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Another worrying trend is that in the Netherlands, only confirmed infections are counted towards the death toll. People close to a confirmed infection are no longer tested (for a while now), and people who die of suspected but unconfirmed corona are not counted towards the corona death toll, meaning the disease is deadlier than official numbers suggest. Of course, this may be (probably is) offset by the number of unconfirmed cases that recover, meaning that at least for Dutch numbers, official cases vs deaths are probably a lot closer to the actual CFR than is comfortable - 7400ish vs 434.
I wonder in how many other countries this holds.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
Bran Dawri wrote: Another worrying trend is that in the Netherlands, only confirmed infections are counted towards the death toll. People close to a confirmed infection are no longer tested (for a while now), and people who die of suspected but unconfirmed corona are not counted towards the corona death toll, meaning the disease is deadlier than official numbers suggest. Of course, this may be (probably is) offset by the number of unconfirmed cases that recover, meaning that at least for Dutch numbers, official cases vs deaths are probably a lot closer to the actual CFR than is comfortable - 7400ish vs 434.
I wonder in how many other countries this holds.
Guess that depends upon available resources.
As established, I’m pig ignorant in such things, but I guess there’s a fairly strong argument the focus should be on preventing rather than measuring the spread and associated fatalities?
Do you treat Patient A, who is definitely infected, or Patient B, who only may be infected?
Strengthening Community Health Worker Programs was one I went through last year, which was ominously prescient! It’s by Harvardx for free on edx. You can pay to receive a qualification on completion if you want it.
If the world takes harsh measures and then only 50-70k people died the negationest will come out of the wild and say "Do you see? You destroyed the ECONOMY FOR NEARLY NO DEATHS!"
When the obvious answer is... those deaths were so "little" because we took those measures, even if the virus is much less lethal than what the numbers may say, logic dictates than without quarentine, etc... the deaths would be much higher.
Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.
ERJAK wrote: Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.
Galas wrote: Thats one of the problems with all of this, no?
If the world takes harsh measures and then only 50-70k people died the negationest will come out of the wild and say "Do you see? You destroyed the ECONOMY FOR NEARLY NO DEATHS!"
When the obvious answer is... those deaths were so "little" because we took those measures, even if the virus is much less lethal than what the numbers may say, logic dictates than without quarentine, etc... the deaths would be much higher.
That's just human nature.
The US closed down their pandemic office because they probably thought it wasn't necessary anymore (and because of partisan politics, but that's another matter).
It's hard to stay alert for long periods of time, and things start being seen as "a waste of money" and "overreacting" until another unexpected event hits you in the face.
Also, how many times am I going go have to tell the fat, moonfaced witches that make up the general public to stay away from me when I’m out working?
Take a pokey stick with you?
How tall are you, are you capable of imitating german sentences?
If so the generic: Verreis du trottel!
should serve you well.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
jouso wrote: The US closed down their pandemic office because they probably thought it wasn't necessary anymore (and because of partisan politics, but that's another matter).
No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.
By Tim Morrison
March 16, 2020 at 5:37 p.m. GMT
Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council.
President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.
It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.
Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide health emergency is not the time to be making tendentious accusations.
When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.
It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, congressional oversight committees and members of the Obama administration itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.
One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense. It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.
The reduction of force in the NSC has continued since I departed the White House. But it has left the biodefense staff unaffected — perhaps a recognition of the importance of that mission to the president, who, after all, in 2018 issued a presidential memorandum to finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive biodefense system.
The NSC is really the only place in government where there is a staff that ensures the commander in chief gets all the options he needs to make a decision, and then makes sure that decision is actually implemented. I worry that further reductions at the NSC could impair its capabilities, but the current staffing level is fully up to the job.
You might ask: Why does all this matter? Won’t it just be a historical footnote?
It matters because when people play politics in the middle of a crisis, we are all less safe.
We are less safe because public servants are distracted when they are dragged into politics.
We’re less safe because the American people have been recklessly scared into doubting the competence of their government to help keep them safe, secure and healthy.
And we’re less safe because when we’re focused on political gamesmanship, we’re not paying enough attention to the real issues. For example, we should be united behind ensuring that, in a future congressional appropriations package, U.S. companies are encouraged to return to our shores from China the production of everything from medical face masks and personal protective equipment to vitamin C and penicillin.
And we should be united in demanding to know why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was aware of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early in December, maybe even November, and didn’t tell the rest of the world, when stopping the deadly spread might have been possible.
