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Comment by MontyCarloHall | Hacker News Reader

> covid has been a pathetic, fumbling showing, one that clearly reflects institutional decay and foreshadows future decline -- the reverse of the first situation

Against a totally novel virus, we developed and widely deployed vaccines with efficacies beyond anyone’s wildest dreams using totally novel technology in the span of a year. Not sure that quite meets my definition of “pathetic.”

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Not a totally novel virus. The reason why vaccines were developed within days of isolating the virus is because SARS-COV-2 is not that different from SARS-COV-1 and all the vaccine research efforts carried over.

What was pathetic was the federal coordination - hesitation on travel restrictions, CDC response, recommendations against PPE… Lessons that could have been learned even from the 1918 pandemic were painfully ignored.

What makes you think the war wasn't won /despite/ pathetic and fumbling actions by leaders and governments? Ha, my country sent a small contingent (25k) to fight against the Axis in Italy. There were new uniforms made for this expeditionary force. Turns out they chose uniforms that closely matched that of the german uniforms (!).

From a book on this subject: "Another problem in the country's preparation was the production of uniforms similar to those of the German Army. 'They even threw rocks at us in Naples thinking we were the invaders'.”

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