Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

Well.....assuming all the underground rumors of a last minute rabbit getting pulled out of the hat turn out to be just rumors...

Hi Greg:

Goodness gracious, what websites are you visiting!   No underground rumors have pierced my bubble, that's for sure!  

Jim

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

He pardoned you??  

Credit where due - that is pretty funny.  

Originally Posted by Russ Carroll

digitus tertius gregorius

Took me a second glance, but that is quite funny too!

Originally Posted by Patrick Keafer

Former President Trump made it worse by discouraging the use of masks, attacking his own scientists, making a mockery of early lockdowns, and bumbling the rollout of the vaccines.  No one would have held him accountable, just like we didn't hold W accountable for 9/11, if there was a coherent national response to the pandemic. He didn't make the virus or cause it to come here but he made the outcome worse.  And for that he is responsible.

Hi Patrick:

I agree with what you posted above.  My disagreement is quantitative, i.e. how do we define "worse".  Yes, Trump made things "worse" but not much worse according to my guess.  On the other hand, I certainly do not think his politically motivated indifference and denial helped!  My point is that I do not think a different president would have made a difference.  

For example, some states have "followed Trump's lead" and all but ignored masks and lockdowns, like South Dakota, (one of my kids lives there).  Some of these states, like SD, have high death rates (but no higher than many still locked-down Northeastern states).  Would the fiercely independent South Dakotans have embraced mask wearing and lock downs under president Biden or President Bush?  I doubt it.   A while back I posted a chart that had one of the pandemic's impacts, Deaths/M, divided by red and blue states.  It is slightly dated, but reproduced below.  To some extent, the red states are presumably more influenced by Trump than the blue states.  The virus does not seem to care.  Jim

Originally Posted by Maurice Clark

Hi Jim,

I know the culture is a little different, but when you look at how effective Australia has been in stopping the virus, you would certainly think that things could have been better managed in the US. Australia has had very tight lockdowns and border controls. The government has very tight restriction on who can enter the country. Not even citizens can travel back unless they have been vetted and approved as hardship cases. Even then, only a limited number are allowed in each week and those that are allowed in still must do 14 days quarantine at their own expense.

Even between states was severely restricted.  For example, my home state of Western Australia very quickly closed its borders to other states. As a result there has been very little of the virus in WA. I was talking to my sister last week and she was full of praise for this, saying they are living an almost normal life as a result.

The was a report a couple of weeks back by an ABC reporter who managed to fly from Australia to the US. He was astounded at the difference in attitude by Americans. I will try and find it again, but it might be too far back now.

Cheers,

Maurice

Hi Maurice:  

I certainly agree that things could have been handled better in the USA.  The question I have is how much of a difference would a different president have made.  AU, JP, KR and a few other fully industrialized nations have remarkably low Covid numbers.  AU probably benefited a lot from being an island nation, with a relatively sparse population.  Also, I think that AU benefited from some time to plan for the best response, before the infection was raging domestically.  Even so, the AU numbers are commendable and remarkable.

The USA is a lot different than AU, KR, or JP though.  Culturally, demographically, central vs. dispersed government, and so on.  We are in the middle of the pack when it comes to deaths per million in Europe and the Americas.  See below.  These other countries don't have Trump to blame.  I will never deny that Trump made things worse.  That is the easy observation.  I am skeptical that he made things dramatically worse.  In other words, I would argue that anyone who thinks the USA's numbers would be like Australia's, but for Trump, does not appreciate the unruliness of the USA under any leadership. 

Jim

Originally Posted by James Lacey

An absolutely stunning level of incompetence, but at this point, are we surprised?

Hi James:

I think you ought to look into this a bit before you fall, Rod-like, for the "no plan" headlines that have now been repeated on CNN, Politico and all of the other outlets.  The CDC webpage as of Jan 15 provides some detail about what can only be described as a distribution plan.  It is not a magic wand of course, which is what the press apparently expected, but it most certainly is a description of a coordinated distribution plan.  I don't have the underlying documents.  I suppose the press would chime in unison "no distribution plan" unless they found a big binder labeled in gold, "Distribution Plan."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=The%20federal%20government%20will%20oversee,from%20a%20vaccine%20manufacturer.  

(scroll down to and click on the bullets under "Distribution" )

Jim

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi James:

I think you ought to look into this a bit before you fall, Rod-like, for the "no plan" headlines that have now been repeated on CNN, Politico and all of the other outlets.  The CDC webpage as of Jan 15 provides some detail about what can only be described as a distribution plan.  It is not a magic wand of course, which is what the press apparently expected, but it most certainly is a description of a coordinated distribution plan.  I don't have the underlying documents.  I suppose the press would chime in unison "no distribution plan" unless they found a big binder labeled in gold, "Distribution Plan."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=The%20federal%20government%20will%20oversee,from%20a%20vaccine%20manufacturer.  

