail, education, and business sectors. In the hopes that employers begin to respond in a flexible way to differing levels of severity, to refine their business response plans as needed. I also want to acknowledge the importance of uncertainty. During an outbreak with a new virus, there is a lot of uncertainty. Our guidance and advice are likely to be fluid subject to change as we learn more.
Before I take questions, I want to address the issue of the test kits CDC is developing. I am frustrated like I know many of you are that we have had issues with our test. I want to assure you that we are working to modify the kit and hope to send out a new version to state and local jurisdictions soon. There are currently 12 states or localities around the U.S. That can test samples as well as we are testing at CDC 400 samples were tested overnight. There is no current backlog or delay for testing at CDC. Commercial labs will also be coming online soon with their own tests. This will allow the greatest number of tests to happen closer to where potential cases are.
Last, I want to recognize that people are concerned about this situation. I would say rightfully so. I’m concerned about the situation. CDC is concerned about the situation. But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. And now is the time for businesses, hospitals, community schools, and everyday people to begin preparing as well. Over the last few weeks, CDC has been on dozens of calls with different partners in the health, retail, education, and business sectors. In the hopes that employers begin to respond in a flexible way to differing levels of severity, to refine their business response plans as needed. I also want to acknowledge the importance of uncertainty. During an outbreak with a new virus, there is a lot of uncertainty. Our guidance and advice are likely to be fluid subject to change as we learn more.
In February, the tenor of most reporting on the virus was that we should worry more about the flu, that the risk to the US was relatively low, and that a lot of the worrying about the virus was really driven by anti-Asian racism. Some of this seems to have been a reaction against the early action the Trump administration took on the virus. Fauci was certainly downplaying the threat of the virus in February, as well. As you might recall, the Public Health Commissioner for NYC encouraged people to go to Lunar New Year celebrations, and that there was "no risk" of contracting the virus from "casual contact." The head of NYC's City Council health committee went to the Lunar New Year celebration and portrayed it as an act of defiance against "the coronavirus scare." The Commissioner and the head of the committee were still telling people things were going to be fine, and to go about normal life, in early March.
And it wasn't just Trump and NYC officials who didn't seem to think the virus was as serious a thread as we now know it was. In late February, after the House had already been briefed (I believe this was the same briefing that prompted people to accuse Kelly Loeffler and Richard Burr of inside trading, but as you can see it wasn't inside information and the upshot was ambiguous) on the virus and Trump was tweeting that the virus was "very much under control," Nancy Pelosi was telling people they should visit Chinatown in SF. Joe Biden was holding campaign rallies in early March.
Fauci actually was on the same page, but citing a couple of people who happened to be right about the direction of the pandemic doesn't tell you what the general conversation was. Having been involved in a lot of meetings with state public health officials and having been on calls with the CDC, I can tell you that while they were concerned, they had no idea it would be this serious. Many thought we were too alarmed and too much was being done. In fact, at a meeting with some epidemiologists in late January or early February, most of the discussion was about preventing mistreatment of Chinese people.
We have more than adequate testing now, and we have had for months.
Trump also was not the one who refused help from WHO with testing- that was the CDC. What he blamed Obama for was drawing down the stock of materials needed to respond to a pandemic. Come to think of it, Obama also decreased the funding and attention that W Bush had focused on pandemics. But, if we're being charitable, none of them could've predicted any of this, and I don't know how we can be sure that any of them would've pressed the FDA to allow wider development of testing earlier in February after the CDC's test failed. That doesn't mean we should blame the FDA or the CDC or Fauci, it just means that this was something nearly unprecedented that nobody was really prepared for (although, according the 2019 Global Health Security Index, the US was the most prepared to deal with a pandemic).
All this to say: I have no confidence at all that a better leader who didn't say such stupid stuff all the time could've done much better in terms of the actual response to the pandemic by the administration. If you want to talk about not politicizing the situation, or about steeling the citizenry to deal with the virus, I'll probably agree with you.
This explains the trouble with counting.Most of us that voted for Trump sit in the 1% bracket so we can't all be that dumb.
You are either really bad at math or just spouting crazy talk today.
Do you have a citation on Obama reducing the readiness of the pandemic team, everything I have read said the obvious.
