Just now, March 23, 2020, a retired captain in the US military on C-SPAN suggested that healthcare workers should
REFUSE TO TREAT PATIENTS.
Is it going to take something like this for people to wake up and demand that the ‘president’ in the White House order production of personal protective equipment (PPE’s) for those on the front line in this war?
Maybe that would wake up those disgraceful sycophants surrounding Trump before it is too late. What a tragedy unfolding before our eyes – a tragedy that was partially unnecessary, because unlike China and Italy, we could have taken their horrendous experience with this virus seriously far earlier (which is precisely what epidemiologists say is most important of all: act early).
I hope that is not what it is going to take to convince the ‘president’ to finally actually UTILIZE the Defense Production Act of 1950 and order the production of that equipment.
The problem isn’t a lack of willingness to make ventilators, the problem is lack of capacity. As I pointed out on another thread, we don’t generally have issues with running out of bombs and bullets in a war. We stockpile and build excess capacity into the economy. This costs money, but it’s what we pay taxes for. Apparently this long-term planning for a pandemic just never happened. Let’s hope that our leaders learn from this and work towards a society that is accustomed to thinking about the unthinkable and preparing for it.
It happened after the prior administration realized how difficult it was to respond effectively to Ebola and N1H1.
This administration dismantled everything that had been put in place. When leading scientists like Dr. Nancy Messonnier dared speak the truth about what was happening in February of this year, this administration silenced and humiliated them (like it has silenced and humiliated so many other dedicated public servants).
There WERE people thinking about the unthinkable and preparing for it. This administration punished, humiliated, and silenced them.
Building extra supply and capacity should have begun far earlier than February. You can’t just tell a factory to start pumping out ventilators and expect it to happen in several months. This takes years of advanced preparation… That preparation never happened. I’m sure there were experts warning us long before February, but it’s ultimately on policy makers to take action.