[BostonCard]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

[BostonCard]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

[Farm93]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

[Farm93]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

[Genuine Realist]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

[Genuine Realist]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

[BostonCard]

I just noted the irony.  Obviously if someone had unleashed smallpox, we would have been very thankful that we had a stockpile of vaccine.  BARDA probably also keeps a stockpile of an antiviral agent that works against smallpox.  I say "probably" because BARDA doesn't publish what it stockpiles to my knowledge, but the FDA recently approved the antiviral agent and no company is going to work on a biodefense agent if it didn't have a customer to stockpile it.

You are correct that because smallpox has been eradicated in the wild, people my age and younger have not been vaccinated for smallpox, so if it were ever to be reintroduced, we'd be screwed (I think that's the technical term).  So, I don't fault Kadlec for being pushing for defenses against bioweapon attacks.  On the other hand, this does seem to be someone whose only tool was a hammer, and saw the entire world as a nail.  His quote:

Quite frankly, Mother Nature is not a thinking enemy intent on inflicting grievous harm to our country, killing our citizens, undermining our government or destroying our way of life.  Mother Nature doesn’t develop highly virulent organisms that are resistant to our current stockpiles of antibiotics.

has not, as they say, aged well (it's also factually incorrect, because mother nature has developed plenty of highly virulent organisms resistant to our current stockpiles of antibiotics; the CDC estimates that 2.8 million antibiotic resistant infections occur each year, and 35,000 people die each year due to antibiotic resistant organisms, which is 35,000 more people than die due to bioweapons).  I think this is a case of someone who was elevated one rung too high.  He would have been great as the director of the office of bioweapons preparedness, rather than the head of public health preparedness, and if his vision for the agency was limited, it should have been up to his boss (Alex Azar) to ensure he was thinking about all public health threats, not just those delivered by hostile governments.

And of course, with the benefit of hindsight, this is probably a reason to find someone else to run that agency:

Citing limited resources, his office halted an Obama-era initiative to spend $35 million to build a machine that could produce 1.5 million N95 masks per day, as The Post previously reported.

BC

PS One minor correction... smallpox is not a bacillus (which is a genus of bacteria).  Anthrax is one species of bacillus.  Smallpox is a virus.

[BostonCard]

I just noted the irony.  Obviously if someone had unleashed smallpox, we would have been very thankful that we had a stockpile of vaccine.  BARDA probably also keeps a stockpile of an antiviral agent that works against smallpox.  I say "probably" because BARDA doesn't publish what it stockpiles to my knowledge, but the FDA recently approved the antiviral agent and no company is going to work on a biodefense agent if it didn't have a customer to stockpile it.

You are correct that because smallpox has been eradicated in the wild, people my age and younger have not been vaccinated for smallpox, so if it were ever to be reintroduced, we'd be screwed (I think that's the technical term).  So, I don't fault Kadlec for being pushing for defenses against bioweapon attacks.  On the other hand, this does seem to be someone whose only tool was a hammer, and saw the entire world as a nail.  His quote:

Quite frankly, Mother Nature is not a thinking enemy intent on inflicting grievous harm to our country, killing our citizens, undermining our government or destroying our way of life.  Mother Nature doesn’t develop highly virulent organisms that are resistant to our current stockpiles of antibiotics.

has not, as they say, aged well (it's also factually incorrect, because mother nature has developed plenty of highly virulent organisms resistant to our current stockpiles of antibiotics; the CDC estimates that 2.8 million antibiotic resistant infections occur each year, and 35,000 people die each year due to antibiotic resistant organisms, which is 35,000 more people than die due to bioweapons).  I think this is a case of someone who was elevated one rung too high.  He would have been great as the director of the office of bioweapons preparedness, rather than the head of public health preparedness, and if his vision for the agency was limited, it should have been up to his boss (Alex Azar) to ensure he was thinking about all public health threats, not just those delivered by hostile governments.

