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Thread: What can we learn from this

  1. #1
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    What can we learn from this

    * We don't have enough reserves of PPE, and other medical necessities.
    * We could be overly vulnerable to bio warfare because of the above.
    * We don't not have imo a very coordinated or comprehensive response to these crisis between federal, state, and local agencies.
    * Our supply chain can easily be compromised.
    * Some in government used this crisis for political leverage.

    Some pluses:

    *We are a nation of many brave individuals, particularly those in the medical trenches taking risks to protect others.
    * Individuals seem to pull together in crisis
    *Many businesses sacrificed profits for the good of the masses.

    Please add on if you care to

    Mods delete this if you think it goes too far.
    Last edited by Jon Grider; 03-24-2020 at 4:55 PM.

  2. #2
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    * Some in government used this crisis for political leverage.
    Sadly, some in government are/have using/used this crisis for personal financial gain.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  3. #3
    * That our quality and standard of life is perhaps more fragile that we sometimes like to think
    * That things can change very quickly and that we should not take the important things in our lives for granted
    * That nature and natural phenomena have the power to overwhelm us all
    * That the scientific community is as important a line of defense for us as the military, in certain respects.
    * I've learned that public health medicine is very different from the everyday practice of medicine that goes on in doctor's offices and hospitals.

    Edwin
    Last edited by Edwin Santos; 03-24-2020 at 6:21 PM.

  4. #4
    * Most families/households due not maintain a large enough reserve of food and essentials to survive more than 2 or 3 days.
    * A perceived shortage becomes a real shortage in a matter of ours
    * The thin layer of civility will only be maintained as long as supplies hold out
    * A person is a smart intelligent being, "people" are nervous and panicky (Men in Black)

    Bryan

  5. #5
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    This time around, we have a shortage of ventilators because this particular virus reduces the ability to breathe. The next time around, we will be critically short of some other equipment or medicine. It isn't possible to anticipate and provide for every possible epidemic ahead of time.

    Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, made this shockingly honest statement to an interviewer: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” It seems this crisis is no different.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Art Mann View Post
    This time around, we have a shortage of ventilators because this particular virus reduces the ability to breathe. The next time around, we will be critically short of some other equipment or medicine. It isn't possible to anticipate and provide for every possible epidemic ahead of time.

    Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, made this shockingly honest statement to an interviewer: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” It seems this crisis is no different.
    It is mostly shockingly honest by being taken out of context. This statement was made back in November of 2008:

    Emanuel, Nov. 19, 2008: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. I think America as a whole in 1973 and 1974, and not just my view but obviously the administration's, missed the opportunity to deal with the energy crisis that was before us. For a long time our entire energy policy came down to cheap oil. This is an opportunity, what used to be long-term problems, be they in the health care area, energy area, education area, fiscal area, tax area, regulatory reform area, things that we have postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity, for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before. The good news, I suppose, if you want to see a silver lining, is the problems are big enough that they lend themselves to ideas from both parties for the solution.
    You may recall a major energy company called Enron. Evidently they were gaming the power distribution system in California. They took down a major accounting firm with them.

    In times of calm, no one worries about a coming crisis. It is in time of crisis when we can see of what people are really made.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  7. #7
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    I don't think that an economic rescue package should contain utterly unrelated controversial legislation like elements of the "Green New Deal". That is an unethical attempt to force unrelated change by holding the public hostage.

  8. #8
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    I agree with Art. The only thing in the aid package should be related to the pandemic.

  9. #9
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    There are many things that can be learned

    - many families in our countries do not have sufficiently high income to save the enough to support themselves for several months
    - we don’t seem to have enough emergency preparedness in government agencies to properly mitigate something like this pandemic

    - as a society we seem to be more concerned with the me than the we, when did this change?

    I hope that deaths are low, we recover rapidly and learn from this event.....Rod

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Art Mann View Post
    I don't think that an economic rescue package should contain utterly unrelated controversial legislation like elements of the "Green New Deal". That is an unethical attempt to force unrelated change by holding the public hostage.
    Agreed, no add ons from either party unrelated to the crisis at hand.

