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America isn’t ready for a fix-the-Yorktown type emergency push for many reasons, including that we have a lot of rules and regulations for privacy, safety, and other agreeable reasons. From the New York Times:
‘It’s Just Everywhere Already’: How Delays in Testing Set Back the U.S. Coronavirus Response
A series of missed chances by the federal government to ensure more widespread testing came during the early days of the outbreak, when containment would have been easier.A research project in Seattle tried to conduct early tests for the new coronavirus but ran into red tape before circumventing federal officials and confirming a case.
By Sheri Fink and Mike Baker
March 10, 2020Dr. Helen Y. Chu, an infectious disease expert in Seattle, knew that the United States did not have much time.
In late January, the first confirmed American case of the coronavirus had landed in her area. Critical questions needed answers: Had the man infected anyone else? Was the deadly virus already lurking in other communities and spreading?
As luck would have it, Dr. Chu had a way to monitor the region. For months, as part of a research project into the flu, she and a team of researchers had been collecting nasal swabs from residents experiencing symptoms throughout the Puget Sound region.
To repurpose the tests for monitoring the coronavirus, they would need the support of state and federal officials. But nearly everywhere Dr. Chu turned, officials repeatedly rejected the idea, interviews and emails show, even as weeks crawled by and outbreaks emerged in countries outside of China, where the infection began.
By Feb. 25, Dr. Chu and her colleagues could not bear to wait any longer. They began performing coronavirus tests, without government approval.
What came back confirmed their worst fear. They quickly had a positive test from a local teenager with no recent travel history. The coronavirus had already established itself on American soil without anybody realizing it.
“It must have been here this entire time,” Dr. Chu recalled thinking with dread. “It’s just everywhere already.”
In fact, officials would later discover through testing, the virus had already contributed to the deaths of two people, and it would go on to kill 20 more in the Seattle region over the following days.
Federal and state officials said the flu study could not be repurposed because it did not have explicit permission from research subjects; the labs were also not certified for clinical work. While acknowledging the ethical questions, Dr. Chu and others argued there should be more flexibility in an emergency during which so many lives could be lost. On Monday night, state regulators told them to stop testing altogether. …
But the Seattle Flu Study illustrates how existing regulations and red tape — sometimes designed to protect privacy and health — have impeded the rapid rollout of testing nationally, while other countries ramped up much earlier and faster. …
C.D.C. officials repeatedly said it would not be possible. “If you want to use your test as a screening tool, you would have to check with F.D.A.,” Gayle Langley, an officer at the C.D.C.’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease, wrote back in an email on Feb. 16. But the F.D.A. could not offer the approval because the lab was not certified as a clinical laboratory under regulations established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a process that could take months.
It’s difficult to know the optimal way to balance off worthy considerations in normal times versus emergencies. It’s also hard to know when is an emergency.
I’m starting to have fun trying to detect the bullshit jobs in this new context.
“Market” denizens and “traders”, pundits, pols, campaign managers, …
As far as patient consent (a good thing, generally) is concerned, couldn’t they just have contacted patients and obtain consent?
Ah yes, the NYT. Our nation’s loudest voice in favor of open borders. I’ve been meaning to ask: How’s that working out lately?
P.S. Do not–I repeat do not–believe everything you read in the New York Times. Especially when it comports neatly with their preferred narrative. And it always comports with their preferred narrative.
Simple. When it starts affecting the Media and its tool, the DNC, it’s an emergency. And rules don’t apply.
“It’s difficult to know the optimal way to balance off worthy considerations in normal times versus emergencies. It’s also hard to know when is an emergency.”
That’s when you hope your politicians and bureaucrats earn their corn.
The sheer lack of preparation for a viral epidemic in the US is jaw-dropping. Moreover, as far as I can see, the armies of activists arguing for health reform have concentrated their case on private health with nary a mention of public health. Bet you they’ve already started lying about that.
Media only reports what it wants in order to reinforce The Narrative: Orange Man Bad.
Of course, and who cares?
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CDC…Too clever by half. (1)
The problem with the original CDC test was its clever but unnecessary 3rd probe. Whose idea was this?
This was also presumably why we couldn’t use The WHO test. Or just bought a few million kits from the Chinese. Or subbed it out to Quest Diagnostics right away.
