This article is all over the place. I needed Dramamine just to read it. Some very good parts, some contradictory parts, and some possibly too critical parts considering the complexity of the virus problems, supply problems, developmental problems, and some distribution problems.
However, I would think that Aleut eskimos, people in No. Dakota, the desolate areas of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, as well as the mountains of Montana, northern Maine etc., DON’T need every person tested for the virus.
Logic says you go to the central “hotspots” first and start a containment effort there, while looking for other developing hotspots that would be next in line for attention. Where I come from, this is called “prioritizing” and the “triage approach”.
Our air lift logistical capabilities are incredible esp when you add in the Air Forces’ large C17 and C5A lifters.
Drones could be used to airlift some supplies to remote areas in a hurry if they become a hotspot.
The same for our ships, railroad systems, and those great longhaul truck drivers.
The Left in America never understood the physical capabilities of America to respond to an emergency once that emergency was properly identified and surveyed for “needs”.
However, bad and outdated government regulations are one of the greatest obstacles to almost immediate action by private industries/businesses. Glad to see that a lot of these regulations are now gone (Obama and company did nothing but expland regulations to the point that our economy was strangled in many areas of potential growth).
Also, America’s ability to put together the human elements of a national task force, response force, etc., has also been underestimated. Look at who is now working together all over the US with much less bureaucracy and duplications than before.
I’m a specialist in the WW2 industrial mobilization efforts, those of the Korean War (i.e. the Defense Production Act/Agency/Administration), and some post Korean war industrial policies. Pres. Trump has done more in a few months that Roosevelt did in almost a year with the problems of the War Production Board, the Rubber Reserve/Synthetic Rubber programs versus the Aviation Gasoline production programs.
Thank God we had a man like Jeffers, the head of the Union Pacific or Northern Pacific Railroad to stop all the internal power fighting between the Rubber/SynRubber and Avgas factions, become the “czar” of both, and told them to get the hell to work by prioritizing actual versus future needs.
You can’t fly an airplane without Avgas but it won’t get off the ground, even with a full tank, unless you have rubber wheels to help with lift-off. Priority is the key word, as well as knowing what the problems are in the first place.
I like Trump’s national team. Faced with a really new and deadly health challenge, they have gotten organized very early on despite a lack of knowledge about some of the components of the epidemic and have helped kick in our national industrial/private services mobilization to the point that it is running reasonably well for a country of 330 million-plus people.
Time to stop bitching and time to start “pitching” in, as private citizens as well as businessmen, medical personnel, military personnel, etc. Time to start being “Americans” and not ankle-bitters, complainers, and political hacks.
“don’t need every person to be tested” in a given region does not necessarily equate to “no person needs to be tested” in a given region, which seems to be the default decision for south dakota in practice as determined by someone outside of south dakota, following your apparent line of reasoning.
for example, high risk people with symptoms and health care workers need to be tested in every area.
beyond this, people should have a right to reasonable expectation of treatment should it become necessary, including testing if testing becomes reasonably required, so that people at high risk are not forced into researching and committing to plan b and plan c scenarios should the worst hypothetical scenarios actually happen to them.
Awesome response. That was first encouraging thing I’ve heard in days.
Just fyi there’s a little movement happening all over the USA where women who can sew are sewing up surgical masks and donating to hospitals. Not as good as the disposable n95s but can be used in the less front line situations to save the N95s for more urgent use. I think that is very cool and shows the old can-do spirit of America is still there, if people know something to do specifically, they want to help and will help!
Very well stated.