Unverified Voracity Is Moving To South Korea If They Let Him Which They Won't
[Lead photo HT: Tony Barnhart]
Sponsor Note. If you've got a small business this is a good time to have a lawyer check out your Ps and Qs. If you're starting one there's no time like the present to get yours off the ground. Here's an idea: drive around picking up children and taking them somewhere. It doesn't matter where. Just, you know, away. You can bring them back if you want. Later.
![hoeglaw_thumb[1]_thumb (3)](https://mgoblog.com/sites/default/files/hoeglaw_thumb%5B1%5D_thumb%20%283%29.jpg "hoeglaw_thumb[1]_thumb (3)")
If you're starting a voluntary child abduction company, that sounds like something with a lot of legal bits to figure out. Richard Hoeg is the man to do that. He's got a small law firm specializing in small businesses. Even if you're not planning on going into a business as fraught with complications as child… well, I don't want to say "care"…
Even if you're not going into a business as fraught with complications as child relocation, having a solid legal foundation for what you're doing will prevent problems in the future. Hoeg it up! This slogan is unauthorized.
If only. South Korea has resumed playing baseball, albeit in a modified form.
KT Wiz held a socially distant first pitch before their game today pic.twitter.com/DR0R9wulRi
— Dan Kurtz (@MyKBO) May 5, 2020
Random sports things have resumed!
We have a smoke delay, there is a building on fire near one of the stadiums pic.twitter.com/b5mUnkO10t
— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) May 5, 2020
The Bundesliga is preparing to resume as well.
Both South Korea and Germany had no-bullshit, hardcore responses to coronavirus. This Atlantic article describes the Korean response in exacting detail. South Korea had the advantage of a preseason game, as it were, when MERS ran through their hospital system a few years ago. The government reacted with a lack of transparency and was blasted out of office afterwards. Mask wearing is culturally entrenched; idiots cosplaying as militia aren't roaming around demanding that nail salons re-open; public health is not politicized.
So they get baseball and soccer. We get nothing.
[After THE JUMP: maybe I'll start writing about old television shows]
Nothing, defined. Warde Manuel on the possibility of resuming sports in the fall:
“It is very difficult, if not impossible, for me to ask our student-athletes to return to campus to play a game when other students are not going to be returning,” Manuel said on a “Get Lit” virtual town hall with Edyoucore, a financial literacy advocacy group.
“That is just unfathomable to me as I think about it. I could listen to arguments and be a part of discussions, but it is just hard for me to imagine that happening.”
The current plateau where R0 is ~1 with everything in lockdown isn't going to cut it, because as soon as you start relaxing portions of your half-ass lockdown your R0 goes above 1 and then you have to shut everything else down again. Without massively expanded testing capacity and tracing ability—both of which would have to be coordinated from the federal level—we aren't getting sports this fall.
Warde also addressed the G-League thing whilst Getting Lit:
"I don't think college basketball was hurt because Lebron James, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant went early to the NBA," Manuel said. "That is terrific for them. Now we missed having them in college, but it didn't hurt college basketball. It didn't put college basketball in a bad position."
The NCAA is wrong about many things but not wrong that the enterprise is about more than having mutants who can leap over buildings.
A couple of building blocks. "Returning" is doing a lot of work in a conference that just shed Chase Young and AJ Epenesa but Michigan's defensive ends were very good a year ago:
Highest graded returning B1G edge defenders:
— PFF College (@PFF_College) May 5, 2020
1. Aidan Hutchinson, Michigan - 82.9
2. Kwity Paye, Michigan - 80.9
3. Samdup Miller, Northwestern - 78.6 pic.twitter.com/PlrHo6t7Xd
Another reason that Uche's snaps were relatively limited: everyone who pushed him to the bench was pretty good.
