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SunSeeker

(51,367 posts)
Thu Mar 19, 2020, 03:40 AM Mar 2020

WSJ: America Needed Coronavirus Tests. The Government Failed.

Decisions that limited testing for the pathogen blinded the U.S. to the outbreak’s scale. Here’s how it happened.
...
CDC officials botched an initial test kit developed in an agency lab, retracting many tests. They resisted calls from state officials and medical providers to broaden testing, and health officials failed to coordinate with outside companies to ensure needed test-kit supplies, such as nasal swabs and chemical reagents, would be available, according to suppliers and health officials.

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, also involved in the response, finally opened testing to more outside labs, a run on limited stocks of some supplies needed for the CDC-developed test quickly depleted stores, lab operators and suppliers said. Hospital and commercial lab operators said the government didn’t reach out to enlist their help until it was too late.

This was kind of a perfect storm of three separate failures,” said Tom Frieden, who directed the CDC from 2009 to 2017, citing the botched test, overstrict FDA rules and sidelined private labs. He cautioned he didn’t have direct knowledge of details.

Now, the U.S. is testing far fewer patients than public-health and infectious-disease experts say is necessary and just a fraction as many as other countries that rolled out wide-reaching diagnostic programs. South Korea as of Tuesday was testing up to 20,000 patients a day, more than half the total of U.S. patients who have been tested since the outbreak began.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-washington-failed-to-build-a-robust-coronavirus-testing-system-11584552147

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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WSJ: America Needed Coronavirus Tests. The Government Failed. (Original Post) SunSeeker Mar 2020 OP
Not a fan of wsj cate94 Mar 2020 #1
What's missing is that they rejected tests used worldwide from WHO n/t malaise Mar 2020 #3
+1 Native Mar 2020 #4
+ 1000 n/t MFGsunny Mar 2020 #5
Not gonna give a penny to the Wall Street Journal to read the rest of this article ZZenith Mar 2020 #2
As with FEMA in Puerto Rico, the plan is to make government appear useless Cetacea Mar 2020 #10
I believe you are correct, I'm sorry to say. ZZenith Mar 2020 #11
this was posted on Reddit, loved this reply Native Mar 2020 #6
Thank you n/t Cetacea Mar 2020 #9
Bookmarking YOUR post. Thanks! . . . nt Bernardo de La Paz Mar 2020 #13
BULLSHIT !!! Obama admin tested 1 million people in one month during swine flu !!! (link) uponit7771 Mar 2020 #7
Heck of a job.. Cetacea Mar 2020 #8
Will this turn the anti government people around? LiberalBrooke Mar 2020 #12
Bullshit - the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FAILED!!! hatrack Mar 2020 #14
Right. Trump's governing failed. nt SunSeeker Mar 2020 #15
Kick Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Mar 2020 #16
Republican Government failed. WyattKansas Mar 2020 #17

ZZenith

(4,109 posts)
2. Not gonna give a penny to the Wall Street Journal to read the rest of this article
Thu Mar 19, 2020, 05:46 AM
Mar 2020

but the slant on this piece is disgusting.

“Government Failed.”

Kiss my ass you sleazebags, Donald Trump’s administration failed no matter how hard you try to avoid the fact. Lack of governance is the fucking problem.

Cetacea

(7,367 posts)
10. As with FEMA in Puerto Rico, the plan is to make government appear useless
Thu Mar 19, 2020, 06:46 AM
Mar 2020

It's all part of the "deconstruction" plan that Bannon referred to. (in my opinion)

Native

(5,935 posts)
6. this was posted on Reddit, loved this reply
Thu Mar 19, 2020, 06:22 AM
Mar 2020

January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”

February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.”

February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”

March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”

March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”

March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”

March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”

March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”

March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”

March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”

March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”

March 9: “This blindsided the world.”

March 13: [Declared state of emergency]

March 17: “This is a pandemic,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

March 18: ?????

SunSeeker

(51,367 posts)
15. Right. Trump's governing failed. nt
Thu Mar 19, 2020, 01:58 PM
Mar 2020

But at least the WSJ is saying there was a failure instead of calling thd response a 10. Baby steps.

WyattKansas

(1,648 posts)
17. Republican Government failed.
Fri Mar 20, 2020, 03:48 PM
Mar 2020

When the American People put a Party in charge of the government that believes it should be drowned in a bathtub, then that is exactly what they get... A Republican Government that will allow it's Citizens to drown in their own lungs from a virus.

The Democratic Party should get off the 'we have to be nice' trip and start repeating that over and over to get rid of the saboteurs.

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