(scroll down to and click on the bullets under "Distribution" )

Jim

p.s.  The "No distribution plan" headlines du jour have me worked up a bit.  This story is targeted by Biden's team at Trump.  My guess is that their motivation is two fold.  First a nice slap at the parting administration.  Second, and more importantly, cover for themselves when they fail to achieve any promised distribution goals.  Ok, that is just politics as usual.

Below the politics though, this is really a slap at the career people in the CDC.  People who worked long hours under Trump and will now work long hours under Biden agonizing since last fall over the spreadsheets and logistical reports underlying such a massive task as a huge vaccine roll out.  I guarantee that there are dedicated but nameless civil servants in the CDC and other agencies who are waking up to read that the 1000s of hour they have put in over the last few months managing an unprecedented and enormously difficult vaccine roll out are summed up as, "no plan."  I bet they are a little peeved.

The press and the Biden team couldn't resist though.  

Jim

(posted before I read James' reply above)

Originally Posted by James Lacey

The CDC is not the Trump administration. I took the article to mean that inside the Trump administration, they had no plan to use the presidency's powers to help with vaccine rollout and distribution. Of course, there is some planning and execution at the federal level, or otherwise, we wouldn't see any vaccinations distributed. I suppose the CDC is to be commended for doing as well as they have, despite Trump's political meddling in their response.

James,

Of course the CDC is the Trump administration.  It is part of the executive branch, same as all the other agencies. 

Still, I understand your point - and I see why we are reading these headlines differently.  Is it really fair to say that the Trump administration was 100% a rolling disaster, but also to claim that the huge engine of the executive that has in the meantime chugged along doesn't count when tallying Trump's score? 

I suppose you could argue that, but then I would say that you have proved my main theme of 2020 - The system is much more robust than the president.  

Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

""An average of 912,497 shots were recorded each day for the last week"
"2.30 million people have completed the two-dose vaccination regimen."
That's minuscule..."
What Biden has set for the first 100 days is still better than what has been done and what would be done if we had status quo. I'll take better over less anytime.

I'm with Mel on this one, Rod.  Vaccinating 1M per day is not unexpected given that we are already vaccinating at 91% of that rate.  As I am sure you know, these huge projects take time to ramp up.   It is exceptionally lame that Biden characterized the vaccination rollout as, " a dismal failure thus far" when he is only offering a 9% increase in the vaccination rate over 100 days!  https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-speech-on-covid-19-response-transcript-january-21 (at 3:09).  Sounds like he is setting his goals too low.  

It is spectacularly lame that Biden says in his speech that he is going to engage FEMA, the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services and so on... (See link above at 5:30).   As if the professionals in these agencies have been sitting on the sidelines with their thumbs up their asses this whole time!  Good grief.  Biden is going to coordinate with the governors too.  Jeez, I wonder how all the vaccinations that have occurred so far rolled themselves out without any gubernatorial support?  Biden is politicking as usual.  His sycophants lap it up.  Nothing surprising there.

Let's talk apples and oranges.   The apple is Trump discouraging mask wearing, contradicting the experts and generally belittling reasonable mitigation efforts.  That was a bad apple and it cost lives.

The orange is the heroes in  the federal, state and local governments, plus private industry who developed and are rolling out these vaccines.  Biden is going to do nothing, absolutely nothing, different than Trump to support this huge underlying mobilization that is already progressing at full speed, albeit with warts, hiccups and setbacks.  Yet according to his speech and your link, his leadership is going to raise us up dramatically from .91 M vaccinations per day up to 1M per day?  Give me a break.  If Biden were not a politician to the core he would spend his time thanking the public servants, transportation and health care professionals who have accomplished the rollout so far, without regard to whomever happened to be sitting in the White House.

There is a massive but entirely predictable political campaign under way.  In a few years, the story on the left will be that the vaccination campaign was absolutely and hopelessly stillborn under Trump and thank God Biden came along and got it rolling.  That story line is inevitable.  That is politics.  The reality, as we know today is that an immense coalition of industry, federal, state and local government started this vast mobilization under Trump, they will finish it under Biden, and the man behind the Resolute Desk has little or nothing to do about it, except maybe to take unearned credit when campaign time comes around.

Jim  

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

"Former Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett broadly supports President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion rescue package as a way to keep the coronavirus-ravaged economy afloat."
"They've thrown a lot of stimulus at it," Hassett told CNN Business on Thursday, "but I think we need to be risk averse."
The former Trump administration official fears that without more aid from Washington, the worsening pandemic will cause the US economy to suffer a repeat of the first quarter of last year, when GDP shrank by 5%"

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/economy/stimulus-biden-trump-hassett/index.html
China, OTH, locked down hard and had a positive GDP...

China is a totalitarian state Rod.  Consider this video, forwarded from a colleague.  

https://twitter.com/Yaqiu/status/1351541824180072448

How do you reckon tying the man who broke lock-down to a tree and threatening him with death would play in your home town?  Like they say; under Mussolini the trains ran on time.

Jim