Sigh. Wilton Speight confirms his status for the Spot game:
never been a shoulda/coulda/woulda guy. all I know is The Game with a collarbone cracked in half wasn’t ideal. https://t.co/Wv9W5FT8Ct
— Wilton Speight (@WiltonSpeight) May 1, 2020
I am emphatically a shoulda/coulda/woulda guy! That sucks! Aaaaaaargh!
Try to wrap your head around it. Virtually every article about name and image rights that quotes an NCAA-affiliated person is guaranteed to have at least one quote that breaks your brain:
Smith and co-chair Val Ackerman, who also serves as Big East commissioner, said some of the most important details about how these future moneymaking opportunities will be regulated are yet to be determined. Ackerman said finding a way to prevent boosters and "overzealous individuals" from using endorsements as a way to pay for athletic performance or recruiting enticements remains one of their chief concerns. NCAA members will have to figure out a way to use school compliance officers and NCAA staff to make sure that endorsement deals reflect a real market value for the services provided.
"It's vitally important that we maintain some level of integrity and fairness," Ackerman said. "We believe guardrails on boosters will help us mitigate the potential of recruiting inducements."
I know that this woman's job requires her to shut off various avenues of thinking but jeeeeez. This is phrased to imply that bringing some money above the table is a reduction in "integrity and fairness." Even if narrowly targeted at the idea that boosters are going to buy croots, that happens all the time now and you do nothing about it.
The NCAA wants to regulate it so that players can make money on the fame their athletic exploits bring them… as long as none of that compensation is actually for the athletic exploits themselves. The only thing more futile than an impossible task is a pointless impossible task.
DO NOT READ BRAIN WILL BREAK. [throws cutlery]
Mark Emmert with an all-timer: "Our efforts over the years to improve the student-athlete experience have often been met with increased litigation and challenges that significantly limit the NCAA's ability to address those needs and opportunities."
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 29, 2020
I got nothing.
Silencing Chase Young will do that. One Michigan player cracks Mel Kiper's too-early 2021 first round:
14. Jalen Mayfield, OT, Michigan
HT: 6-5 | WT: 319 | Class: Junior
There is some projection here because Mayfield has started only 13 college games at right tackle. But I really liked what I saw from him in the biggest games, including when he was lined up against No. 2 overall pick Chase Young in the Wolverines' loss to Ohio State in the regular-season finale. Mayfield has some upside, and I'll be watching closely this season.
Ben Mason is the top-ranked FB and Kwity Paye the #5 DE.
And if you're thinking "wait shouldn't there be an implausible Big Ten West QB on this list", well, yeah:
1. Trevor Lawrence, Clemson
2. Justin Fields, Ohio State
3. Trey Lance, North Dakota State
4. Jamie Newman, Georgia
5. Tanner Morgan, Minnesota
Morgan is far less ludicrous than most guys in the bin after a 10 YPA, 30 TD, 7 INT season but his offense relies so heavily on RPOs and two totally rad receivers that I'm guessing he doesn't project to the league particularly well.
Waivers might stay. The NCAA legislation process is the very definition of byzantine so I can't tell you exactly what this means but it doesn't seem good for the prospect of a single free transfer for D1 athletes:
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors said Thursday that it does not recommend potential changes to the transfer waiver process.
The Division I Council is expected to vote on a one-time transfer waiver in May that would allow student-athletes in football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and men's ice hockey to transfer and compete immediately at their new school. As it stands, student-athletes in those five sports have to sit out one year before competing.
The Transfer Waiver Working Group recommended waiver guidelines change to allow the one-time transfer waiver, but while the Board of Directors recommended lifting the moratorium on transfer legislation, it disagreed on changing the waiver process.
This is permanent legislation and unrelated to any COVID-19 special exemption, and also this thumbs down is merely advisory. It could still go through. I don't know how much influence the Board of Directors has over the membership.
