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Fucking ghouls, Fox News.
If the U.S. had moved as quickly as other countries at the start of the pandemic, between 70% and 99% of Covid-19 deaths might have been prevented.
From the report by Issac and James Sebenius, posted 22 June 2020:
Our conclusions are strengthened by their consistency with the results from different methodologies. Two notable epidemiological projections, based on theoretical models of transmission and “idealized hypothetical assumptions,” have estimated that between 80% and 90% of American deaths could have been averted had lockdowns and social distancing begun two weeks earlier.
For a more granular perspective, we compared the American response to the actions taken by South Korea. By the time South Korea experienced its 15th confirmed case on Feb. 2, it had spearheaded a massive public information campaign, mobilized private sector players to produce testing kits, and expedited regulatory approval for these newly developed tests. Within a week, tests were widely available. Within three weeks, schools and public spaces were closed, large gatherings had been banned, and 26,000 people had been tested.
In contrast, President Trump consistently ignored confidential and public early warnings from experts and intelligence agencies prior to the 15th confirmed U.S. case on Feb. 14, then acted far more slowly and inconsistently than South Korea. The White House banned flights from China on Feb. 2 but later permitted more than 40,000 travelers from China to enter the U.S. From February through April, President Trump made dismissive and contradictory statements to which government agencies and the public paid close attention.
Often taking cues from the president’s words, state by state measures were rolled out piecemeal. Florida and Georgia, for example, waited until April 3 to issue stay-at-home orders while South Carolina held off until April 7.
Another crucial failure involved testing. Three weeks after the 15th Covid-19 case had been confirmed in the U.S., only about 10,000 tests had been administered. By an equivalent point in its epidemic, South Korea had administered approximately 17 times more tests per capita than the U.S. had done. This testing fiasco crippled vital early contact tracing efforts when hot spots could have been contained.
South Korea’s decisive actions during this critical early window produced a dramatic disparity. By mid-March, each of the two countries had suffered about 90 Covid-19 deaths. But throughout April, while a total of 85 South Koreans died from the disease, an average of more than 85 Americans died per hour. This divergence only widened as time passed.
Although federal, state, and local governments share responsibility for American health policy and implementation, ultimate accountability during a national crisis heavily rests on the occupant of the White House. At a minimum, the president, perhaps through a tough “testing czar,” should have empowered private companies, labs, and hospitals to augment public testing efforts — as South Korean policymakers did — and imported readily available tests from elsewhere if necessary. If there were shortages of testing components, the president should have immediately invoked the Defense Production Act rather than waiting for months to do so for this purpose. And when the CDC and the FDA fumbled early testing efforts, President Trump responded: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
The administration has advanced innumerable excuses and scapegoats for the vast U.S. death toll: China, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former President Barack Obama, the media, and more.
Yet other countries with the same information — or alleged misinformation — as the U.S. had at the time took earlier, decisive steps to quell the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Relative to the United States, their actions dramatically cut their death tolls and, on average, South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore are opening up their economies sooner and more safely than the U.S.
Two recent studies published in Nature confirm the “astonishing effectiveness” of the type of government interventions we have discussed, especially when adopted early. Our analysis shows that with the same actions actually taken by other nations large and small, from East and West, the U.S. could have prevented 70% to 99% of its Covid-19 deaths. This has been a needless tragedy.
I’m guessing **leadership** and not **readership** as typed
(X) (X) (X) (X)
A 60 Minutes investigation has found that federal officials knew many COVID-19 antibody testing kits had flaws, but allowed them to enter the U.S. market.
In March, many communities were competing against each other, and the federal government, to find COVID tests. The Trump administration was under fire.
President Trump at March 6 press conference: "Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. They’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful."
But that was not true. Because of missteps a month earlier at both the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, diagnostic tests, which can tell if a person is currently infected with the coronavirus, were in short supply.
The promise of a new serology, or antibody blood test, that could determine if a person had been exposed to COVID-19 and developed “protective” antibodies was being heralded as the next best thing: a “game-changer” that could get Americans back to work.
On March 16, in an attempt to get those tests to the public, the FDA took an unusual step. It announced it would allow antibody tests into the U.S. market without FDA review or formal clearance.
Almost immediately, more than 100 companies offering antibody tests flooded the market. They came from every corner of the world, and none of them were FDA tested.
All but one test delivered so-called false-positives, meaning they mistakenly signaled antibodies in people who did not have them.
…in late May, nearly three months after the wave of unregulated antibody tests came to the U.S., the FDA started pulling tests off the market. 50 so far. Including the Anhui DeepBlue test that was sold to Laredo.
Customs agents and Homeland Security investigators now have the difficult task of trying to stop all the banned tests from entering the country. But the flawed antibody tests are still being used and the bad data collected from them is guiding critical decisions about when to reopen communities.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi: We’ve never seen anything like this in terms of a policy which is basically an anything goes, Wild West type of approach to regulating a healthcare market. We just haven’t seen that.
Me: This CBS News report isn’t on the WaPo homepage either, and this is equally damning. Mission accomplished.
The state's network of virus detectives never hit its stride as Texas reopened. Now they can’t catch up.
See also:
Officials in Texas' big cities say their public testing sites are being strained. Austin has begun to limit who can be tested.
Leaked gov't document predicts rise in deaths as Trump aims to "open up America."
It isn't clear whether the document's projections assume that states will keep enforcing stay-at-home orders through May. The US so far has nearly 1.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and about 62,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
The leaked Trump administration document said there are "a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow or are in an elevated incidence plateau, including in the Great Lakes region, parts of the Southeast, Northeast, and around southern California." Good news from the document is that "incidence rates continue to decrease in multiple counties, including hard hit areas in Louisiana and in the New York City region" and that "incidence rates have recently plateaued in areas around Chicago."
Despite the projected increase in daily cases and deaths, the White House is reportedly relying on other, more optimistic projections to support a plan to reopen the economy.
A White House spokesperson told the NYT that "the president's phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific driven approach that the top health and infectious disease experts in the federal government agreed with."
According to the Washington Post, "A senior White House official said the document will not change the White House planning on reopening." The Post story also said that "White House officials have been relying on other models to make decisions on reopening," including a "'cubic model' prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers, led by Trump adviser Kevin Hassett.
People with knowledge of the 'cubic model' say it currently shows deaths dropping precipitously in May—and essentially going to zero by May 15." White House officials have also been relying on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model, which has been criticized for making flawed projections.
An ICU doc I’m friends with expressed it best: “I’m happy to have the masks, but I didn’t get into medicine so I could do back-alley handshake deals for basic protections.” Some docs are having to fight their administration to wear their own PPE. They find it, pay for it, and then are told they’re not allowed to actually wear it.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-new-york-er-doctors-log.html