  11. #11
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    Some things will never change. There will always be people try to make political gain instead of working to aid those in need. As Art says you can't possibly anticipate ever possible scenario. Improved procedures on gathering test specimens will help to reduce the demand for N95 masks. People will be able to do nasal swabs at home and then they can be dropped off at specified locations. This is just coming online and the benefit could be significant. My question is this. Apple is donating 9 million masks apparently that are in their warehouses. I don't know why they have so many but....why are they just now stepping up to the plate? For a week now there have been numerous requests for help in this area because they were using them at a record pace. Today they decide to do the right thing? I'm not impressed. This sounds like the same company that tried to force their computers on you in the 80's while IBM allowed anyone who wanted to clone the PC.

    As for the ventilator shortage. It would seem there is enough blame to go around here but it's easy to blame the federal government for all the shortage. Obviously they have some in reserve which they are distributing. What about the hospitals? Medical supply companies? States? I know the military certainly would have some as well. I don't know how many ventilators are typically needed in a normal week without such a catastrophic event. How many are they supposed to have available? It's easy to have 20/20 hindsight. Sometimes the view out the windshield has a lot of bug splatter. I'm not sure that the combined response hasn't been excellent.

  12. #12
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    This crisis has brought out the worst and best in people. I've heard of people being very selfish or greedy hoarding necessary supplies or buying up all they can and reselling for a profit, I've also seen Craigslist postings where people are offering their excess supplies for free on a limited one per person basis.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Art Mann View Post
    I don't think that an economic rescue package should contain utterly unrelated controversial legislation like elements of the "Green New Deal". That is an unethical attempt to force unrelated change by holding the public hostage.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Grider View Post
    Agreed, no add ons from either party unrelated to the crisis at hand.
    My search on > coronavirus legislation contains green new deal < found this:

    Sen. McConnell said Democrats were filibustering the $1 trillion-plus bill hoping to include policies such as extending tax credits for solar and wind energy.

    Two trade groups, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), sent a joint letter to members of Congress last week saying that extending the credits "would allow our member companies to hire thousands of additional workers and inject billions in the U.S. economy."
    These would be tax credits, not direct payouts. It might be better than the plan by some who want to include a $500 Billion funding to businesses to be determined later with little accounting of how the money is used.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ronald Blue View Post
    [edited]
    My question is this. Apple is donating 9 million masks apparently that are in their warehouses. I don't know why they have so many but....why are they just now stepping up to the plate?
    Apple and other technology companies use these masks in their clean rooms and assembly rooms. Who knows why they are stepping up now. It might have taken time for personnel in their storerooms to get word up the line to top management and to determine their total inventory in all their warehouses.

    Remember the words of Otto von Bismarck “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.”

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  14. #14
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    We learned the USA and, almost all of the rest of the world, is not prepared for a calamity of this scale. We learned pointing fingers and worrying about what should have been done is a waste of precious time and energy.

    I learned regarding virus crisis readiness, it's "difficult" to have all the required equipment in storage, usable, and ready to deploy, at the local, state, or federal government level. For example, NYS Governor Cuomo said today one ventilator costs $25,000 and they need 20,000 of them now. That's a big investment to have sitting in inventory. Would 20,000 ventilators, if in storage for a decade or two, all still be usable?

    I learned the media in general is not asking helpful questions. Another example that I haven't seen - how many N95 masks are required? Maybe we can estimate it - if a hospital has 1000 persons/day that needed the masks, and they can only be worn once, and they need to be changed frequently (assume three times an hour), it's some thing like 24,000 masks/day. And the AHA advises there are 6,146 hospitals in the USA. Do we need between 5-30 million a day? Do we have the capacity to supply that many masks from anywhere? Or is the need much, much less?

    Maybe we learned we have a lot of zero-risk legal liability speed bumps built into our systems.

    We learned really smart people are working on this crisis, and once they get through this one, we will learn that they are planning for the next one.

  15. #15
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    The bill prepared by Democrats in the House of Representatives included draconian fuel economy standards for the airline industry. What does that have to do with a short term economic rescue package for individuals, small business and industry?

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