Terrible content, excellent grave dancing. If I wanted to make money writing about sports I would not hire this person. If I wanted to cause the most agony for the people who left en masse I would hire this person:
ROB PARKER JOINS REVAMPED DEADSPIN
“As the FOX Sports personality announced he was joining Deadspin, Parker also stated he was leaving The Shadow League, where he contributed as a columnist since 2013.”
Next hires up: Jason Whitlock and Hulk Hogan's jimmer-jabber.
Etc.: The Luiz Suarez handball turns ten years old. Yelp and Grubhub are undeserving of your business. Michigan econ professor on cubic fits and the appropriateness of applying them to a pandemic. CHET. The Athletic is welcome to call it "Draftageddon." EA is begging to pay people for their NIL rights.
I think the no politics rule is well established to apply only to users of the blog, not Brian himself.
Brian's post is urging NOT to politicize this. Those taking any "side" based on their own beliefs, and not based on the consensus of scientists that are using the best available information, are politicizing it. That's the whole point.
RE: The protesters
Frustrates me to no end. There are legitimate criticisms that governors should be facing in regards to activities they've restricted based on the science coming out of different places (i.e. outdoor transmission is virtually nil so long as we're not spitting in each other's faces, children don't appear to be significant spreaders of the virus), but it all gets lost in the idiocy.
I think that the insistence on assuming two camps is a big part of the problem. The question is not, should we be closed or opened, it should be, what is the appropriate amount of limitations to place balancing health risks and economic concerns. I am aware of very few people who were ever advocating for keeping everything closed and there are very few people who are advocating for opening things with no restrictions whatsoever.
if you wanted to suggest that there is an open faster and open slower group that is a bit closer to reality, but it is much more of a spectrum than that.
Based on my comments on this blog, I imagine most would corrected put me on the open slowly side of the spectrum, but I definitely think there are people leaning to far in that direction. We absolutely need to figure out a more surgical way to contain outbreaks than the blunt hammer of statewide stay at home orders.
Meh, it's a shorthand that I doubt anyone is confused by. There's always going to be a spectrum in describing two sets of broadly opposed views, sure I'm missing some nuance, but I'm trying to get a point across in an expedient manner.
You’ve used stark terms t suggest two diametrically opposed views. That doesn’t suggest much room to find compromise. I’ve suggested that the difference is much more a matter of degree and not a case of polar opposites. Which do you think is more conducive to actually having a conversation that is respectful and nuanced and which do you think causes people to dig into their positions more deeply and not listen to differing opinions?
If we had shut everything down for a month/month plus in January when we became aware of the disease we’d be over all this and opening.
instead, we made politically motivated decisions to wait too long to start, and now we’re opening too early for that to work because states don’t wanna pay unemployment and rich people don’t want to pay higher taxes to pay for us to keep the rest of the 99% home and safe.
given what we ended up doing, we would have been better off never shutting down. Waiting that long to shut down and opening this early has done nothing to mitigate spread, hence why our death numbers are as bad as any place on earth. All we’ve done is torch the economy with no benefit,
The only game I watched Tanner Morgan play was vs. PSU and I was actually amazed Minnesota had such a good QB. Don't know how he's done otherwise, but he looked reasonably legit to me. He definitely had a lot of RPOs and guys fairly wide open, but I guess I can see why an NFL team would pick him up
It's hard to overstate just how slant/RPO heavy Minnesota's offense has been the last two years. I went to a Minnesota-Indiana game in 2018 and slants were basically everything they threw until a (brilliant call) deep pass to Bateman late in the game to win. And, as Brian says, he had incredible receivers.
Granted, just because he hasn't been called on to make other throws doesn't mean that he can't make them.
I think the main takeaway from that list is that there aren't a lot great QBs in college football this year.
Agree with your last point, I'd actually go one step further to say that QBs in the future will be less and less of "gamechangers" as modern spread offenses aim to mitigate the importance of the QB position.
