[teejers1]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

I've never understood the post-facto blame game.  It's impossible to determine with any accuracy what might have been had the country done X, or had leadership been Z instead of F.  Speculating on excess deaths or any other kind of horror is just that:  speculation.  Way too many unknowns.  

Here's what I'm pretty sure I know:

1.  The White House leadership on Covid could not have been much worse. Even a consistent message about the gravity of virus, the need to be smart, etc. - which could even have been coupled with optimistic comments, such as "We're going to shelter in place for X weeks to see if we can buy some time and gain a better understanding, and then we'll get back to normal as circumstances allow" (or some other reasonable/non-extreme messaging) - would have done wonders for American mindset and conformity to a basic set of precautions that would have reduced the numbers . . . by some unknown amount.

2.  The local governments - where the rubber hits the road on contact tracing - screwed the pooch on that very important task. Maybe this was a function of the horses having left the barn and a sense of hopelessness by the time their $hit was remotely together; a lack of $$; a lack of will; whatever.  I'm really not pointing fingers, just saying that contact tracing and quarantining in the US has been pretty much abject failure.

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].

2.  That there are particular comorbidities that make the virus much more lethal than it is for vast majority of the population.  I don't know what those might be (obesity and respiratory ailments are often bandied about) but I just think that's the case.  [This is based on no study or scientific data; but rather, the fact that my frail, demented, 87 year old aunt who lives in LTCF contracted Covid and survived.  It's hard to fathom how that virus did not take her out, given her overall extremely poor health.].  Again, don't know if we'll ever learn of a characteristic or two that makes Covid particularly virulent to a host, but it would be good info to have.

This is what I don't know.  

1.  Pretty much everything else.


Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

[teejers1]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

I've never understood the post-facto blame game.  It's impossible to determine with any accuracy what might have been had the country done X, or had leadership been Z instead of F.  Speculating on excess deaths or any other kind of horror is just that:  speculation.  Way too many unknowns.  

Here's what I'm pretty sure I know:

1.  The White House leadership on Covid could not have been much worse. Even a consistent message about the gravity of virus, the need to be smart, etc. - which could even have been coupled with optimistic comments, such as "We're going to shelter in place for X weeks to see if we can buy some time and gain a better understanding, and then we'll get back to normal as circumstances allow" (or some other reasonable/non-extreme messaging) - would have done wonders for American mindset and conformity to a basic set of precautions that would have reduced the numbers . . . by some unknown amount.

2.  The local governments - where the rubber hits the road on contact tracing - screwed the pooch on that very important task. Maybe this was a function of the horses having left the barn and a sense of hopelessness by the time their $hit was remotely together; a lack of $$; a lack of will; whatever.  I'm really not pointing fingers, just saying that contact tracing and quarantining in the US has been pretty much abject failure.

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].

2.  That there are particular comorbidities that make the virus much more lethal than it is for vast majority of the population.  I don't know what those might be (obesity and respiratory ailments are often bandied about) but I just think that's the case.  [This is based on no study or scientific data; but rather, the fact that my frail, demented, 87 year old aunt who lives in LTCF contracted Covid and survived.  It's hard to fathom how that virus did not take her out, given her overall extremely poor health.].  Again, don't know if we'll ever learn of a characteristic or two that makes Covid particularly virulent to a host, but it would be good info to have.

This is what I don't know.  

1.  Pretty much everything else.


Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

[akiddoc]

To break it down, it essentially will ask how can we be more like New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and less like Brazil and Mexico for the NEXT global pandemic?

Goodness I hope they don't approach it that way. While I think it will be useful to look at the approaches used in areas that were relatively successful in containing the epidemic, it is abundantly clear IMHO that the approaches used in these nations would be largely ineffective in the USA. New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan are islands that are relatively easily isolated from outside infections. They also have much smaller populations than the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea are relatively homogeneous culturally so obtaining compliance is much easier than in the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea also have governments that have frequently used major force to control the population.