Just as the United States has fought against fake information aimed at our elections, we should fight back against CCP propagandists. They are not only campaigning against the use of the term “Wuhan virus” (a more geographically accurate description than “Spanish flu” ever was about the 1918 pandemic) but now also promoting the false claim that covid-19 was created by the U.S. Army. Public health officials have pinpointed a wild-animal market in Wuhan as the outbreak’s origin.
There are real threats emanating from this pandemic. We need to focus on getting our response right and save the finger-pointing for what comes after. This is the United States — we will get through this. And for the love of God, wash your hands.
Edited by RiTides - Added spoiler tags for large block of text
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2020/03/27 14:49:36
As a friendly reminder, if copying a large block of text into the thread, please use spoiler tags. It makes it much easier for everyone to read and follow the discussion in the thread. I've had to add these a few times in the last day or so, so this isn't just about Damocles' post, to make that clear.
Please also consider adding at least a few sentences of your own thoughts, in addition to the copied text, as it helps integrate it into the discussion better.
Thanks very much everyone!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/03/27 12:18:52
If he gets really ill/unwell then we have Dominic Raab in charge of the UK.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
"If not Raab then, who? There is no answer to that question. Neither is it clear how such a question would be answered. Competition between Conservative ministers vying to take over would be extremely unwelcome at this time and quite possibly counter-productive."
https://www.thearticle.com/boris-johnson-has-coronavirus
If anyone else has articles they recommend reading about this issue, by all means post.
Initially I thought that Prince Charles was safe, as they could always put him on the golden throne, but now with Boris being infected, they may have to fight for it.
spaceelf wrote: Initially I thought that Prince Charles was safe, as they could always put him on the golden throne, but now with Boris being infected, they may have to fight for it.
I don't think either would be able to create a symbol of humanity that could be spread out across the galaxy. On the other hand at least one would happily suck dry billions of souls each year just to keep him alive.
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. " - V
I've just supported the Permanent European Union Citizenship initiative. Please do the same and spread the word!
"It's not a problem if you don't look up." - Dakka's approach to politics
In the United States, New York has a fair amount of media attention, but New Orleans has been hit as well, including a 17-year old who died after contracting the virus.
"The number of known coronavirus cases in Louisiana jumped to 2,305 on Thursday, an increase of 510 cases from Wednesday, and a total of 83 deaths, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. Nearly half of Louisiana’s cases -- 997 -- came from New Orleans. The city also reported Thursday that a 17-year-old teen died after contracting the virus, bringing the city’s coronavirus death tally to 46 -- more than half of the state’s total death count. ... Infectious disease specialists point to the massive Mardi Gras celebrations, which picked up with weekend parades in February and culminated on Feb. 25. ... Once here, the virus found a welcoming environment in houses crammed with multiple families, people with preexisting conditions and a dearth of drivers, according to an analysis by the Data Center, a research group in New Orleans. Many low-income families live in overcrowded homes, raising the likelihood for virus spread, the report said. Around 24% of New Orleans residents live at the poverty level, higher than other coronavirus hotspots such as New York City (17%) and King County, Washington (9%)."
https://www.the-leader.com/zz/news/20200327/death-rate-soars-in-new-orleans-coronavirus-disaster-that-could-define-city-for-generations?rssfeed=true
jouso wrote: The US closed down their pandemic office because they probably thought it wasn't necessary anymore (and because of partisan politics, but that's another matter).
No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.
By Tim Morrison
March 16, 2020 at 5:37 p.m. GMT
Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council.
President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.
It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.
Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide health emergency is not the time to be making tendentious accusations.
When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.
It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, congressional oversight committees and members of the Obama administration itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.
One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense. It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.
The reduction of force in the NSC has continued since I departed the White House. But it has left the biodefense staff unaffected — perhaps a recognition of the importance of that mission to the president, who, after all, in 2018 issued a presidential memorandum to finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive biodefense system.
The NSC is really the only place in government where there is a staff that ensures the commander in chief gets all the options he needs to make a decision, and then makes sure that decision is actually implemented. I worry that further reductions at the NSC could impair its capabilities, but the current staffing level is fully up to the job.
You might ask: Why does all this matter? Won’t it just be a historical footnote?
It matters because when people play politics in the middle of a crisis, we are all less safe.
We are less safe because public servants are distracted when they are dragged into politics.