Historically so much has been expected of the QB position that to be a good QB you needed to jump through more hoops than a dog at the Westminster Kennel Club - most colleges had no chance at recruiting guys like that, but even the ones that could got enough busts that they schemed around the position - quick release, short routes, RPO, increased wildcat packages all work to make it so that the offense could be run by any guy with a decent arm at QB, who can run and occasionally connect on a deep bomb.
I think the NFL will have no choice but to adapt as well, as guys like Brady, Manning, Rodgers etc are quickly become less sought after in college, and the guys you do see moving up are system QBs in Air Raid or RPO heavy schemes.
I'm in the middle of writing a few things about this: offenses have only become more QB-focused. Option offenses ask the QB to make reads and make plays with their feet. Pro offenses demand all kinds of checks and reading and perfect throws.
Look forward to reading it!
His pocket feet are very impressive in this clip and he will shows willingness to take a hit to make a throw. Timing is so critical in a successful pass offense.
I miss football...
Wilton with a cracked collarbone AND a pick six with a couple other dumb picks all while in Columbus with some home cooking refs still came down to the spot.
Le sigh. That 2016 team was something else.
Don't forget the fumble on OSU's goal line. We should have won that game comfortably.
I don't necessarily count the fumble on the goal line because the drive immediately after, OSU goes three and out and inexplicably attempts a blown-up fake punt that starts Michigan inside the redzone again which would not have happened had they not fumbled and just scored, OSU more than likely punts to save field position if they go three and out from the 25-35 yard lines as the rules of probability dictate, punting from inside the 10/15 usually yield the same results as going for it.
"Returning" is doing a lot of work in a conference that just shed Chase Young and AJ Epenesa but Michigan's defensive ends were very good a year ago:
Highest graded returning B1G edge defenders:
1. Aidan Hutchinson, Michigan - 82.9
2. Kwity Paye, Michigan - 80.9
3. Samdup Miller, Northwestern - 78.6
I'd be curious to know if there was a minimum number of games or snaps required to qualify. Jonathan Cooper wound up RSing last year, but it would seem he is more accomplished that the two UM guys and I'd be willing to bet Zach Harrison is ready to leap right into the mix as well.
People (many of them smart) keep talking about testing and tracing. Even if we have the best tracing ability ever, how you handle office buildings or any building with an elevator? If you get sick, how the heck do they trace the people that were with you in the elevator going up to your office or apartment ?
To me, tracking/tracing will never be strong enough to be a solution, but perhaps there's something I'm missing.
Did you read the article that was linked?
Now, it may be too late for this country because we were unprepared and run by an administration that was concerned more about optics than public health. We could've avoided much of the economic damage if the governments (both federal and state) heeded numerous warnings about the potential severity of this pandemic.
Also, I will disagree with the article about culture playing a role. The article points out that most of South Korean society has recognized the danger and done what's been asked to help stem the tide.
We're more distrustful of the government, and ultimately, selfish. You don't need a haircut or to go surfing or whatever it is you want to do. But, these people don't care if other people die. They only care if they get to exercise their right to do what they want when they want it.
I'm not sure this is true. If you look at polling 70+% of people support continuing lockdown measures for at least another couple weeks and I think we still have a majority for longer term lockdowns. That's despite the current economic crisis where a ton of people are out of work and the government is not stepping in to help them weather the storm.
What we DO have is a media ecosystem that amplifies extremes because they drive engagement. Which is coincidentally the problem with the Mgoboard during football season.
Nail salons, or haircuts, or surfing ...... or small businesses many of which will never reopen (the percentage of which is directly related to how long their forced closures last), and all of their employees.
Many businesses large and small were going to have huge problems in a pandemic with or without shutdown orders. If large numbers consumers are uncomfortable going to stores and restaurants those stores and restaurants will have significant economic challenges.
Of course, but if these businesses put practices in place which will inspire confidence in enough consumers and employees to order their products or use their services, and work there, then they have a much better chance. This is an opportunity that many have not been afforded.
