The Obama-Biden Virus Response
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In my opinion, I do not think that the initial problems the US had with COVID-19 would not have been any different if there was a Democrat president instead of President Trump.
I question if the later response (for example - mid April onward) from the federal government would have been different?
I dont know. (Dont have any answers, just like to ask questions!!
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So who is to blame, locals or feds?
It was in tonight's local news that getting tests back is taking up to 2 weeks. According to our Governor, there is still a huge shortage of tests that have a rapid turnaround.
For Crissakes. If we ran completely out of Doritos in January, would there still be a shortage 8 months later? Yeah, not the same thing, but still. . .
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So who is to blame, locals or feds?
It was in tonight's local news that getting tests back is taking up to 2 weeks. According to our Governor, there is still a huge shortage of tests that have a rapid turnaround.
For Crissakes. If we ran completely out of Doritos in January, would there still be a shortage 8 months later? Yeah, not the same thing, but still. . .
@Rainman said in The Obama-Biden Virus Response:
So who is to blame, locals or feds?
I dont know, but I do think that there should have been a federal response. The US is too big and diverse to think that each of the states, etc. would work together.
The two countries I am most familiar with right now (Taiwan and Thailand) both have had a very strong national response. To a lesser amount, I am familiar with Republic of Korea and they also had a strong national response.
There are 22 districts in Taiwan and 76 provinces in Thailand. For both countries, the national government specified what needed to be done. The national government did not allow the individual provinces/districts to do what they wanted.
From a disease standpoint, it is obvious that it has worked. (I know people can argue about damage to the economy, but I am just referring to controlling the disease.
I dont know if this would have been possible in the US, it seems like COVID-19 is a national emergency, not a state emergency.
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From April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010, CDC estimated there were 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868-18,306) in the United States due to the (H1N1)pdm09 virus.
1 in 5 Americans had it. I wonder if I got it? It’s part of seasonal flu now.
IFR = 0.0002.
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I’m open to the idea that our federal response was poor. But I’m having a hard time making sense of this piece.
@jon-nyc said in The Obama-Biden Virus Response:
I’m open to the idea that our federal response was poor. But I’m having a hard time making sense of this piece.
I can tell you for certain that it wasn't written by the WSJ woman. It looks to me like her original article was translated into another language, then that translated article was poorly translated back into English using Google translator.
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Yeah that’s what I think.
But even trying to correct for that, there’s disingenuous stuff in there.
Like saying that if the death rate had been like Covid (35x higher) there would have been 2MM deaths. Well, ok, but just maybe if the death rate were 35x higher the response might have been different?
Etc
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Kind of like the attack on Pearl Harbor, in a way.
What planes could fly, the pilots had no idea what to do, where to go, etc. And, it's not like they didn't know the possibility of an attack was not imminent.
With the Covid, there were years if not decades to prepare for an attack of a novel virus. But like Pearl Harbor, it was just scrambling to do something, and then post-attack blame to go around plenty.
I would be satisfied if there was a battle plan laid out for next time, based upon what has been learned. Enough with the could-have-should-have stuff. Clear and concise, if A happens, we do B quickly at the federal level, States on down to municipalities immediately do what is known and expected.
Just like with 9/11. Now, if we are hit again, the entire country will know exactly what the response will be, everyone will be on the proverbial same page.
Simple. Won't happen.
Except next time, we'll go through the same thing = politicians looking to get reelected and make bookoo bucks along the way, everyone blaming everyone else, with emphasis on "let's at least be prepared for next time" mantra blah blah.
Snark aside, I do believe the feds will make sure to fix some of the obvious e.g., PPE stockpiled and PPE/drugs stockpiled and certain percentage made in the Good Ol' USA. At the State level, won't work. When the next catastrophe happens, Portland will be on day 12,038 nights of rioting, the governor still useless along with the PDX mayor.
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So she points out that we basically let H1N1 sweep and, had it been as deadly as Covid, there would have been 2MM deaths.
What do you want to bet she’s been poo-pooing lockdown and other Covid countermeasures for the last 5 months?
@jon-nyc said in The Obama-Biden Virus Response:
So she points out that we basically let H1N1 sweep and, had it been as deadly as Covid, there would have been 2MM deaths.
What do you want to bet she’s been poo-pooing lockdown and other Covid countermeasures for the last 5 months?
Does it matter? One issue at a time, lad...
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Another article on the Obama/Biden handling of H1N1. It reiterates a lot of what Strassel says, and adds more.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/joe-biden-contain-h1n1-virus-232992
“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places right now," Biden said. "It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s that you are in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes everywhere through the aircraft.”
Airlines angrily accused Biden of fearmongering. Media reports noted that Biden’s pessimism contrasted sharply with the reassurances President Barack Obama had given a day earlier, when he said there was no need to panic even as he declared a national health emergency. In a matter of hours, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew were summoned to the White House and assigned to clean up the mess Biden made: “Nip it in the bud,” LaHood said, recalling their instructions.
By 4 p.m., the three officials were hosting a news conference and backing away from the vice president’s words.
The snafu was the first of many scrambles and setbacks by the Obama administration in its initial response to the swine flu. POLITICO interviewed almost two dozen people, including administration officials, members of Congress and outsiders who contended with the administration’s response, and they described a litany of sadly familiar obstacles: vaccine shortfalls, fights over funding and sometimes contradictory messaging.