And of course, with the benefit of hindsight, this is probably a reason to find someone else to run that agency:

Citing limited resources, his office halted an Obama-era initiative to spend $35 million to build a machine that could produce 1.5 million N95 masks per day, as The Post previously reported.

BC

PS One minor correction... smallpox is not a bacillus (which is a genus of bacteria).  Anthrax is one species of bacillus.  Smallpox is a virus.

[dabigv13]

Man, that n95 printer would really come in handy in about a month when the reopening binge results in predictably full ICUs all across the US and not just in NYC.

[dabigv13]

Man, that n95 printer would really come in handy in about a month when the reopening binge results in predictably full ICUs all across the US and not just in NYC.

[akiddoc]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

Actually, he is kind of dumb. He didn't understand the relative risk of pandemics vs bioterrorism. He didn't take an overall view of public health in the way that is required of someone in that job. For a supposed doctor to make that statement about mother nature and antibiotics is unbelievable. He's either lying to Congress or incredibly uneducated. Either way, he's not qualified for the job.

[akiddoc]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

Actually, he is kind of dumb. He didn't understand the relative risk of pandemics vs bioterrorism. He didn't take an overall view of public health in the way that is required of someone in that job. For a supposed doctor to make that statement about mother nature and antibiotics is unbelievable. He's either lying to Congress or incredibly uneducated. Either way, he's not qualified for the job.

[Genuine Realist]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

Actually, he is kind of dumb. He didn't understand the relative risk of pandemics vs bioterrorism. He didn't take an overall view of public health in the way that is required of someone in that job. For a supposed doctor to make that statement about mother nature and antibiotics is unbelievable. He's either lying to Congress or incredibly uneducated. Either way, he's not qualified for the job.

Or he's not being quoted entirely accurately.

[Genuine Realist]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

Actually, he is kind of dumb. He didn't understand the relative risk of pandemics vs bioterrorism. He didn't take an overall view of public health in the way that is required of someone in that job. For a supposed doctor to make that statement about mother nature and antibiotics is unbelievable. He's either lying to Congress or incredibly uneducated. Either way, he's not qualified for the job.

Or he's not being quoted entirely accurately.

[akiddoc]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

Actually, he is kind of dumb. He didn't understand the relative risk of pandemics vs bioterrorism. He didn't take an overall view of public health in the way that is required of someone in that job. For a supposed doctor to make that statement about mother nature and antibiotics is unbelievable. He's either lying to Congress or incredibly uneducated. Either way, he's not qualified for the job.

Or he's not being quoted entirely accurately.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?302149-1/u...sm-threats

Pretty darn accurate. 1:49:30.

[akiddoc]

Well, with apologies to Alanis Morisette, it's like 18 million doses of smallpox vaccine when all you need is a ventilator.

https://apple.news/AYjTeqLG1S5uq3WWqiCK07w

BC

Sounds like he expected The Great War to return.  Too bad he didn't read up on what happened at the very end of The Great War.

Not quite that dumb. In the mid-80's, the Soviet Union began working on a smallpox bacillus as an element of biological warfare - a plan that all by itself would brand it correctly as an 'evil empire'. You docs would know better, but I have read that smallpox had been so thoroughly eradicated that there is a question whether herd immunity still exists. 

So put this in the hindsight category.

Actually, he is kind of dumb. He didn't understand the relative risk of pandemics vs bioterrorism. He didn't take an overall view of public health in the way that is required of someone in that job. For a supposed doctor to make that statement about mother nature and antibiotics is unbelievable. He's either lying to Congress or incredibly uneducated. Either way, he's not qualified for the job.

Or he's not being quoted entirely accurately.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?302149-1/u...sm-threats

Pretty darn accurate. 1:49:30.

[BostonCard]

Or he's not being quoted entirely accurately.