The economic counterargument to this is that a lot of business activity is only viable when infections are low -- whatever firm-level steps are taken to make people more comfortable, a huge chunk of many/most consumer bases is just not going to go out. By prematurely lifting lockdown orders -- before infection numbers are meaningfully driven down, and before we have sufficient testing/tracking capacity -- we're making it less likely that we get to that point of economic viability anytime soon.
Maybe, or maybe it's time to start letting people make their own decisions with the information that is available to them and make sure that information is updated as more comes in. It seems pretty clear to me that people are going to make their own decisions regardless and are going to be driven by what they think is right, at least at this point people are being given options AND we aren't buying follow-on problems such as continued putting off of medical procedures that aren't related to COVID-19. I have a feeling there will always be people who just simply are never going to feel comfortable and will keep moving the goalposts in response, freezing the entire country until we've made that group happy is going to mean never operating normally again.
I mostly agree with this, in that I think we tend to overestimate the impact of centralized distancing policy vs. a bunch of individual decisions. That said, I'd argue that the marginal economic impact of relaxing distancing policy right now is negative. And either way, the best thing we could be doing right now for the economy is throwing WWII-level resources at testing and tracing, and it's absolutely insane that we're doing as little as we are at the federal level.
Individuals not being very good at making decisions to protect the whole is basically why governments exist.
There are a lot of things in life that are collective action problems. Responding to pandemics is one of them.
This was a solvable problem. It remains a solvable problem but is getting harder by the day.
Yeah the best thing to do would have been for everyone to get on board and take it seriously from the beginning. That was the only way to avoid economic hardships.
Instead we had a vocal group claiming this is just the normal flu and people die every day so who cares. That group should be ashamed of themselves. Go look yourself in the mirror because you’re the reason that you’re struggling financially right now. You reap what you sow.
Instead of admitting it was a mistake to down play this, you’ve just dug in even further.
Do you feel that the administrations in Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, the UK, Portugal and Denmark put "optics" in front of public health? I'm naming those nations because so far they have had more people die per million than Germany who has handled the crisis "well".
Why did those nations (including Germany) not take the warnings as seriously as they should? Why did they all leave their borders open? Why do many of them lack PPE (including Germany)?
Why did nations like New Zealand and Australia wait until middle/late March to lock down their countries when it was clear was was happening in Italy and South Korea in...I dunno February? I mean, they are lauded for their handling of the virus, they must have taken things seriously much earlier than us. But they didn't. They probably just got lucky that they didn't have as much spread as early as we did. It probably helps they are island nations. It probably hurts us that we have so many international points of entry.
Why did Nancy Pelosi - the top member of the opposition party - tell people in late February to hit the town in a population dense city like San Francisco? Why did Dr. Anthony Fauci go on TV on February 29th and say this:
"Right now, at this moment, there’s no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day by day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change."
Because no one knew. No one knew how bad it was going to get. No one knew that we probably already had hundreds (thousands?) of cases at that point. We can point the blame at the administration and they deserve blame, but pretending like it was some unique failure on their part ignores the rest of the world.
But there are also governments who did pretty well. South Korea's success is well established at this point. New Zealand has virtually halted new cases. Germany is getting the same number of new cases each day as Michigan right now, despite having 3.5 times more population density. The two biggest factors seem to be:
1) Recent experience with pandemic illness (South Korea, Taiwan, etc.)
2) Strong, competent political leadership (South Korea, Germany, New Zealand, Australia - btw note there are two right wing and two left wing governments there)
Countries with weak incompetent leadership (US, UK, Italy, Iran, Brazil, France - no right/left generalization, but I will note the authoritarians except maybe Modi in India have not done well) have had disastrous responses.
“We can point the blame at the administration and they deserve blame, but pretending like it was some unique failure on their part ignores the rest of the world” - I’ll provide one specific example in this reply, but am happy to provide more.
