Government Mismanagement Led To The Lockdown
Government mismanagement will be the death of countless businesses.
It doesn't have to be this way. Or didn't.
From Alex Stapp at the Dispatch -- how South Korea has contained COVID-19:
South Korea has effectively contained the coronavirus without shutting down its economy or quarantining tens of millions of people. Instead, the Korean government has pursued a "trace, test, and treat" strategy that identifies and isolates those infected with the coronavirus while allowing healthy people to go about their normal lives.
Stapp continues:
Unfortunately, the United States has not made testing widely available and now various regions are being forced to impose severe economic and social lockdowns. As of March 17, the U.S. had tested only about 125 people per million. South Korea had tested more than 5,000 people per million. Between early February and mid-March, the U.S. lost six crucial weeks because regulators stuck to rigid regulations instead of adapting as new information came in. While these rules might have made sense in normal times, they proved disastrous in a pandemic.Under ordinary circumstances, the cost of using an imperfect diagnostic test often outweighs the benefit. But when public health officials need to contain a novel and highly contagious disease, speed matters more than perfection. The lessons from this debacle are clear: The FDA needs to have plans in place prior to a pandemic for public labs and private companies to produce their own test kits. A distributed strategy would be much more resilient to errors, in contrast to the single point of failure created by the FDA in this crisis. Poor planning and mindless adherence to peacetime regulations led to this abysmal result.
People aren't the only ones who will die -- from coronavirus and from the panic to contain it in the absence of test kits.
Chris Edwards at Cato writes that policymakers are going overboard with industry shutdowns, which threaten massive economic damage if extended for months:
In a Washington Post piece, a small‐business owner with 75 employees expressed her fear at the impossible situation she is in. Cathy Merrill argues that even a two‐month closure would be a death sentence to businesses such as hers. As she points out, she might be able to borrow to keep paying rent and labor costs, but borrowing would be risky because she doesn't know when revenues may come back since this is an open‐ended crisis. I think she's right that small‐business layoffs and bankruptcies will soar if shutdowns extend very long.The logic of virus‐fighting suggests strong measures to flatten the curve of infection in coming months. But as Merrill says, "who is going to quantify the number of deaths from unemployment stress, food insecurity, depression or lost health insurance -- plus the spike in suicide rates and heart angina from the stress of being laid off or furloughed?"
Merrill suggests that officials don't appreciate the financial vulnerability of America's 30 million small businesses when they are ordering all‐encompassing shutdowns. California has ordered a general economic shutdown except for essential services. Pennsylvania has ordered "all non‐life‐sustaining" businesses in the state to close. All mining, construction, most manufacturing, most retail trade, and many other industries must close based on a government central plan. These sorts of actions are very heavy handed. Governments are offering emergency businesses loans, but that won't compensate for the massive income loss imposed if this extends for more than a few weeks.
You have to do it very early on.
NicoleK at March 20, 2020 11:31 PM
> do it very early
Yeah, somebody said one reason it west so well is that government was already integrated into the lives of South Koreans in some pretty intimate ways anyhow, ways Americans would resist.
Crid at March 21, 2020 5:58 AM
Trump tried to close the border back in Dec-Jan. Got told he was a racist and failed. That would have given more time for the US to react. At this point it doesn't look like that would have stopped the spread. Trump has failed to get the FDA and CDC to move quickly. Unfortunately for his critics that is normal. They are government entities. A DMV level of action is what they usually give.
Today the WSJ claims there will be 5 million people who will lose their jobs due to the closures. A lot of businesses are going to go out of business. Banks may be in trouble as the bankruptcy courts get flooded and those businesses stop paying loans.
As I keep saying, there are tradeoffs. How many lives saved vs. how many lives ruined?
Ben at March 21, 2020 6:07 AM
I had a South Korean instructor in nursing school. The govt there has a level of control Americans simply would not accept. It's perfectly normal, to their citizens, that they be lined up while at school or work, and given injections, no explanation given as to what it was-"not vaccinating" is mot a choice they get, for any shot.
If govt tells them to stay home for X time, they will, no questions asked and no running out to panic buy 1st because they trust govt will provide.
They wouldn't DARE spit on the ground or be otherwise nasty in public areas.
Meanwhile, parents here feel free to ignore all sound medical advice, buy up years worth of toilet paper, and we have tens of thousands literally shitting in the streets cause "personal freedom" to live like animals is more American than caring for them in asylums.
It would, and could, never work here.