Since the quote was taken from congressional testimony, it is possible to search the transcript and find the relevant hearing.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?302149-1/u...sm-threats

Kadlec's relevant testimony is at the 1hr 49 min mark.  It was delivered back in 2011.

It's clear in context that he was trying to highlight the importance of bioterrorism preapredness, and I think he was specifically thinking of an engineered anthrax strain that would be designed to be antibiotic resistant when he made his quote (Joe Lieberman's previous comments were about anthrax).  Nothing wrong with that, but my point remains that it was factually incorrect that "mother nature" doesn't itself "design" through natural selection, antibiotic resistant organisms.

Also, although he later was referring to the legality of biological weapons while comparing them to nuclear weapons, worldwide deaths from COVID-19 (252,000 at last count) have eclipsed the combined deaths caused by the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima (~150,000) and Nagasaki (~75,000) combined.  Obviously, there is no legality to be adjudicated here, but "mother nature" has unleashed a WMD in COVID-19.

BC

[BostonCard]

Or he's not being quoted entirely accurately.

Since the quote was taken from congressional testimony, it is possible to search the transcript and find the relevant hearing.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?302149-1/u...sm-threats

Kadlec's relevant testimony is at the 1hr 49 min mark.  It was delivered back in 2011.

It's clear in context that he was trying to highlight the importance of bioterrorism preapredness, and I think he was specifically thinking of an engineered anthrax strain that would be designed to be antibiotic resistant when he made his quote (Joe Lieberman's previous comments were about anthrax).  Nothing wrong with that, but my point remains that it was factually incorrect that "mother nature" doesn't itself "design" through natural selection, antibiotic resistant organisms.

Also, although he later was referring to the legality of biological weapons while comparing them to nuclear weapons, worldwide deaths from COVID-19 (252,000 at last count) have eclipsed the combined deaths caused by the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima (~150,000) and Nagasaki (~75,000) combined.  Obviously, there is no legality to be adjudicated here, but "mother nature" has unleashed a WMD in COVID-19.

BC

[BostonCard]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whistleblo...d-warnings

Yes, it's a whistleblower complaint from a disgruntled head of BARDA, but some of his accounts, which appears to have been supported by contemporaneous emails, are pretty damning.

Bright’s attempts to sound the alarm about mask shortages persisted from there. In a meeting with other health officials on February 7, he insisted that the federal government needed to place orders to ramp up production of N95 masks in order to protect healthcare workers and first responders. But an HHS supply chain team pushed back, saying there was “no indication of a supply chain shortage or of issues with masks,” according to the complaint.

BC

[BostonCard]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whistleblo...d-warnings

Yes, it's a whistleblower complaint from a disgruntled head of BARDA, but some of his accounts, which appears to have been supported by contemporaneous emails, are pretty damning.

Bright’s attempts to sound the alarm about mask shortages persisted from there. In a meeting with other health officials on February 7, he insisted that the federal government needed to place orders to ramp up production of N95 masks in order to protect healthcare workers and first responders. But an HHS supply chain team pushed back, saying there was “no indication of a supply chain shortage or of issues with masks,” according to the complaint.

BC

[2006alum]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whistleblo...d-warnings

Yes, it's a whistleblower complaint from a disgruntled head of BARDA, but some of his accounts, which appears to have been supported by contemporaneous emails, are pretty damning.

Bright’s attempts to sound the alarm about mask shortages persisted from there. In a meeting with other health officials on February 7, he insisted that the federal government needed to place orders to ramp up production of N95 masks in order to protect healthcare workers and first responders. But an HHS supply chain team pushed back, saying there was “no indication of a supply chain shortage or of issues with masks,” according to the complaint.

BC

Is there any good reason not to despair by how badly our country has responded to this? It's clear the federal government was inept from the start. The few bright spots have been some of the the Task Force members, but the Task Force is about to be disbanded, and Trump is back to campaigning on the economy and pressuring states to reopen.

