Hacker News Reader

Comment by sonotathrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Trump deliberately sabotaged efforts to protect the American public at almost every step along the way. He fired the team tracking pandemics and tried to gut their budget, and when the virus broke out he stopped the implementation of large scale testing in order to reduce the numbers of people who tested positive, and forbade use of the UN tests. This past week his CDC has completed 77 tests, as compared to Obama, who had completed one million tests in the month after H1N1. He’s also classified information regarding the disease in order to hamper the spread of vital information, and has actively lied and shifted blame regarding the availability of testing, the timeline to a vaccine, and even the efforts of private companies. Acknowledging that he is the single worst person to lead America through the crisis isn’t partisan, it’s objectively considering reality.

View on HN

This administration's handling of this pandemic is absolutely atrocious as you point out, perhaps that is where we have a silver lining. Coming close to a US presidential election perhaps Americans will consider their penny-wise, pound foolish healthcare policies.

The fact that the richest nation on earth permits about 10% of its population no access to decent healthcare is morally repugnant. But even if one is not persuaded by the moral argument, perhaps the economic impacts can change views.

With no national sick leave policy, potentially infected uninsured citizens will have the incentive to go to work, raising the risk for all. Children of uninsured whose parents are unable to take sick or medical care leave may be shunted to older care givers who are most at risk. Uninsured families are acting rationally for their own economic circumstances, but creating a larger risk profile for all.

Let's hope Americans are sobered by this experience and consider a more sensible healthcare policy.

Do you believe most of the issues at the CDC are due to Trump? The development of their own kit, refusal to allow independent testing, a lack of any stockpiles (is this their job? Well, whoever), etc. Did someone from the administration throw out all the stockpiled masks in medical institutions across the country for example?

Also, we have similar issues with testing and shortages of obviously critical supplies here in Canada, as do many other countries. Can one man do that much damage?

I don’t really care to debate strawman arguments- I never blamed him for lack of masks, so we can summarily move past that. Acknowledging that he is the cause of many actual issues is not fantasy. In reality, the United States has the worst testing capacity and infrastructure of any developed nation - this fact has to be specifically trumps fault. Obama was not caught unprepared during H1N1, and it’s impossible to imagine that the CDC is the most powerless among every major nation to secure critical supplies.

Yes, I believe most of the issues at cdc are due to trump - so far he has fired the experts who can best work with the CDC to implement policies needed, and has censored and classified their attempts to spread critical information. He rolled back Obama’s executive directives regarding pandemic response simply to spite democrats, and now is rushing to reimplement those same directives, with much less effectiveness. It’s literally a government agency under his sole control - by definition the failures of the cdc are his failures. That’s how accountability works.

I know that he specifically said that it’s not his fault and that he doesn’t stand for anything, regardless it’s still his fault. This crisis is the most current proof that he is utterly incapable of being an effective leader.

Houston, we have a problem:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-...

Does skeleton in closet beat imaginary strawman?

> I don’t really care to debate strawman arguments

Straight to rhetoric. One can characterise this as a strawman argument I suppose, but is it true?

I asked very specific questions, that can be answered. If you accuse me of framing, well...guilty as charged. In fact, I'm the one bringing this up.

> I never blamed him for lack of masks, so we can summarily move past that.

I never said you did, so we can summarily move past any insuation that I in any way made that assertion.

Please, argue against my words, not a distortion of them. And especially not while accusing me of using a strawman argument.

> Acknowledging that he is the cause of many actual issues is not fantasy.

I am not disputing that. Again, please argue against my words.

> In reality, the United States has the worst testing capacity and infrastructure of any developed nation - this fact has to be specifically trumps fault.

For you to know that is true would require some specific evidence, much of it quantitative. I've seen absolutely nothing even remotely resembling this, have you? Please note: the current lack of this data in no way proves anything one way or the other, and me asking such questions in no way requires that I believe it is false, or am making a suggestion - had I not written this disclaimer, that would have been a common rhetorical escape route. It is now closed.

> Obama was not caught unprepared during H1N1

Can you define "not caught unprepared" in more explicit detail? Specifically, can you provide a reference to inventory levels of critical care supplies over the last 20 years?

I have seen no such data, therefore I will continue to classify this as ~"Inconclusive - significant non-evidence based news that is highly narrative-based; numerous stories across independent media outlets all point back to the same 2 or 3 "fundamental" media stories (also narrative based). Biased reporting highly likely, even though their hearts are probably in the right place."

And again, none of this is to say I'm suggesting Trump has handled this well. He's handled it atrociously. I have zero doubt Obama would have handled it way better. But I suspect what really has gone on, is no one was prepared, not really. Beyond doing the standard "fund this 2500th "obviously a good idea" bill", I doubt anyone did too terribly good of a job.

If they did, but then this finely tuned, incredibly robust system fell apart in the span of 3 years under one rogue leader, with hardly anyone noticing....may it not be fruitful to investigate and discuss the actual events that occurred here? Is looking at reality, to the best of our ability to discern it, a bad idea?

I would support a full investigation into this. I welcome the full exposure of Trump's sins with open arms. Do you feel similarly unattached about Obama, or other parts of "the system" as it is? Are you willing at all times to reconsider everything you hold to be true?

And as for investigations, I think random members of the public need to start being on these investigations, like a variation of jury duty. I can pick out obviously misleading stories in the media as easily as finding cigarette butts on the ground. There is ample evidence that many fishy things are going on (think: reefer madness, racism, sexism, war propaganda & rationing), and the public's trust of media, government, and experts is unsurprisingly low as a result.

It doesn't have to be this way.

> Obama was not caught unprepared during H1N1

Did the US actually do widespread testing for H1N1? Or do anything at all?

My memory of the H1N1 outbreaks are that it was downplayed heavily in the media, and doing nothing was our response. It's pretty easy to do nothing. The way I remember it is that Asia did all of the heavy lifting by quarantining anyone with a fever.

Obama tested 1 million Americans the month after h1n1 broke out in America. Your memory seems to be quite selective.

> Obama tested 1 million Americans the month after h1n1 broke out in America.

Where is this number from? You aren't the only person that I've seen use it.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-pandemic-tim...

I see 1 million estimated in June 25, then by september we had done 1,000 test kits (which I assume have many samples).

> Your memory seems to be quite selective.

It was 11 years ago. Most of us don't remember what actually happened.

Edit to add: The biggest original difference in testing seems to be that the existing influenza tests worked for H1N1, then were easily modified for H1N1, while producing the corona virus test and running it appears to take far more time + we have shortages in sourcing chemicals because everyone is trying to get those chemicals atm. That 1 million number may be correct since existing tests that everyone can perform may have worked. That doesn't seem to have anything to do with who the president at the time was, or their actions though. I don't see any regulations being lifted/waived to make that happen. Do you remember that being a big deal at the time?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com