Here is what I don't understand about your points above. You say it was the CDC who refused help from the WHO and not Trump. Who appointed the head of the CDC? You act like trump has no say or control over what the CDC does. My friend works there in communications, and he can tell you that the white house has had a lot of control over what the CDC does or does not do and say. They have to run all communications through the white house.
It just doesnt make sense to me. A vaccine? That's all Trump baby! Terrible testing? That's the CDC's fault, not Trump's. If a corporation posts a billion dollar loss, you would never see the CEO come out and say "I don't take responsibility at all, the guy I appointed to head my asia division, it's his fault."
I'm not biased towards anyone on this, I just don't think anyone would have gotten this right. Truthfully, Obama, Hillary, Trump......honestly, I don't see how anyone could have predicted the right move. Other countries are proving this to be true as we speak.
I do think he showcased plenty of flaws during this, some of which he could have avoided by a full personality lobotomy but I'm not sold the outcome would have been any different.
Fact check: Did the Obama administration deplete the federal stockpile of N95 masks?
During the presidency of Barack Obama, the national stockpile was seriously taxed as the administration addressed multiple crises over eight years.
www.usatoday.com
Inside America’s 2-Decade Failure to Prepare for Coronavirus
Top officials from three administrations describe how crucial lessons were learned and lost, programs launched and canceled, and budgets funded and defunded.
www.politico.com
“We must face the reality that these exotic killer diseases are not isolated health problems half a world away, but direct and immediate threats to security and prosperity here at home,” then-Sen. Barack Obama wrote in the New York Times in June 2005, alongside Republican colleague Dick Lugar.
But as president four years later, Obama promptly ignored a lesson from the past: He initially abolished the White House’s dedicated office on global health security, the same move that Bush did before him and Trump would do years later, and a decision that preparedness experts like Bernard have called a mistake."
George W. Bush in 2005: 'If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare'
In the summer of 2005, President George W. Bush was on vacation when he began flipping through an advanced copy of a new book about the 1918 flu pandemic.
And this is very good commentary on this, from a PhD who advised Bush on health policy at the time:
The Challenge of Preparation | National Review
It’s practically impossible to guess correctly about what sudden emergency our government will need to be prepared for.
www.nationalreview.com
One way to interpret a story like this is as a rebuke of the leaders who followed Bush, and who didn’t keep up this work or even really retain what their predecessor had done. But I read it differently. I think it is better understood as a story about the immense array of problems and threats that every president has to face, and the enormous difficulty, indeed near-impossibility, of being prepared for freak events.
The fact is that many of us involved in the Bush-era effort wondered why we were doing it, and whether it was a good use of time and energy. Fran Townsend, who was Bush’s chief Homeland Security advisor, has this to say in that ABC story about her first reaction when Bush approached her about pandemic preparedness:
That attitude, that sense of profound personal responsibility for decision-making in a crisis, is one of the things that stands out most to me about Bush, particularly now in retrospect. It was enormously impressive. But to those of us at a much greater distance from that personal responsibility, the focus on pandemic preparedness was hard to understand. We were doing a huge amount of work to be ready for one particular sort of danger that didn’t seem any more likely than a very great many others that could just as easily arise unexpectedly. In retrospect, for instance, thinking harder in early 2005 about the problems that could result from a major hurricane striking a major city would have been useful too. And there are all sorts of other contingencies we might have prepared for.
There wasn’t a major global pandemic in 2006 or 2007, as we feared there might be. There wasn’t one until 2020. So in the interim, two administrations left the Bush-era preparations to the side and went on to other priorities.
It’s easy now to say that was reckless. But I think a more reasonable reading of the evidence is that it’s practically impossible to guess correctly about what sudden emergency our government will need to be prepared for, and it makes sense to gird for the unexpected and build as much all-purpose mobilization capacity as reasonably possible. More than anything, it’s a lesson in how difficult and daunting the president’s job, regardless of who occupies the office, really is.
The fact is that many of us involved in the Bush-era effort wondered why we were doing it, and whether it was a good use of time and energy. Fran Townsend, who was Bush’s chief Homeland Security advisor, has this to say in that ABC story about her first reaction when Bush approached her about pandemic preparedness:
I have to admit that a lot of us more junior folks involved in the effort had the same sense. The work was very intensely driven by Bush himself. He had read John Barry’s then-new book The Great Influenza, about the 1918 Spanish Flu, and was focused on the challenges an outbreak like that would pose to a modern government, and on the sorts of hard decisions he as president would face if it came.
That attitude, that sense of profound personal responsibility for decision-making in a crisis, is one of the things that stands out most to me about Bush, particularly now in retrospect. It was enormously impressive. But to those of us at a much greater distance from that personal responsibility, the focus on pandemic preparedness was hard to understand. We were doing a huge amount of work to be ready for one particular sort of danger that didn’t seem any more likely than a very great many others that could just as easily arise unexpectedly. In retrospect, for instance, thinking harder in early 2005 about the problems that could result from a major hurricane striking a major city would have been useful too. And there are all sorts of other contingencies we might have prepared for.
There wasn’t a major global pandemic in 2006 or 2007, as we feared there might be. There wasn’t one until 2020. So in the interim, two administrations left the Bush-era preparations to the side and went on to other priorities.
It’s easy now to say that was reckless. But I think a more reasonable reading of the evidence is that it’s practically impossible to guess correctly about what sudden emergency our government will need to be prepared for, and it makes sense to gird for the unexpected and build as much all-purpose mobilization capacity as reasonably possible. More than anything, it’s a lesson in how difficult and daunting the president’s job, regardless of who occupies the office, really is.
As far as the CDC goes, I agree that the buck ultimately stops with the leadership of the administration. However, it's hard to blame the Trump administration for trusting that the CDC would do its job well, or with following the CDC's standard operating procedures. It's very possible that somebody else would've done things differently, but I just don't see how anybody could be sure about that.
Yep. And, while the president leads the administration, I think there's a tendency to blame the president for the failures of experts who are there to do the things that leaders can't do. It isn't remotely Trump's fault that the CDC screwed up their test.
We also talk about our failure to clear the virus by now as if it's a special failure, But the US is doing better in many metrics than other advanced democracies.
Fact check: Did the Obama administration deplete the federal stockpile of N95 masks?
During the presidency of Barack Obama, the national stockpile was seriously taxed as the administration addressed multiple crises over eight years.www.usatoday.com
"By Bush’s second term, partly because of his administration’s efforts, there was growing consensus that pandemics had emerged as arguably the biggest threat to global security. One champion of the idea: a young senator from Illinois, just five months into his new job, but already convinced that a worldwide virus posed substantial risk.Inside America’s 2-Decade Failure to Prepare for Coronavirus
Top officials from three administrations describe how crucial lessons were learned and lost, programs launched and canceled, and budgets funded and defunded.
“We must face the reality that these exotic killer diseases are not isolated health problems half a world away, but direct and immediate threats to security and prosperity here at home,” then-Sen. Barack Obama wrote in the New York Times in June 2005, alongside Republican colleague Dick Lugar.
But as president four years later, Obama promptly ignored a lesson from the past: He initially abolished the White House’s dedicated office on global health security, the same move that Bush did before him and Trump would do years later, and a decision that preparedness experts like Bernard have called a mistake."
George W. Bush in 2005: 'If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare'
In the summer of 2005, President George W. Bush was on vacation when he began flipping through an advanced copy of a new book about the 1918 flu pandemic.abcnews.go.com
And this is very good commentary on this, from a PhD who advised Bush on health policy at the time:
The Challenge of Preparation | National Review
It’s practically impossible to guess correctly about what sudden emergency our government will need to be prepared for.One way to interpret a story like this is as a rebuke of the leaders who followed Bush, and who didn’t keep up this work or even really retain what their predecessor had done. But I read it differently. I think it is better understood as a story about the immense array of problems and threats that every president has to face, and the enormous difficulty, indeed near-impossibility, of being prepared for freak events.
The fact is that many of us involved in the Bush-era effort wondered why we were doing it, and whether it was a good use of time and energy. Fran Townsend, who was Bush’s chief Homeland Security advisor, has this to say in that ABC story about her first reaction when Bush approached her about pandemic preparedness:
I have to admit that a lot of us more junior folks involved in the effort had the same sense. The work was very intensely driven by Bush himself. He had read John Barry’s then-new book The Great Influenza, about the 1918 Spanish Flu, and was focused on the challenges an outbreak like that would pose to a modern government, and on the sorts of hard decisions he as president would face if it came.