We’re less safe because the American people have been recklessly scared into doubting the competence of their government to help keep them safe, secure and healthy.
And we’re less safe because when we’re focused on political gamesmanship, we’re not paying enough attention to the real issues. For example, we should be united behind ensuring that, in a future congressional appropriations package, U.S. companies are encouraged to return to our shores from China the production of everything from medical face masks and personal protective equipment to vitamin C and penicillin.
And we should be united in demanding to know why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was aware of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early in December, maybe even November, and didn’t tell the rest of the world, when stopping the deadly spread might have been possible.
Just as the United States has fought against fake information aimed at our elections, we should fight back against CCP propagandists. They are not only campaigning against the use of the term “Wuhan virus” (a more geographically accurate description than “Spanish flu” ever was about the 1918 pandemic) but now also promoting the false claim that covid-19 was created by the U.S. Army. Public health officials have pinpointed a wild-animal market in Wuhan as the outbreak’s origin.
There are real threats emanating from this pandemic. We need to focus on getting our response right and save the finger-pointing for what comes after. This is the United States — we will get through this. And for the love of God, wash your hands.
Edited by RiTides - Added spoiler tags for large block of text
spaceelf wrote: Initially I thought that Prince Charles was safe, as they could always put him on the golden throne, but now with Boris being infected, they may have to fight for it.
I don't think either would be able to create a symbol of humanity that could be spread out across the galaxy. On the other hand at least one would happily suck dry billions of souls each year just to keep him alive.
Only Emperor Boris can guide Britain's evolution into a race herd-immune to the corruptions of chaos.
jouso wrote: The US closed down their pandemic office because they probably thought it wasn't necessary anymore (and because of partisan politics, but that's another matter).
No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.
By Tim Morrison
March 16, 2020 at 5:37 p.m. GMT
Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council.
President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.
It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.
Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide health emergency is not the time to be making tendentious accusations.
When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.
It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, congressional oversight committees and members of the Obama administration itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.
One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense. It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.
The reduction of force in the NSC has continued since I departed the White House. But it has left the biodefense staff unaffected — perhaps a recognition of the importance of that mission to the president, who, after all, in 2018 issued a presidential memorandum to finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive biodefense system.
The NSC is really the only place in government where there is a staff that ensures the commander in chief gets all the options he needs to make a decision, and then makes sure that decision is actually implemented. I worry that further reductions at the NSC could impair its capabilities, but the current staffing level is fully up to the job.
You might ask: Why does all this matter? Won’t it just be a historical footnote?
It matters because when people play politics in the middle of a crisis, we are all less safe.
We are less safe because public servants are distracted when they are dragged into politics.
We’re less safe because the American people have been recklessly scared into doubting the competence of their government to help keep them safe, secure and healthy.
And we’re less safe because when we’re focused on political gamesmanship, we’re not paying enough attention to the real issues. For example, we should be united behind ensuring that, in a future congressional appropriations package, U.S. companies are encouraged to return to our shores from China the production of everything from medical face masks and personal protective equipment to vitamin C and penicillin.
And we should be united in demanding to know why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was aware of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early in December, maybe even November, and didn’t tell the rest of the world, when stopping the deadly spread might have been possible.
Just as the United States has fought against fake information aimed at our elections, we should fight back against CCP propagandists. They are not only campaigning against the use of the term “Wuhan virus” (a more geographically accurate description than “Spanish flu” ever was about the 1918 pandemic) but now also promoting the false claim that covid-19 was created by the U.S. Army. Public health officials have pinpointed a wild-animal market in Wuhan as the outbreak’s origin.
There are real threats emanating from this pandemic. We need to focus on getting our response right and save the finger-pointing for what comes after. This is the United States — we will get through this. And for the love of God, wash your hands.
Edited by RiTides - Added spoiler tags for large block of text
I stand corrected then.
I wouldn't take the word of a Trump Admin official at face value, especially when it's written as a reactionary opinion piece to a previous admin official's accusation.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/03/27 13:54:23
jouso wrote: The US closed down their pandemic office because they probably thought it wasn't necessary anymore (and because of partisan politics, but that's another matter).
No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.
By Tim Morrison
March 16, 2020 at 5:37 p.m. GMT
Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council.
President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.
It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.
Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide health emergency is not the time to be making tendentious accusations.
When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.
It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, congressional oversight committees and members of the Obama administration itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.
One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense. It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.
The reduction of force in the NSC has continued since I departed the White House. But it has left the biodefense staff unaffected — perhaps a recognition of the importance of that mission to the president, who, after all, in 2018 issued a presidential memorandum to finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive biodefense system.
The NSC is really the only place in government where there is a staff that ensures the commander in chief gets all the options he needs to make a decision, and then makes sure that decision is actually implemented. I worry that further reductions at the NSC could impair its capabilities, but the current staffing level is fully up to the job.
You might ask: Why does all this matter? Won’t it just be a historical footnote?
It matters because when people play politics in the middle of a crisis, we are all less safe.
We are less safe because public servants are distracted when they are dragged into politics.
We’re less safe because the American people have been recklessly scared into doubting the competence of their government to help keep them safe, secure and healthy.
And we’re less safe because when we’re focused on political gamesmanship, we’re not paying enough attention to the real issues. For example, we should be united behind ensuring that, in a future congressional appropriations package, U.S. companies are encouraged to return to our shores from China the production of everything from medical face masks and personal protective equipment to vitamin C and penicillin.
And we should be united in demanding to know why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was aware of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early in December, maybe even November, and didn’t tell the rest of the world, when stopping the deadly spread might have been possible.
Just as the United States has fought against fake information aimed at our elections, we should fight back against CCP propagandists. They are not only campaigning against the use of the term “Wuhan virus” (a more geographically accurate description than “Spanish flu” ever was about the 1918 pandemic) but now also promoting the false claim that covid-19 was created by the U.S. Army. Public health officials have pinpointed a wild-animal market in Wuhan as the outbreak’s origin.
There are real threats emanating from this pandemic. We need to focus on getting our response right and save the finger-pointing for what comes after. This is the United States — we will get through this. And for the love of God, wash your hands.
Edited by RiTides - Added spoiler tags for large block of text
I stand corrected then.
I wouldn't take the word of a Trump Admin official at face value, especially when it's written as a reactionary opinion piece to a previous admin official's accusation.
But of course a previous admin official's word is rock solid. No this like the test kit propaganda relies on a dishonest interpretation of the roles and responsibilities of different organizations. The NSC is not an operational coordinating organization its a policy coordinating and advisement bureaucracy. Similarly the WHO never made an offer to provide test kits to the US, and the CDCs own protocols for testing were ready about the same time as WHO's protocols. The US had and has a manufacturing problem, maybe thats something we should look at after all this is over
jouso wrote: The US closed down their pandemic office because they probably thought it wasn't necessary anymore (and because of partisan politics, but that's another matter).
No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.
By Tim Morrison
March 16, 2020 at 5:37 p.m. GMT
Tim Morrison is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council.
President Trump gets his share of criticism — some warranted, much not. But recently the president’s critics have chosen curious ground to question his response to the coronavirus outbreak since it began spreading from Wuhan, China, in December.
It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.
Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide health emergency is not the time to be making tendentious accusations.
When I joined the National Security Council staff in 2018, I inherited a strong and skilled staff in the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate. This team of national experts together drafted the National Biodefense Strategy of 2018 and an accompanying national security presidential memorandum to implement it; an executive order to modernize influenza vaccines; and coordinated the United States’ response to the Ebola epidemic in Congo, which was ultimately defeated in 2020.
It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, congressional oversight committees and members of the Obama administration itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post reported in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.
One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense. It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.
The reduction of force in the NSC has continued since I departed the White House. But it has left the biodefense staff unaffected — perhaps a recognition of the importance of that mission to the president, who, after all, in 2018 issued a presidential memorandum to finally create real accountability in the federal government’s expansive biodefense system.
The NSC is really the only place in government where there is a staff that ensures the commander in chief gets all the options he needs to make a decision, and then makes sure that decision is actually implemented. I worry that further reductions at the NSC could impair its capabilities, but the current staffing level is fully up to the job.
You might ask: Why does all this matter? Won’t it just be a historical footnote?
It matters because when people play politics in the middle of a crisis, we are all less safe.
We are less safe because public servants are distracted when they are dragged into politics.
We’re less safe because the American people have been recklessly scared into doubting the competence of their government to help keep them safe, secure and healthy.
And we’re less safe because when we’re focused on political gamesmanship, we’re not paying enough attention to the real issues. For example, we should be united behind ensuring that, in a future congressional appropriations package, U.S. companies are encouraged to return to our shores from China the production of everything from medical face masks and personal protective equipment to vitamin C and penicillin.