I think that the three examples I am going to provide (South Korea and Germany for Covid-19 and US for 2009 H1N1) clearly demonstrate that testing could have and should have been more widely available in the US by late February. We could have identified community spread much earlier and might have been able to have a much more focused response. While you can point out countries that this did not happen, I’d suggest that we should have an expectation that we should be a leader in responding to something like this, not a laggard.
Date when testing development could begin - January 12 “Chinese authorities submit to the World Health Organization the gene sequence data of the novel coronavirus, which is shared globally.”
Germany
In mid-January, long before most Germans had given the virus much thought, Charité hospital in Berlin had already developed a test and posted the formula online.
By the time Germany recorded its first case of Covid-19 in February, laboratories across the country had built up a stock of test kits.
South Korea
“A week after the Jan. 27 meeting, South Korea’s CDC approved one company’s diagnostic test. Another company soon followed. By the end of February, South Korea was making headlines around the world for its drive-through screening centers and ability to test thousands of people daily.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialre…
US
Jan 24
The C.D.C. says that it has developed a sophisticated diagnostic test and has sought F.D.A. permission to send it to public labs around the country.
Early February
Stanford University develops its own test for the coronavirus but runs into regulatory roadblocks at the F.D.A.
February 12
The C.D.C. publicly disclosesthat its test kits aren’t working properly amid complaints from labs around the country that screening has been far too restricted.
February 24
A coalition of public health labs asks the FDA for permission to make their own tests: “We are now many weeks into the response with still no diagnostic or surveillance test available outside of CDC for the vast majority of our member laboratories.”
US for 2009 H1N1 outbreak
On April 24, 2009, CDC uploaded complete gene sequences of the 2009 H1N1 virus to a publicly-accessible international influenza database, which enabled scientists around the world to use the sequences for public health research and for comparison against influenza viruses collected elsewhere, and an updated report on the outbreak was published online in the MMWR.
The real-time PCR test developed by CDC was cleared for use by diagnostic laboratories by FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on April 28, 2009, less than two weeks after identification of the new pandemic virus.
On May 1, 2009, CDC test kits began shipping to domestic and international public health laboratories.
By May 18, 2009, 40 states had been validated to conduct their own 2009 H1N1 testing, with eight states having multiple laboratories able to do their own testing. CDC alerted the public that the expansion in testing capacity would likely result in a jump in the number of 2009 H1N1 cases, but that this would actually present a more accurate picture of the true scope of 2009 H1N1 influenza in the United States.
Germany - A German lab was able to create a working test quickly. The CDC was not able to do the same. The current administration has increased funding to the CDC each year per the Democratic party's wishes - despite not wanting to do so. How would this fall under the Trump administration putting optics before preparation for the virus? Should the Trump administration have broken protocol and said "We'll take the German test"? In hindsight of course, but that is not how we have handled this type of thing before:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-coronavirus-test/
Its also worth noting from the Snopes article:
"coupled with regulatory red tape that prevented state laboratories from using their own tests, caused further delay."
Did the current administration create that "regulatory red tape"?
I've read that Germany was helped by the decentralized nature of the RKI vs the CDC, something that would have also predated the Trump administration.
South Korea - As Brian notes above: South Korea had a trial run with MERS that likely spurred their response. Similarly, the reason the United States had a PPE stockpile during the Bush years was because of SARS (that was not replenished after the Swine Flu pandemic). There are also cultural reasons at play (regional and generational distrust of China, mask-wearing, etc.) for their success.
United States 2009 Swine Flu:
The United States is actually in a similar situation with the mild Swine flu pandemic that we are here with COVID19:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_by_country#Europe
At the top for deaths and even factoring in population, exceeding our peers such as Germany and France. Why would this be considered a success? We didn't contain it and millions of people were infected, but it only had an IFR of 0.02%. Its not really an apt comparison to our current situation.
I know this was not your point but I think its worth noting.