At the state and local level, the responses were uneven but at least for a while, most jurisdictions seemed to take this seriously, and impose a Shelter in Place order. Yet to my knowledge, almost no jurisdictions are ready to do testing and tracing at the level necessary to stanch the virus post reopening. And despite polls showing the vast majority of Americans don't want to "reopen" the economy, most states seem to be succumbing to pressure from the fringe protestors and Faux News. 

Meanwhile, we are still eclipsing 2,000 deaths per day. Given the delay from infection to death, these deaths are probably from infections that emerged during the time period when the largest segment of the U.S. population was sheltering in place -- in early April. So this is probably close to the best we're going to hope for the foreseeable future.

I am struggling to understand this response as anything other than an unstated concession that we lack the collective ability to slow the virus, so we're just going to resort to a de facto herd immunity strategy, and those who can afford to SiP or take significant social distancing measures for 12-18 months can do so, while everyone else fends for themselves. 

Am I missing something? Today I feel more dismayed by our prospects today than have in a quite a while.

[2006alum]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whistleblo...d-warnings

Yes, it's a whistleblower complaint from a disgruntled head of BARDA, but some of his accounts, which appears to have been supported by contemporaneous emails, are pretty damning.

Bright’s attempts to sound the alarm about mask shortages persisted from there. In a meeting with other health officials on February 7, he insisted that the federal government needed to place orders to ramp up production of N95 masks in order to protect healthcare workers and first responders. But an HHS supply chain team pushed back, saying there was “no indication of a supply chain shortage or of issues with masks,” according to the complaint.

BC

Is there any good reason not to despair by how badly our country has responded to this? It's clear the federal government was inept from the start. The few bright spots have been some of the the Task Force members, but the Task Force is about to be disbanded, and Trump is back to campaigning on the economy and pressuring states to reopen.

At the state and local level, the responses were uneven but at least for a while, most jurisdictions seemed to take this seriously, and impose a Shelter in Place order. Yet to my knowledge, almost no jurisdictions are ready to do testing and tracing at the level necessary to stanch the virus post reopening. And despite polls showing the vast majority of Americans don't want to "reopen" the economy, most states seem to be succumbing to pressure from the fringe protestors and Faux News. 

Meanwhile, we are still eclipsing 2,000 deaths per day. Given the delay from infection to death, these deaths are probably from infections that emerged during the time period when the largest segment of the U.S. population was sheltering in place -- in early April. So this is probably close to the best we're going to hope for the foreseeable future.

I am struggling to understand this response as anything other than an unstated concession that we lack the collective ability to slow the virus, so we're just going to resort to a de facto herd immunity strategy, and those who can afford to SiP or take significant social distancing measures for 12-18 months can do so, while everyone else fends for themselves. 

Am I missing something? Today I feel more dismayed by our prospects today than have in a quite a while.

[82 Card]

Today, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have eclipsed New York in the daily body count.

[82 Card]

Today, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have eclipsed New York in the daily body count.

[burger]

I am struggling to understand this response as anything other than an unstated concession that we lack the collective ability to slow the virus, so we're just going to resort to a de facto herd immunity strategy, and those who can afford to SiP or take significant social distancing measures for 12-18 months can do so, while everyone else fends for themselves. 

Am I missing something? Today I feel more dismayed by our prospects today than have in a quite a while.

I agree completely.  The author of this article does, too, and he comes right out and says it: the US is a failed state. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...ns/610261/ 

When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.

The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.

[burger]

I am struggling to understand this response as anything other than an unstated concession that we lack the collective ability to slow the virus, so we're just going to resort to a de facto herd immunity strategy, and those who can afford to SiP or take significant social distancing measures for 12-18 months can do so, while everyone else fends for themselves. 

Am I missing something? Today I feel more dismayed by our prospects today than have in a quite a while.

I agree completely.  The author of this article does, too, and he comes right out and says it: the US is a failed state. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...ns/610261/ 

When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.

The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering.