COVID concerns in the Northeast

[KustyTheKlown]

did i ever say anything about federal mandates? i said providing funding, coordinating supplies, harnessing the defense production act, and modeling best practices instead of undermining them. all well within the federal government's purview.

 

[VTKilarney]

did i ever say anything about federal mandates? i said providing funding, coordinating supplies, harnessing the defense production act, and modeling best practices instead of undermining them. all well within the federal government's purview.

The feds:
1) Provided funding to the states;
2) Coordinated the delivery of supplies; and
3) Harnessed Defense Production Act.

You can argue scope, but all of those things were done.

I agree with you that they did not always model best practices - but neither did Cuomo when he shoved 9,000 sick people into nursing homes and then tried to cover up the fallout. And neither did Gavin Newsom when he went to a party at the French Laundry restaurant. Neither did Lori Lightfoot when she celebrated on the streets without a mask after Biden was elected. Neither did Denver Mayor Michael Hancock when he flew from Colorado to Mississippi for Thanksgiving - despite telling his constituents not to travel.

This is why I don't see why either side feels entitled to the high road.

 

[abc]

2) Coordinated the delivery of supplies

Coordinated???

The Fed was bidding AGAINST the states in purchasing ventilators and masks last March at the start of the pandemic!

 

[VTKilarney]

Coordinated???

The Fed was bidding AGAINST the states in purchasing ventilators and masks last March at the start of the pandemic.

I hate being put in the position of defending Trump, by it makes perfect sense that the Feds would prioritize purchasing ventilators over the states. This is because the Federal Government is in a unique position to distribute those ventilators to the areas that need them the most. There was no way that the states were going to share nicely among themselves.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

The feds:
1) Provided funding to the states;
2) Coordinated the delivery of supplies; and
3) Harnessed Defense Production Act.

You can argue scope,

1) not even close to enough, and intentionally shafted local and state govts in covid relief even tho they bore the brunt of the expenses and loss of tax revenue. 'blue state bailouts' is such a ridiculous stance. cities hurt in all 50 states.

2) poorly, and what abc said

3) again, poorly and not to the extent that was pretty clearly required

 

[VTKilarney]

I already said that you can argue scope. For example, we can debate how many trillions to the states from the Feds is enough. We can debate whether the DPA would have gotten PPE out faster than market forces would have anyway.

But you originally inferred that nothing whatsoever was done - which is patently false.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

ya ya thats why i kept 'you can argue scope' in the quote.

anyway, whatever, it seems we'll all be able to get vaccinated by late spring and maybe this shit will be over soon.

 

[abc]

I hate being put in the position of defending Trump, by it makes perfect sense that the Feds would prioritize purchasing ventilators over the states. This is because the Federal Government is in a unique position to distribute those ventilators to the areas that need them the most. There was no way that the states were going to share nicely among themselves.

IF the fed was making the purchase and distributing to the states, the least it should do is to "coordinate" with the state by telling them to expect it coming from the fed and NOT bid against it!

Instead, the fed is telling states they're on their own! So they went out to buy PPE and ventilators, only to find themselves bidding against the fed!

That's good coordination?

 

[NYDB]

did i ever say anything about federal mandates? i said providing funding, coordinating supplies, harnessing the defense production act, and modeling best practices instead of undermining them. all well within the federal government's purview.

He put Jared in charge of that because if his years of experience coordinating large scale govern....wait I'll come in again.

 

[drjeff]

IF the fed was making the purchase and distributing to the states, the least it should do is to "coordinate" with the state by telling them to expect it coming from the fed and NOT bid against it!

Instead, the fed is telling states they're on their own! So they went out to buy PPE and ventilators, only to find themselves bidding against the fed!

That's good coordination?

And it wasn't just the Feds and the States in the bidding process for PPE. There were other countries as well as commercial supply companies as well, and since much of the manufacturing of PPE items these days isn't done in the US, it's not like with the flip of a switch the Defense Powers act could of over night started producing PPE in the quantities that were needed (or thought to be needed in some locations) at that time. And that doesn't even take into account some of the speculators associated with hedge funds who got in on the bidding to purchase PPE items and then upsell them for a profit.

If anything when things quiet down and people can take a look at preparedness of things for possible future needs, I think that many will find that the trend over the last decade or so, from having say months of supplies on the medical PPE side of things on hand, down to more of a couple of weeks due to the ease and speed of shipping, will cause many organizations to take the hit on the balance sheet and spend more to have more supplies on hand, at all times, rather than running lean as the false sense of security that a rapid delivery system can give has brought upon the PPE side of healthcare.

Heck, 15 years ago, my office used to purchase our gloves, masks, gowns, etc PPE supplies in quantities that would last typically around 6 months. The suppliers would offer bulk discount deals to do so. Now, most of those bulk quantity deals are no longer, and the ordering is typically done in my office in more of a 4 to 6 week quantity since we know that everyday the UPS and/or FedEx truck will swing by the office and that our suppliers can have an order to us typically in 48hrs at the latest.