And we should be united in demanding to know why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was aware of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan early in December, maybe even November, and didn’t tell the rest of the world, when stopping the deadly spread might have been possible.
Just as the United States has fought against fake information aimed at our elections, we should fight back against CCP propagandists. They are not only campaigning against the use of the term “Wuhan virus” (a more geographically accurate description than “Spanish flu” ever was about the 1918 pandemic) but now also promoting the false claim that covid-19 was created by the U.S. Army. Public health officials have pinpointed a wild-animal market in Wuhan as the outbreak’s origin.
There are real threats emanating from this pandemic. We need to focus on getting our response right and save the finger-pointing for what comes after. This is the United States — we will get through this. And for the love of God, wash your hands.
Edited by RiTides - Added spoiler tags for large block of text
Was the White House office for global pandemics eliminated?
Several readers have written The Fact Checker, saying they were confused by dueling opinion articles that appeared in The Washington Post concerning the National Security Council office highlighted in Biden’s tweet.
On March 13, The Post published an article by Beth Cameron, a former Obama administration official, titled “I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it.” She argued that “eliminating the office,” which she headed from September 2016 to March 2017, “has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response” to the coronavirus pandemic.
Three days later, The Post published an article by Tim Morrison, a former Trump administration official, titled “No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.” He countered that office, which he oversaw for about a year starting in July 2018, was folded into another one to streamline a bloated organization and “the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.”
Rearranging organizational charts and bureaucratic intrigue is part of the lifeblood of official Washington, but it can have meaningful consequences for Americans. The government works effectively when the right people are in the right place to make decisions — and the Trump administration’s stumbling response to the coronavirus suggests the government is not working as effectively as it could.
Asked at a congressional hearing on March 11 whether it was a mistake to eliminate the office, Anthony S. Fauci, who runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, diplomatically said: “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake. I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there.”
Can one office really make a difference? At a news conference on March 13, President Trump dismissed this as a “nasty” question. Let’s explore.
The Facts
The National Security Council staff is supposed to help the president coordinate the government response to international crises and homeland security issues, by identifying emerging problems and making sure Cabinet agencies and other departments are working cooperatively.
After Barack Obama became president in 2009, he eliminated the White House Health and Security Office, which worked on international health issues. But after grappling with the 2014 Ebola epidemic, Obama in 2016 established a Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the NSC. A directorate has its own staff, and it is headed by someone who generally reports to the national security adviser.
The structure survived during the early part of Trump’s presidency, when the office was headed by Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer. But, after John Bolton became Trump’s third national security adviser, he decided the organizational chart was a mess and led to too many conflicts. He also thought the staff was too large, having swollen to 430 people, including staffers in the pipeline.
Bolton fired Tom Bossert, the homeland security adviser, realigning the post to report directly to him. He eliminated a number of deputy national security advisers so there was just one. And he folded the global health directorate into a new one that focused on counterproliferation and biodefense. Ziemer departed for a high-level post in the U.S. Agency for International Development, though a former administration official said he was due to leave the NSC anyway. His staff, whom Ziemer had called “the dream team,” remained in place.
Bolton thought there was obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense, the former official said, saying the epidemiology of a biological health emergency is very similar to a bioterrorism attack. Morrison, who headed the combined office beginning in July 2018, was named a deputy assistant to the president and thus had more bureaucratic clout than Ziemer, who was only a senior director.
Each directorate is housed in its own “vault,” so to speak, so classified information can be left on a person’s desk overnight. “Having those people in the same vault means that they don’t have to walk out of the office, walk down the hall, knock on the door to have someone let them in,” another former administration official said, allowing for easier communication among staff members. A number of major projects that had been stalled in bureaucratic fights, such as a National Biodefense Strategy, finally were completed after the reorganization.
“I did not feel a change” in focus, said a third former administration official, who had worked under Ziemer at the NSC. Bolton “was very dedicated to the issues we had been working on.”
As far as we can determine, the positions that made up the old unit still are filled within the NSC, most in the nonproliferation directorate; one was moved to another directorate. Morrison worked closely with Bolton and could get things quickly to his attention; he eventually moved to a different position and then left the government.
“During the summer of 2018, NSC merged three directorates into one to reduce the seam between those preparing for biological threats whether they are man-made or naturally occurring,” said NSC spokesman John Ullyot. “No director-level positions were eliminated during this process, and the organization retained its subject matter expertise under a different organizational structure.” He added that under Bolton’s replacement, Robert C. O’Brien, “no NSC biodefense director positions were eliminated under right-sizing.”