Momof4 at March 21, 2020 7:07 AM
Ben Says:
"Trump tried to close the border back in Dec-Jan. Got told he was a racist and failed. That would have given more time for the US to react."
Good grief... he threatened to shut the border with Mexico back in December unless he got funding for his wall:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/28/trump-mexico-border-wall-democrats-fund-shutdown
The health issue we are presently dealing with didn't originate in Mexico... it originated in China.
His desire to close the border with Mexico had literally nothing to do with Corona virus and would have don't nothing to help with Corona virus because it wasn't coming in from Mexico.
Nothing you have said resembled logic or reason at all.
The reality is that the failure here was in early testing... Trump was warned about this and failed to take proper action.
What we are dealing with is a mess primarily of his own making due to failure to take appropriate reaction in response to information.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 8:50 AM
Missed that did you Arty. Trump also wanted to close the boarder to China (as in airplanes).
Keep up the ignorance.
Ben at March 21, 2020 9:26 AM
Ben,
Please do us all a favor and show evidence of Trump attempting to close all travel to and from China back in December... also please show evidence of what rational was used and that he was told he was a racist because of this proposed ban.
That is your claim and it would be nice if you actually had a link demonstrating any of this to be factually accurate.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 9:54 AM
How are the Koreans able to test so many? I thought there weren't enough test kits.
NicoleK at March 21, 2020 10:33 AM
How are the Koreans able to test so many? I thought there weren't enough test kits.
NicoleK at March 21, 2020 10:34 AM
NicoleK,
They accepted assistance from the WHO... whereas we decided to go it alone and develop our own tests at the CDC, which put us several weeks behind.
That is the critical difference and it didn't need to be this way.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 11:26 AM
NicoleK,
You can read more about the details here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-south-korea-scaled-coronavirus-testing-while-the-us-fell-dangerously-behind
"Within weeks of the current outbreak in Wuhan, China, four Korean companies had manufactured tests from a World Health Organization recipe and, as a result, the country quickly had a system that could assess 10,000 people a day."
Artemis at March 21, 2020 11:33 AM
I'm in Switzerland... WHO's headquarters are an hour away! We don't have massive testing here.
NicoleK at March 21, 2020 11:43 AM
As late as January 14th, WHO was claiming at the behest of their buddies the Chicoms that the Corona virus was not capable of human to human transmission.
In addition the WHO corona virus test offered was reported to be so inaccurate as to yield 50 percent false positives.
Calling on WHO for help is beginning to look like gathering a group of arsonists to help you put out a fire,
Isab at March 21, 2020 12:37 PM
NicoleK,
WHO developed the test that South Korea martialed it's local industry to mass produce almost immediately.
In the US we delayed any testing at all until the CDC developed its own test which took weeks.
As appropriate response would have been to take the existing WHO test and begin mass manufacture and deployment while in parallel the CDC worked on improvements.
Isab's objection that the initial testing produced too many false positives is irrelevant... when trying to contain an outbreak false positives are not a significant issue.
The concern of enforcing a quarantine early on unnecessarily on a handful of people is not better than the situation we are in where entire states are being locked down.
That is millions of people on lock down due to faulty response.
A good analogy would be for our own immune system... the early response is usually very aggressive and not targeted as well as it will be eventually. Our body doesn't wait for perfectly targeted antibodies to develop before it responds. It responds aggressively with lymphocytes that do cause some collateral damage to healthy cells to prevent the spread of the infection, in the meantime antibodies are being created to generate a more targeted response.
The administrations failure was to wait for some perfect test that never actually materialized instead of doing what we could early on. As a result we are weeks behind where we should be in terms of containment.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 1:10 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/business/china-travel-coronavirus.html
I don't have a subscription so I can't read the NYTimes but I assume this answers your ignorance Arty. Or you could do a quick search yourself. This isn't exactly rare knowledge. Well, for most people.
Ben at March 21, 2020 1:34 PM
Ben,
So you are linking to something you have no ability to read assuming it confirms your bogus claim?
If it is so easy to find evidence in support of your claim why are you having such difficulty actually linking to an article you are able to read and quote?
Artemis at March 21, 2020 1:37 PM
Ben,
Also... that article cannot possibly validate your contention that:
"Trump tried to close the border back in Dec-Jan. Got told he was a racist and failed. That would have given more time for the US to react."
That isn't from a time frame that includes December.