Yes, we got our test right that time. But what does that prove other than in one instance the CDC was able to correctly create a test and the second time it was not? Is that because of the administration in place at each time or just a fluke?
Want legitimate criticism of the administration? The president campaigned on the idea of moving away from our dependence on China. He campaigned on mistrust of China. He's talked about the negative impact of China on our economy for 30+ years. He's engaged in a running trade war with China for most of his tenure. Of any major western leader, Donald Trump should have been the most skeptical, but he failed in that regard.
You must have a hard time finding anyone to argue with Scooter - you're a little too reasonable!
Knock it off! We're bored and itching for a fight!
"At this moment" (Feb. 29) there was no reason for the average American to do anything different than they had ever done. Avoiding crowds when virtually no one on the continent had the virus would have served no purpose. If you mean to provide this misleading quote to argue that Fauci didn't realize that the virus was likely going to be a big problem for the USA, I think you're 100% wrong.
Recent studies have suggested that there was ongoing community transmission in California by February.
They posthumously identified a death in Santa Clara county on Feb 6. That means there was community spreading in CA in late January. It also means there were almost certainly other deaths in February. The only reason this was identified is that a doctor thought it was suspicious and stored some tissue for later testing.
I live in CA and got sick at the end of February. Cough for a few days, then a low grade fever, chills, fatigue. Went to the doctor and tested negative for the flu. They were just like, yeah, it's probably a sinus infection or something (even though I get those all the time and never get a fever or fatigue like that). They were all wearing masks and had passed out masks to patients in the waiting area which is something I had never seen before even during flu season. But they didn't even mention coronavirus. It's unlikely I had it but the fact they couldn't test for it at that point is shocking.
Holland and Belgium have been reporting deaths VERY loosely, i.e. any suspected Covid death is being counted as a Covid death because they know they'd be undercounting significantly if they only counted lab confirmed cases and they want to make their decisions accordingly.
But to your point, France, Spain, Italy and the UK were similarly flat-footed and unprepared.
But they aren't the world's only super power. The US is richer and far more capable of developing diagnostic tests, etc. than any of these countries. Our failure to use our considerable resources to produce better outcomes than freaking Spain or Italy is a failure of leadership and management.
You have to look no further than the testing fiasco detailed below. If the administration wanted to know there was a problem instead of burying their heads in the sand hoping their wasn't one, they could have had testing ready to go and could have bought up supplies before the rest of the world scooped them all up.
I don't know if Pelosi was a part of intelligence briefings that sounded these alarms early on (the ones that led to a bunch of members of those committees dumping stocks) or what she knew but there were a lot of people not being honest with the American people in February and she very well might have been one of them (but also she could have just been told that things were fine by the admin the way they were telling the public that things were fine).
The CDC is the body that creates the test.
This administration has signed budgets increasing their funding each year despite wanting to cut that budget.
The CDC then fails to create a working test. In comparison to Germany, the German decentralized system is lauded for their quick response, while our centralized system is regarded as part of the failure. Is that because of the administration?
You can read my response to blue in dc above for more, but I'm confused as to how its on the administration for letting the CDC operate as it was supposed to? Unless we're just saying that anything that happens under an administration is their fault, which okay then there really isn't an argument.
Nancy Pelosi is the highest ranking Democrat in office. I find it incredible to believe that if there were information out there that said we were in for what ended up happening, she would not have information about it. There's no way she would want to be on camera telling people to go out in a crowded city if she knew what was coming.
Germany is lauded for their response right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Germany#National_Pandemic_Plan
Read through some of this. Does it really sound like a no bullshit response as Brian claims when they're dismissing travel bans, sending PPE to China in February while now doctors are posing nude to protest not having PPE, worrying about COVID19 "stigma", telling people the flu of 2018 was worse, etc.?
Brah, the FDA can approve any private entity to create a test at any time they want. Who does the FDA (and CDC) work under? The administration. What has happened to a whole bunch of things since the administration finally got their heads out of their asses? Swift approvals for all kinds of privately manufactured tests, including a bunch of antibody tests that are now proving to be crap. Swift emergency approval of hydroxychloroquine and remdisivir.