Critics say the changes were shortsighted in the long run. Ron Klain, the Ebola “czar” appointed by Obama and a Biden campaign adviser, said biodefense and pandemic prevention require different skill sets and expertise. He said the move was akin to terminating the fire department chief and putting the firefighters in the police department. “The next time you have a fire, they will send a police car with a couple of firefighters in the back,” he said.
“A pandemic is an odd policy challenge because it straddles a lot of other things,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who served in the Obama administration, citing global health; diplomacy; domestic health policy; border and travel controls; foreign aid; and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive materials threats. “But it is always a subordinate priority in any of those other streams, which leads to a fragmented and disconnected policy process.”
“During the Ebola operation, we really struggled with initially a lot of kind of bifurcation within the national security staff, between the international side and the domestic side, between the health people and the disaster people,” Konyndyk said. “And so the different elements of that Ebola response didn’t roll up together into a coherent whole until Ron Klain was appointed as the Ebola czar.”
“I accept the proposition that it is hard to know whether things would have been different if the right structure had been place,” Klain said. “But without the right structure, there was zero chance it was going to work.”
One key issue during such reorganizations is whether policy expertise is maintained. Anthony Ruggiero, the current senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense, has a background mostly in North Korea policy, for instance.
Luciana Borio, the previous director for medical and biodefense preparedness, is a practicing medical doctor and has an extensive background in medical health preparedness.
Borio left the NSC in March 2019 and in recent months has co-written a series of farsighted articles on how to prepare for the pandemic. “Act now to prevent an American epidemic,” which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 28, warned there would be a shortage of tests unless the private sector was involved. The White House would not confirm the name of Borio’s replacement.
Without the right expertise, an official may not know the right questions — the hard questions — to ask of their counterparts in other agencies, who are often subject matter experts themselves.
“The NSC doesn’t make policy but it does (and must) make sure that the Department-level policymakers are focused on the right questions and understanding the landscape beyond just their own agencies’ perspectives,” Konyndyk said. “In this case the questions were pretty obvious and straightforward to anyone with outbreak experience: could a Wuhan-like outbreak happen here (Yes), are we ready for that (No), what are agencies doing to prepare the country for that contingency while working to avert it (not much, as it has turned out).”
The Biden campaign defended his tweet. A campaign official noted the first recommendation of a bipartisan report that was issued in November:
“The U.S. government should re-establish a directorate for global health security and biodefense on the National Security Council (NSC) staff and should name a senior-level leader in charge of coordinating U.S. efforts to anticipate, prevent, and respond to biological crises. These actions will ensure that the necessary leadership, authority, and accountability is in place to protect the United States from a deadly and costly health security emergency….It remains unclear who would be in charge at the White House in the case of a grave pandemic threat or cross-border biological crisis, whether natural, accidental, or deliberate.”
Indeed, Trump initially on Jan. 29 named Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar as chair of a coronavirus task force, with a coordinating role played by the NSC. A month later, Vice President Pence took charge.
One former administration official dismissed the debate over the NSC office as a relic of another type of presidency. “There isn’t any organizational chart in the U.S. government that makes any difference in the Trump administration,” the official said. “ Trump is more likely to say to Jared [Kushner], ‘What do you think we should do?’ That’s the big problem.”
The Pinocchio Test
One can see the dueling narratives here, neither entirely incorrect. The office — as set up by Obama — was folded into another office. Thus, one could claim the office was eliminated. But the staff slots did not disappear and at least initially the key mission of team remained a priority. So one can also claim nothing changed and thus Biden’s criticism is overstated.
The question that cannot be answered — at least perhaps until a congressionally mandated commission examines the U.S. preparation for this crisis — is whether a separate directorate would have had more clout to bring the issue immediately to the president’s attention. That might have helped buy time to stem the spread of the disease by focusing the full attention of government on the emerging problem. (One example: China refused to let American experts into Wuhan — a discussion kept at the agency level. But early presidential pressure might have swayed Beijing to cooperate.)
For that reason, we will leave this unrated.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
'coronavirus is super serious, unless a politician I don't like gets it...'
In other news, they spoke on the radio today about folks trying to grass people up for the heinous crime of 'going out more than once a day' and other such BS. You know, because the police need more stuff to deal with.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/03/27 14:58:46