You were arguing that Trump was prevented from making a very early response close to December... but the article is talking about the January 31st, which is well after the US started having it's own cases domestically.
What you are doing here is called shifting the goal posts.
Trump never acted early on to contain anything. If he had actually taken action around December that would have been beneficial.
Unfortunately that doesn't comport with reality.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 1:42 PM
Isab,
I am curious what you believe "50 percent false positives" actually means.
Let's just use some numbers for reference:
South Korea has tested ~300,000 people and has identified ~9000 positive cases.
I certainly hope you weren't under the belief that 50% false positive implied that they should have identified ~150,000 cases of corona virus when they tested ~300,000 people.
When it comes to containing a disease outbreak false positives are not a deal breaker.
Don't fall prey to the faulty logic of letting perfection being the enemy of the good.
The WHO test was fit for purpose when it came to containment. That doesn't mean it was perfect, but it was well suited for what we needed it to do. South Korea is proof of that.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 1:48 PM
Wrote Isab:
As late as January 14th, WHO was claiming at the behest of their buddies the Chicoms that the Corona virus was not capable of human to human transmission.
That's not true.
What WHO tweeted was this:
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China
"No clear evidence" does not in any way equal "not capable."
Moreover, within a week WHO was reporting this:
It is now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission of #nCoV2019. Infections among health care workers strengthen the evidence for this. In addition, info about newly reported #nCoV2019 infections suggests there may now be sustained human-to-human transmission. But more information and analysis are needed on this new virus to understand the full extent of human-to-human transmission and other important details.
The problem with a pandemic is that it isn't able to be stuffed nicely into one's preexisting ideological pillowcase.
Kevin at March 21, 2020 2:13 PM
The WHO never offered testing to the USA, they only do that with less developed countries. The US put our own protocols in place to immediately develop our own testing---as apparently is normal and what's done by advanced countries such as ourselves---and unfortunately there was a glitch at an important phase of the development of the test and that pushed back our timeline quite a bit. It had nothing to do with Trump or with our country not doing what it normally does (very successfully) when a new infectious disease appears. I'm going by Dr. Fauci and by an in-depth articles I've read (not "right wing" sources if that's important).
RigelDog at March 21, 2020 3:30 PM
RigelDog,
Here is a decent article summarizing the history of what occurred:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/16/cdc-who-coronavirus-tests/
An important part is here:
"As early as Feb. 6, four weeks after the genome of the virus was published, the WHO had shipped 250,000 diagnostic tests to 70 laboratories around the world, the agency said.
By comparison, the CDC at that time was shipping about 160,000 tests to labs across the nation — but then the manufacturing troubles were discovered, and most would be deemed unusable because they produced confusing results. Over the next three weeks, only about 200 of those tests sent to labs would be used, according to CDC statistics."
The issue is that the CDC failed to deliver on it's own tests because they were poorly developed as compared to the WHO developed protocol.
It isn't that the WHO ships over test kits to the US... it is that we use their existing protocol to start testing as we work on developing our own.
Instead we did no testing while working on our own CDC test, which ultimately failed to work.
That is poor planning.
Proper management of a crisis requires that you have contingency plans. What was our contingency plan for if the CDC test protocol failed?
Apparently it didn't include using existing tests that were working across the globe.
That has everything to do with Trump as a proper executive would see things were not going as planned and immediately change course.
That is the fundamental difference between executives that know what they are doing and those that do not.
Only poor managers see something failing and just stay the course without attempting to make strategic changes.
As it stands we are poised to have one of the least effective global responses to this health issue... and as far as some folks here are concerned nothing better could have been done.
The experts disagree and are citing multiple things that could have been done better if the administration wasn't attempting to make the number of infections appear low.
The issue at hand is that Trump is used to lying about issues until they blow over... unfortunately pandemics do not care about political spin.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 3:49 PM
Congrats Arty. You got me. After misreading what I wrote you have proven yourself correct via stuffing words in a straw man's mouth. Effin Arty thread.
Now, since you are such an honest guy how about naming those Republicans you claim to have voted for. No way to misread what you wrote on that, eh Arty? I'm not putting any words in your mouth, eh? Do I need to suggest some names? How about Rep Donut Exist. Rep Nota Real? Rep Faaka Naama?
