It’s way too soon. Much of it is guess work. Some guesses were accidentally right some wrong.
First it was ‘no masks’, then masks, then two masks, then two masks aren’t better than one. Disinfect surfaces, font disinfect surfaces.
Then places that did lockdowns fared about the same as areas without lockdowns (Calif vs Fla), etc. Someday we hope to get a disinterested canonical result with sufficient nuance. That time is not now.
We should definitely wait until the new administration has had adequate time to incriminate themselves in their lack of response before we get the pitchforks and torches after whoever has been to blame so far
The only failure we have to grapple with are all the people who demand any action in an emergency.
The most damaging force in a chaotic situation like a terrorist attack, financial crisis or natural disaster are those who scream "you must act now, do anything!"
Look at the demand for ventilators - it's likely that the people demanding them cost people their lives.
It's often that governments will act in ways that are much worse than had nothing been done at all, and at least in the context of something as complex and varied as a pandemic - local knowledge generally has vastly outperformed the one-size-fits-all mandates from the federal government.
I feel like the best option is that the federal government just fund the needs of the local governments though grants. If the local areas need the money, they'll petition for it. If they don't, a word won't be said.
Vietnam and China are dictatorships.
Do we want o adopt that approach?
New Zealand is an island far away from most things that made the job far easier.
Now since the US is not a small island in the middle of nowhere and we remain a democracy
Those are poor choices to copy.
Australia is far more investing.
As usual for American commentators biased politically they pick through the ever shrinking list of countries that did well.
To measure or failure or success in handling the pandemic we must also look a countries that did worse or about the same.
No country did everything right. Most did a lot of things wrong. Which is unfortunately to he expected when a global crisis breaks out.
There is no good reason why nobody was prepared. Lots of studies done predicted it.
As usual politicians were lazy and short sighed.
At every level of government
In so far as being unprepared at a federal level special blame befalls Obama and Biden.
They went through a small pandemic and had the dangers demonstrated to them in real life.
Biden likes to take credit for beating it.
They screwed up a lot and they got lucky.
You would have expected them to spend every waking moment following it to band sense into congress and the senate. Write executive orders. Increase funding in science and research.
Instead they did nearly nothing and did not even resupply the national stockike they had depleted.
They did order a lot of anthrax medication.
When Trump took over allegedly the Obama administration gave the Trumo administration a report on what a pandemic would be like and what to do. In the apparent hope that the Trump administration would do what they failed to to do.
The Trump administration instead did quite the opposite. I am sure nobody even read the report.
And we know what happened from there on.
I do personally place social blame at Omaba and Biden for the sole reason they lived it and it could have gotten very bad. This should under all circumstances prompted immediate change in focus. In spendig and in planning.
Their near total failure to try act responsibly became a fatal mistake that has killed half a million Americans.
Trump was a real estate tycoon and an idiot with no experience in government and no experience in handling a pandemic of any size. The chances of him getting all the preparation done was close to zero. So he stared from scratch when it all began. Not to forget a series of reorganizations and funding changes that in retrospect were horrible ideas.
A lot of the failures of the Trump administration were mimicked in other countries. Not that they took their lead from me orange there was just a lot of mistakes that got made.
8 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 36.0 ms ] threadAnd how was the 9/11 Commission a "reckoning"? Who got held accountable?
First it was ‘no masks’, then masks, then two masks, then two masks aren’t better than one. Disinfect surfaces, font disinfect surfaces.
Then places that did lockdowns fared about the same as areas without lockdowns (Calif vs Fla), etc. Someday we hope to get a disinterested canonical result with sufficient nuance. That time is not now.
The most damaging force in a chaotic situation like a terrorist attack, financial crisis or natural disaster are those who scream "you must act now, do anything!"
Look at the demand for ventilators - it's likely that the people demanding them cost people their lives.
It's often that governments will act in ways that are much worse than had nothing been done at all, and at least in the context of something as complex and varied as a pandemic - local knowledge generally has vastly outperformed the one-size-fits-all mandates from the federal government.
Now since the US is not a small island in the middle of nowhere and we remain a democracy Those are poor choices to copy.
Australia is far more investing.
As usual for American commentators biased politically they pick through the ever shrinking list of countries that did well.
To measure or failure or success in handling the pandemic we must also look a countries that did worse or about the same.
No country did everything right. Most did a lot of things wrong. Which is unfortunately to he expected when a global crisis breaks out.
There is no good reason why nobody was prepared. Lots of studies done predicted it. As usual politicians were lazy and short sighed. At every level of government
In so far as being unprepared at a federal level special blame befalls Obama and Biden. They went through a small pandemic and had the dangers demonstrated to them in real life. Biden likes to take credit for beating it. They screwed up a lot and they got lucky.
You would have expected them to spend every waking moment following it to band sense into congress and the senate. Write executive orders. Increase funding in science and research.
Instead they did nearly nothing and did not even resupply the national stockike they had depleted. They did order a lot of anthrax medication.
When Trump took over allegedly the Obama administration gave the Trumo administration a report on what a pandemic would be like and what to do. In the apparent hope that the Trump administration would do what they failed to to do.
The Trump administration instead did quite the opposite. I am sure nobody even read the report. And we know what happened from there on.
I do personally place social blame at Omaba and Biden for the sole reason they lived it and it could have gotten very bad. This should under all circumstances prompted immediate change in focus. In spendig and in planning.
Their near total failure to try act responsibly became a fatal mistake that has killed half a million Americans.
Trump was a real estate tycoon and an idiot with no experience in government and no experience in handling a pandemic of any size. The chances of him getting all the preparation done was close to zero. So he stared from scratch when it all began. Not to forget a series of reorganizations and funding changes that in retrospect were horrible ideas.
A lot of the failures of the Trump administration were mimicked in other countries. Not that they took their lead from me orange there was just a lot of mistakes that got made.
Haven't seen or heard from him in ages!