That attitude, that sense of profound personal responsibility for decision-making in a crisis, is one of the things that stands out most to me about Bush, particularly now in retrospect. It was enormously impressive. But to those of us at a much greater distance from that personal responsibility, the focus on pandemic preparedness was hard to understand. We were doing a huge amount of work to be ready for one particular sort of danger that didn’t seem any more likely than a very great many others that could just as easily arise unexpectedly. In retrospect, for instance, thinking harder in early 2005 about the problems that could result from a major hurricane striking a major city would have been useful too. And there are all sorts of other contingencies we might have prepared for.
There wasn’t a major global pandemic in 2006 or 2007, as we feared there might be. There wasn’t one until 2020. So in the interim, two administrations left the Bush-era preparations to the side and went on to other priorities.
It’s easy now to say that was reckless. But I think a more reasonable reading of the evidence is that it’s practically impossible to guess correctly about what sudden emergency our government will need to be prepared for, and it makes sense to gird for the unexpected and build as much all-purpose mobilization capacity as reasonably possible. More than anything, it’s a lesson in how difficult and daunting the president’s job, regardless of who occupies the office, really is.
As far as the CDC goes, I agree that the buck ultimately stops with the leadership of the administration. However, it's hard to blame the Trump administration for trusting that the CDC would do its job well, or with following the CDC's standard operating procedures. It's very possible that somebody else would've done things differently, but I just don't see how anybody could be sure about that.
OK Fair enough on Obama, he did deplete the stockpile by fighting viruses of his own. But I am sure this also did not help that Trump shipped 19 tons of PPE in February to China. He certainly bares more responsibility for the stock pile of PPE during his presidency than Obama does.
Honestly, if he had just embraced mask wearing early on and not politicized it, we would be in a much better place than we are now.
PolitiFact - Yes, US shipped donated personal protective equipment to China in February
National shortages of masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment have exacerbated concerns that U.S. doctors a
www.politifact.com
You may be right.OK Fair enough on Obama, he did deplete the stockpile by fighting viruses of his own. But I am sure this also did not help that Trump shipped 19 tons of PPE in February to China. He certainly bares more responsibility for the stock pile of PPE during his presidency than Obama does.
Honestly, if he had just embraced mask wearing early on and not politicized it, we would be in a much better place than we are now.
PolitiFact - Yes, US shipped donated personal protective equipment to China in February
National shortages of masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment have exacerbated concerns that U.S. doctors a
OK Fair enough on Obama, he did deplete the stockpile by fighting viruses of his own. But I am sure this also did not help that Trump shipped 19 tons of PPE in February to China. He certainly bares more responsibility for the stock pile of PPE during his presidency than Obama does.
Honestly, if he had just embraced mask wearing early on and not politicized it, we would be in a much better place than we are now.
PolitiFact - Yes, US shipped donated personal protective equipment to China in February
National shortages of masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment have exacerbated concerns that U.S. doctors a
Obama tried to increase the stockpile but was throttled by a Republican congress
"Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the budget wars of the Obama years, when congressional Republicans elected on the Tea Party wave forced the White House to accept sweeping cuts to federal spending."
" But efforts to bulk up the stockpile fell apart in tense standoffs between the Obama White House and congressional Republicans, according to administration and congressional officials involved in the negotiations. Had Congress kept funding at the 2010 level through the end of the Obama administration, the stockpile would have benefited from $321 million more than it ended up getting, according to budget documents reviewed by ProPublica. During the Trump administration, Congress started giving the stockpile more than the White House" requested.
How Tea Party budget battles left the national emergency medical stockpile unprepared for coronavirus
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the...
nmpoliticalreport.com
Obama tried to increase the stockpile but was throttled by a Republican congress
"Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the budget wars of the Obama years, when congressional Republicans elected on the Tea Party wave forced the White House to accept sweeping cuts to federal spending."
" But efforts to bulk up the stockpile fell apart in tense standoffs between the Obama White House and congressional Republicans, according to administration and congressional officials involved in the negotiations. Had Congress kept funding at the 2010 level through the end of the Obama administration, the stockpile would have benefited from $321 million more than it ended up getting, according to budget documents reviewed by ProPublica. During the Trump administration, Congress started giving the stockpile more than the White House" requested.
How Tea Party budget battles left the national emergency medical stockpile unprepared for coronavirus
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the...
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