Ben at March 21, 2020 4:09 PM
In mid-January the WHO was still saying there was no proof that COVID-19 was transmitted from human to human, even though WHO officials were given information on December 31 indicating that it was. The information came from Taiwan (healthcare workers there received it from whistleblowers in China), not a member of the UN, and not in favor with the Chinese Communists and the UN officials who suck up to them. By the end of January WHO was still downplaying the seriousness of the disease and praising the effectiveness of the Chinese government’s measures to contain it. In early February the WHO was advising against travel restrictions between countries.
I don’t know why Trump or the CDC should have acted any more quickly or dramatically than they did when the only experts and officials who had any first-hand information and were most involved in monitoring and controlling the outbreak were still denying that it was a serious threat to the rest of the world. It turns out that the best information available early in the game was the little bit leaked out by Chinese whistleblowers, who Chinese authorities severely cracked down on.
PCR tests are common and inexpensive and can be adapted to test for a new virus in a very short time when the virus’s genetic code is available. In early January the government of South Korea, having learned from the SARS and MERS epidemics, and anticipating the spread of COVID-19 to South Korea, suspended the government red tape for approving new medical tests. This enabled four private biotech companies to begin manufacturing components of the tests and distributing them to labs, who then geared up to run them. When the Chinese government released the genetic codes for COVID-19 in mid-January specific tests were quickly developed; labs were all set to start doing them in large numbers by the end of January.
There are many biotech companies and other organizations in the US that are capable of deploying tests for COVID-19, or whatever else is needed, on short notice. But even when they have something ready to go they have to get the government’s permission before they use it; and there’s no certainty they’ll get it. At least one organization in Seattle was ready, willing and able, and repeatedly offered to do testing in early February, but was told by federal officials not to. They finally started doing it anyway in late February, in defiance of the feds. Even the CDC wasn’t able to get the official OK from the FDA for its own test until February 20.
There’s no advantage in using the WHO’s test when the delay is government red tape and not issues with the tests themselves. The WHO test probably wouldn’t have been approved by the FDA any faster than the CDC’s; and if it isn’t a very good test it might not have been approved even by February 20. When the CDC’s test was manufactured there was some kind of screw-up; the test results were probably still correct, and the CDC decided to accept them, but some substance used in the validation component of the test was mismatched. They didn’t want to mass produce and continue using a test with a flaw, so time was lost correcting that. If they’d ditched the bureaucratic approval process and allowed biotech companies to produce and distribute tests, as was done in South Korea, if one of them had a flaw, they’d still have other functional tests.
I don’t see how any of that can be the fault of President Trump, or of Presidents Obama, Bush or Clinton, who all presided over some part of the time the messed up bureaucracies of the US and UN were evolving. Hopefully the experts and officials learn from the screw-ups, and from South Korea. One thing I hope they learn is the less the government restrains the private sector the faster and more efficient the response will be. But I worry that to politicians and bureaucrats, control is a higher priority than a fast, efficient response. I hope this overreaction to a virus, with all the government imposed misery, oppressive restrictions on freedom and economic damage, isn’t setting a precedent for future politicians who think we need totalitarian intervention to save the world from climate change.
Ken R at March 21, 2020 4:52 PM
Ben Says:
"Congrats Arty. You got me. After misreading what I wrote you have proven yourself correct via stuffing words in a straw man's mouth. Effin Arty thread."
I didn't get you on a technicality Ben...
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-trump-executive-order/partly-false-claim-president-trump-signed-executive-order-13769-temporarily-barring-foreigners-from-entering-the-us-if-they-had-been-to-china-idUSKBN21739V
Here is a reuters article that completely debunks your bs claims.
In particular... Trump did close off travel to China in January... of 2017:
"that was indeed issued by President Trump - but in January 2017. This executive order has no relation to the COVID-19 outbreak given how far it precedes it."
Furthermore, in January of 2020 Trump did ban travel... just not from China:
"On January 31 2020, this ban was further expanded to include some citizens from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar (Burma), Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania in certain cases ( here ).
China was never among the countries in the initial or later iterations of this ban."
Trump did order foreign nationals banned from China on January 31st of January... but that wasn't resisted by anyone as you claim:
"President Trump did also issue a "Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus" on January 31, 2020. This prevents most foreign nationals from being able to enter the U.S. if they have traveled to China within the past 14 days and was widely considered a reasonable step in the coronavirus’ initial phases of spread and contagion"
Lastly, your contention that this restriction was condemned as racist is also unsupported:
"Reuters could not find evidence of major media outlets or Democrats calling the "Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus" racist, xenophobic or bigoted."
Essentially when one fact checks your claims we find they are all lies or distortions.