Your assertion that it is the CDC and the CDC alone that has the ability or authority to create these tests is ignorance of incomprehensible proportion. It was exactly the administrations fault that only the CDC was working on this.
We could have had millions of tests produced during the month of January or February like Korea was doing if we didn't have our heads in the sand (which is a generous assumption, quite possible we were actively trying to keep our numbers down and keep people consuming despite the dangers to them).
Completely agree that if Pelosi knew the extent of this and said dangerous things, she should be held accountable. But she's not in the administration and doesn't have authority over the FDA or CDC. She wasn't the one that denied a bunch of private applications to produce tests.
Step one is hard quarantine of anyone who is sick with symptoms consistent with the disease. Then you contact and test every person they contacted. Then you contact and test every person all of those people contacted. Which is an extremely labor intense job. And why large gathering places like schools would probably still need to be closed until things are under control.
But as Mark Cuban (among others) have been saying, there's a ton of suddenly available labor who need something to do to get some income or the economy is going to stay fucked.
We can't do those things because of 1) a lack of testing capacity 2) we acted so slow the disease is entrenched and 3) the current government is ideologically opposed to having people be paid directly by the government so we'd implement it as a sort of half-assed sub-contracted private/public partnership that wouldn't be nationally cohesive and would miss things.
Contact tracing doesn't have to be labor intensive.
Korea and other countries have apps and social media plug ins that immediately tell you if you were close to a person for some amount of time prior to that person testing positive.
This is the solution to the elevator problem. You don't even have to know who you were close to. Your phone already does.
So then all those people that were near the infected person get told to get tested. And when testing is easily accessible like in Korea (which we don't because we dragged our feet on testing for over a month while all the supplies got bought up), they can go get tested right away and self-isolate if they're positive and then anyone close to them gets alerted, etc.
It's not that hard. We're the country behind Google and Apple and Facebook and Microsoft. Our technology chops are better than the rest of the worlds combined. And yet, we have no solutions of this sort.
It will go down as one of the greatest American failures of all time that we threw trillions at bankers to prop up the markets but have failed to do the specific and much less expensive things that could have let us go on with our daily lives, without the extreme economic disruption and without so many deaths.
I think you may be assuming that the trace/track part is only via a phone or some other piece of tech. Trace/track can be also be done manually. Sit down with the person who tested positive, list all the places they visited, find as many potential people the COVID + person may have contacted, and have those people do some type of quarantine. It's manual and requires a crap ton of people, but it can be done.
Every day this site is a bigger joke than the previous day.
Removing this trash from my favorites, this blog no longer provides anything that can't be found on twitter, reddit, etc. and those platforms are equally as toxic, but at least differing views are allowed to be discussed.
#MAGA, you cucks. Enjoy Trump as your President until at least 2024.
Well, at least we can agree that elections do have consequences.
72800 dead and counting, and sunlight and other magical injections being suggested as possible cures by our commander in chief. maybe it was a joke?
btw, I like the "until at least 2024", implying a disregard for the 22nd amendment. It's all constitution and the rules unless it isn't, I guess.
finally, why do some people enjoy the silly name calling so much? "cucks"? come on, man, grow up.
Enjoy Trump as your President until at least 2024.
At least? They gonna pull a Putin and change the no more than 2 terms limit?
Good riddance, go back to your shanty
The post doesn't mention anything about Trump, just says we need to be more like South Korea and Germany as 2000 Americans are dying every day, and you're triggered?
So long snowflake.
Looking at your post history, when you think Reddit is toxic, social media is toxic, facebook is toxic, everyone around you is toxic, guess what, YOU'RE the toxic one.
Well...Bye!
Spring has finally come, the snowflake is melting
Don't let the virtual door hit you on the way out.
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