Honestly with respect to the Gov't response on the PPE front, not quite sure if even with a different plan they could of coordinated a better effort, as from the supply side, there just wasn't a ton of excess capacity available, especially when you're looking at something that was basically effecting every country in the world at the same basic time

 

[abc]

Honestly with respect to the Gov't response on the PPE front, not quite sure if even with a different plan they could of coordinated a better effort, as from the supply side, there just wasn't a ton of excess capacity available, especially when you're looking at something that was basically effecting every country in the world at the same basic time

Whatever the federal government did, it wouldn't have magically increase the supply of the PPE in March/April. But it shouldn't have added more confusion to an already stressful situation!

The Defense Production Act would help for a later point. But that wouldn't have helped at the time.

Look at what the Federal government did RIGHT: vaccine developments. The government should have done the same with PPE and test kits in March! One may argue they learned their lesson from the f*k up during the early stage and those were the "lessons learned". But that's what we can expect when we have amateur in the federal government "learning on the job".

 

[VTKilarney]

Also, by the time Trump left office we were doing 1.1 million doses of vaccine per day. So all Biden had to do in order to meet his "100 million within 100 days" goal was just show up.

Now if I could just get my jab...

 

[drjeff]

Also, by the time Trump left office we were doing 1.1 million doses of vaccine per day. So all Biden had to do in order to meet his "100 million within 100 days" goal was just show up.

Now if I could just get my jab...

Kind of like how the Biden administration is saying they want 50% of the schools open with atleast 1 day a week of in person learning by his 100th day in office, when there were already over 60% of schools doing that on his inauguration day?

In this day and age to think that 1 party is superior to the other when it comes to short comings, gaffes, over promising and under performing, is pretty laughable.

And yet so many seem to feel that "their" ideological preferred party is doing things vastly superior to the other party (mainly because their preferred elected officials and/or media outlet is telling them so) when in the end, both parties are doing somethings right, but their both also doing way more wrong than right, and thrive off of the division and hoopla they create by blaming the other as what often is an excuse for their lack of actually solving a problem. Absolutely disgusting

 

[VTKilarney]

In this day and age to think that 1 party is superior to the other when it comes to short comings, gaffes, over promising and under performing, is pretty laughable.

So true.

Way too many people engage in tribalism that prevents them from being critical of their own "side."

 

[Puck it]

So true.

Way too many people engage in tribalism that prevents them from being critical of their own "side."

I am critical of both sides after this catastrophe. I have never been so made at all levels of government.

 

[abc]

In this day and age to think that 1 party is superior to the other when it comes to short comings, gaffes, over promising and under performing, is pretty laughable.

Sorry, I don't think it has as much to do with parties. But ONE president is doing a particularly bad job compared to all in the past, from either parties!

 

[VTKilarney]

Sorry, I don't think it has as much to do with parties. But ONE president is doing a particularly bad job compared to all in the past, from either parties!

Gotta love the tribalism.

 

[Pez]

you guys still arguing about this shit?

go skiing.

 

[abc]

you guys still arguing about this shit?

go skiing.

For those lucky enough to get reservations (or not blackout)

 

[ctenidae]

I think I saw the horse twitch a minute ago, so thought I'd take a whack...

The real nugget of blame to ascribe does land at the feet of one person(s), and to my thinking it is Trump's. The virus was novel (it's even in the name), and it behaved in some pretty unexpected ways - a massively wide range of symptoms from sudden death to no symptoms at all, with every possible weird additional effect included (loss of smell, confusion, heart issues, etc); long incubation period and gap between onset of transmissibility and symptoms. The virus largely didn't act normally, and so it was hard to respond. This is not in dispute, I think - regardless of who is in charge, or where, this is a tough one.

The failure was one of leadership. Trump's administration provided no consistent leadership - on some elements it acted forcefully (buying ventilators, Warp Speed), in others it either offered nothing or dumped it off to the states. This made it difficult for states to do what they needed to do, much less know if it was something they needed to do in the first place. Maybe that's just Trump's style - react to the thing in front of you that 5 seconds. If so, the pandemic has laid bare the limitations of such a philosophy. When we did finally start to learn enough about the virus to do something (anything) about it, we were in such a confused state that coordinating a response was nearly impossible.

I don't think the early numbers would have changed much, but the Obama Administration had some pretty detailed plans for this sort of thing, and left them for Trump. I'm not sure if Trump's team ignored them, or if they were ignorant of them, but the methodical analysis possible when there is a plan to fall back on at least sets you up to analyze and understand data as it comes in, hopefully leading to a better, more studied set of actions and coordination.

Trump either tosses out the rulebook or doesn't know there is one. In some situations, that's not the worst approach - it's pretty good for resetting situations and sort of starting over. In other cases where careful, direct analysis can provide better insights and inform decisions, such an approach can lead to disastrous results. Immigration, the wall, Covid, taxes - all benefit from careful consideration. Other places - Middle East peace, China trade - shooting form the hip helps tp reset expectations and start over from a better position. Unfortunately, reaping the benefits requires thoughtful planning for the future, something that's hard to do from the hip.

There were a lot of individual and agency failures - the Cuomo situation is sickening, if the full facts support the headlines. But I think you can trace at least some culpability to the top of the federal government. If there had been better leadership and guidance there, some decisions that were made might have gone the other way with a little more freedom to consider the question. I don't think Cuomo was a monster who didn't care if he was sending plague bombs into nursing homes. I do think that if resources hadn't been spread as thin, perhaps relieved by some federal guidance and direction, a different conclusion might have been reached and a different plan enacted. And I think that framework holds across party lines.