(1) https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-coronavirus-testing/
(2) https://www.questdiagnostics.com/home/Covid-19/
They would have had to get a new approval from the institutional review board as well. I think this article is stacking the deck a bit. You would have exactly the same issue in most other countries, those in Europe anyway. The key fact is that they wanted to do this on an existing research study. If the department of health wanted to just tell ED’s across the state to test everybody I suspect they could.
HIPPA is over the top and unnecessary. It causes more problems than it solves.
If Trump blows this, and it looks like he is, then the he is bringing the legitimacy of his base into question. Heritage Americans have no other leader.
Remember the Kuwaiti oil field fires? There were 600 of them. It would have taken Red Adair 10 years to put them out at a rapid rate of 1 per week. But they got done well within a year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires
Any relation to Pika, part of another viral phenomenon?
Chu on that for a moment.
There are basically two ways for a government to get things done.
One is the military command model, in which the commanders have incredible discretion over vast resources and can make life or death decisions on the fly. (Say, blowing up a bridge to prevent an enemy advance or ordering 1,000 men to charge a hill.) Under this model, a leader can take big risks. The results can be brilliant success or massive waste and failure.
The other model is the bureaucracy. Like the Post-Office or the DMV, it is run by mechanically following the rules. If form X is filled out properly, then action Y must be taken. Nobody has any discretion and the result is predictable, inflexible mediocrity.
The clash of the two models was famously demonstrated when EMTs from around the country were rushed to New Orleans during Katrina, but instead of going out to save people they had to sit through mandatory sexual harassment training and other HR nonsense.
There needs to be a way to selectively allow a military-style intervention in the normal running of the bureaucracies for emergency (or emergency-prevention) situations. The problem is, it’s also obvious how this power could be easily abused based on ulterior motives.
Is epidemiology the new diversity racket?
Trump declared an emergency on Feb. 1. That was when Pelosi, the Dems, media, accused Trump of being raycist, premature, overreacting, etc., etc.
Media only reports what it wants in order to reinforce The Narrative: Orange Man Bad.
A decent model, imo, was the split between intelligence and “law enforcement”.
The intelligence and counter-intelligence people could generally poke into whatever they wanted to protect the country, but they couldn’t use that info to punish people for speeding or tax evasion or whatever.
The lack of it also caused the retarded Trump Russia thing:
it’s good imo for CIA / FBI to look into whether Russia’s trying to infiltrate the Trump campaign or blackmailing him or whatever.
If you involved a massive evil plot, then good.
BUT when there’s nothing obviously going on, let it be, don’t try to play these stupid games with the foreign Agent Registration act or whether people paid taxes on their leather suits.
Same kind of thing should apply with the health stuff.
RIP, Neil Innes and Terry Jones
There used to be.
FDR claimed vast, unchecked power by declaring a national emergency in 1993, with subsequent use of that power in very broad ways during WWII. The Supreme Court started curtailing the scope of those powers in the early 1950s, and Congress pretty much ended that era of Presidential emergency actions with the National Emergencies Act in the seventies, which severely limited Presidents in the powers they could claim.
I. Procedures for Invoking Emergency PowersII. Scope of Emergency PowersIII. Public Health Service Act.
Thanks. In case anyone else is curious, below is what Wikipedia has to say about the National Emergencies Act. Also, there is a separate Public Health Services Act from 1944 that specifically covers quarantines powers.
I. Procedures for Invoking Emergency Powers
II. Scope of Emergency Powers
III. Public Health Service Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933#:~:text=The%20Enabling%20Act%20(German%3A%20Erm%C3%A4chtigungsgesetz,the%20involvement%20of%20the%20Reichstag.
I. Procedures for Invoking Emergency PowersII. Scope of Emergency PowersIII. Public Health Service Act.
Incidentally, emergency powers are vital to handling, well, emergencies. On the other hands, few things are as dangerous to a democracy. One recalls that everything Hitler did was legally authorized by the 1933 Enabling Act that granted him open-ended emergency powers in response.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933#:~:text=The%20Enabling%20Act%20(German%3A%20Erm%C3%A4chtigungsgesetz,the%20involvement%20of%20the%20Reichstag.
The more difficult the policy decision, the more localized it should be made. People will gladly uproot and relocate to avoid having idiots kill them with their idiotic social theories but the price you have to pay is letting people enforce their borders.