[teejers1]

I really don't understand why you constantly worry about the federal response as the main problem. Listen to what Dr. Fauci said during his talk with Stanford medicine. He pointed out that we had let our State and County Health services atrophy out of existence, and that that was the real problem. If he were "in charge" of the federal response, what he would have done is help reconstitute the County and State Health Departments. It would have been nice if the federal response had lead there, but it isn't like Newsom and the Counties didn't know what they needed to do, as did NY State and NYC etc. The have all apparently failed to do it, and it isn't because they lacked the money. If it were, we would have heard about it.

Why did this track and trace effort fail? I don't know for sure, but I THINK it is because neither the State or the County have the will to enforce any isolation or quarantine, or even cooperation with the track and trace program. Given that, they realized their track and trace efforts were doomed to fail and didn't much worry about them. I have been getting the run-around from San Mateo County Health for months. I still have no idea how effective they are in getting contacts and tracking them. The Board of Supervisors also doesn't know, or they are fibbing to me about it. That isn't a federal problem, but boy does this stink IMHO.

IMO, the above answers your question on why national media hasn't been all over track and trace failures:  because they know that, at bottom, that is a local job and they can't easily blame Trump & Co. for those shortcomings.  By no means is this meant to exonerate Trump in any fashion - the federal "response" has been a miasma of mixed/conflicting signals, denial, and general cluelessness.  An unmitigated disaster.

Still, when it comes to effective track and trace, that just has to be done at local level.  To be sure, that big job could have been made more "doable" with better/consistent federal messaging and $$, but I fundamentally agree with your take that the locals - especially in our neck of the woods - haven't been on top of it as much as they could have/should have.

[teejers1]

I really don't understand why you constantly worry about the federal response as the main problem. Listen to what Dr. Fauci said during his talk with Stanford medicine. He pointed out that we had let our State and County Health services atrophy out of existence, and that that was the real problem. If he were "in charge" of the federal response, what he would have done is help reconstitute the County and State Health Departments. It would have been nice if the federal response had lead there, but it isn't like Newsom and the Counties didn't know what they needed to do, as did NY State and NYC etc. The have all apparently failed to do it, and it isn't because they lacked the money. If it were, we would have heard about it.

Why did this track and trace effort fail? I don't know for sure, but I THINK it is because neither the State or the County have the will to enforce any isolation or quarantine, or even cooperation with the track and trace program. Given that, they realized their track and trace efforts were doomed to fail and didn't much worry about them. I have been getting the run-around from San Mateo County Health for months. I still have no idea how effective they are in getting contacts and tracking them. The Board of Supervisors also doesn't know, or they are fibbing to me about it. That isn't a federal problem, but boy does this stink IMHO.

IMO, the above answers your question on why national media hasn't been all over track and trace failures:  because they know that, at bottom, that is a local job and they can't easily blame Trump & Co. for those shortcomings.  By no means is this meant to exonerate Trump in any fashion - the federal "response" has been a miasma of mixed/conflicting signals, denial, and general cluelessness.  An unmitigated disaster.

Still, when it comes to effective track and trace, that just has to be done at local level.  To be sure, that big job could have been made more "doable" with better/consistent federal messaging and $$, but I fundamentally agree with your take that the locals - especially in our neck of the woods - haven't been on top of it as much as they could have/should have.