Needless to say Trump did not act quickly as you suggest, no one stopped him from acting when he finally did, and no one called him racist for acting.
You are wrong with regard to all 3 of your claims.
Artemis at March 21, 2020 4:53 PM
The first two cases of COVID-19 discovered in Italy were tourists from China. The third was an Italian man who had just returned from Wuhan.
In early February, while officials in China were imposing quarantines and social distancing, here's what woke people were doing in Italy:
Hug a Chinese Person
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNMdg4morQs&feature=emb_title
Woke Italians wanted to discourage prejudice against Chinese people, a noble intention. This was encouraged by the mayor of Florence and other woke politicians and social leaders.
Ken R at March 21, 2020 5:27 PM
> Woke Italians wanted to
> discourage prejudice against
> Chinese people, a noble
> intention
Ken R, dear man, you MUST read this article, and follows as many of its links as you can— Italy is basically a shipping port (and revenue stream) for China now.
And look how this played out in international media:
This is really, really not what we had in mind for the 21st century.Crid at March 21, 2020 5:41 PM
Oh, Dammit to Hell, the UncovereDC dotcom website is slow for the second time today... This morning, the editor said "The hosting company is having load issues on their end." (I've chosen to believe she's suffering a DDS attack from Beijing….)
But anyway, that page is worth your patience, no matter how much waiting it takes, or how many attempts in hours to come. (You probably have a lot of free time this weekend.)
We should be teaching schoolchildren the geography, politics and finances of Belt and Road. A year ago it was merely fascinating… But it could be the defining initiative of the century.
Crid at March 21, 2020 5:56 PM
I'm coming to this a bit late, but there one part in that that has me wondering.
" Pennsylvania has ordered "all non‐life‐sustaining" businesses in the state to close. All mining, ... must close based on a government central plan. "
So all PA coal mining, is to close !?! non-life sustaining? A lot of electrical power in the US and Europe is made from that coal. I know there is some reserve and they are continuing gas production. but?
Joe J at March 21, 2020 7:05 PM
Yes Arty, I understand you think you've dismantled all my points. Skillfully even. Yes, I understand how you can't understand how I don't understand that. The truth is we don't speak a common language. I may as well be writing in spanish while you respond in french. They sound similar but little communication is happening.
It is all moot. You've laid out your arguments.
Still, it is fun that you claim to have voted for Republicans in the past and no matter how pressed you still can't name a single one of them. I expect you still think emergency medical spending is a significant portion of medical spending. None of that has direct bearing on this topic. It's just why I don't see any point talking with you. As I said above no communication actually happens.
Similarly I expect you feel you've damaged Trump's reelection chances. And can't understand why I feel you've actually improved them.
Joe J,
Coal stores very well. It isn't uncommon for power plants to have a multi-month supply of the stuff. It is also shipped in as cheap a way as possible due to it's long shelf life. So it can take months to ship a load from a mine to a power plant. Similarly mines can have a multi-month supply just waiting for cheap shipping times. So yes it is possible to close those mines and not see a supply disruption for three odd months. I'm not saying it is a good idea. Just possible. Oil and especially natural gas have much less slack in the supply line.
Ben at March 22, 2020 7:54 AM
Ben Says:
"Yes Arty, I understand you think you've dismantled all my points. Skillfully even. Yes, I understand how you can't understand how I don't understand that. The truth is we don't speak a common language. I may as well be writing in spanish while you respond in french. They sound similar but little communication is happening."
This much is evident, but I would make one important correction here.
It isn't that you are writing in Spanish and I am responding in French.
What is happening here is you are saying things that are demonstrably false and seem incapable of acknowledging that your facts are in error.
That is the functional equivalent of you spouting gibberish and me trying to teach you how to speak in a coherent language of any form.
This was your claim Ben:
"Trump tried to close the border back in Dec-Jan. Got told he was a racist and failed. That would have given more time for the US to react."
This is the fact checking done by the associated press:
"Reuters could not find evidence of major media outlets or Democrats calling the "Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus" racist, xenophobic or bigoted."
There is no evidence that supports what you are saying. It is a really simple concept that you cannot seem to grasp or understand.
There is zero evidence suggesting that your claims actually happened.
If you continue to believe them despite no evidence to support your claims, then you are delusional.
That is the definition of what it means to be delusional.
I would love it if you could find your way back to reality, but alas you seem to be completely lost.
Artemis at March 22, 2020 9:17 AM
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