I believe that we need to first look very hard at what will work here in the USA to prevent us from getting in a situation where we have community spread in many places. We have avoided previous pandemics by doing this, but in fact we were aided by the type of disease and some very good luck. We need to greatly beef up our capability to do this. This will include plans to safely repatriate US travelers when epidemics start in other nations. It may involve considerable inconvenience to travelers, but we are going to need the capability. We have too many people and too many points of entry to just ignore the issue. Once it gets going inside the USA, controlling it isn't ever going to be easy.

We also need to improve our local health departments ability to respond to outbreaks and control them early. IMHO the public needs to be educated to the idea that public health enforcement exists and will be used! We have the legal mechanisms in place because we previously used them to deal with localized epidemics. Our current politicians seem to believe that the population will simply revolt if they try to enforce isolation/quarantine. That has to change. The public has to know that these steps will be taken and will be enforced. In all the nations you cited as better examples (except Japan), that is the case. The local tracking and tracing capability needs to be maintained adequately to handle an outbreak, but that is pointless if there is no enforcement. We are experiencing that right now and have been for months.

The third arm of the changes we need was outlined by Tony Fauci in his conversation with the Dean of the medical school. We need to develop the capability to create antivirals "on demand" to attack things like COVID-19 early on. The "warp speed" effort to develop a vaccine is great, but this type of effort will always take many months because you have to vaccinate a large percentage of the population to gain an effect. In the meantime, you can't have people dying in large numbers. The only way to avoid lockdowns is to treat the disease successfully. We are getting there with COVID-19. 
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousd...definition

However, right now things like this take too long. We need more "generic" methodologies that deliver an effective treatment in weeks or at most two months. Is this easy? No. Can it be done? Probably. We are on the edge of being able to do it. Make it a priority and it will happen. This is the type of  approach that the public will like, because they don't have to do anything but fund it. No loss of freedoms or annoying isolation requirements. Money will be made as well. What's not to like? As a side benefit, we may actually cure the common cold.

The monoclonals do not decisively end the progression of Covid. They have to be given IV. It isn't a very practical approach when you need to treat 10,000,000 people or more in a short period. I believe we have a lot further to go than you are thinking. Effective treatments for viruses have been difficult to develop after decades of intense research. The most cost effective intervention in these diseases is the early intense public health intervention that occurred with SARS and MERS, but was botched by China in this instance.

---

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

I've never understood the post-facto blame game.  It's impossible to determine with any accuracy what might have been had the country done X, or had leadership been Z instead of F.  Speculating on excess deaths or any other kind of horror is just that:  speculation.  Way too many unknowns.  

Here's what I'm pretty sure I know:

1.  The White House leadership on Covid could not have been much worse.  Even a consistent message about the gravity of virus, the need to be smart, etc. - which could even have been coupled with optimistic comments, such as "We're going to shelter in place for X weeks to see if we can buy some time and gain a better understanding, and then we'll get back to normal as circumstances allow" (or some other reasonable/non-extreme messaging) - would have done wonders for American mindset and conformity to a basic set of precautions that would have reduced the numbers . . . by some unknown amount.

2.  The local governments - where the rubber hits the road on contact tracing - screwed the pooch on that very important task. Maybe this was a function of the horses having left the barn and a sense of hopelessness by the time their $hit was remotely together; a lack of $$; a lack of will; whatever.  I'm really not pointing fingers, just saying that contact tracing and quarantining in the US has been pretty much abject failure.

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

[akiddoc]

To break it down, it essentially will ask how can we be more like New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and less like Brazil and Mexico for the NEXT global pandemic?

Goodness I hope they don't approach it that way. While I think it will be useful to look at the approaches used in areas that were relatively successful in containing the epidemic, it is abundantly clear IMHO that the approaches used in these nations would be largely ineffective in the USA. New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan are islands that are relatively easily isolated from outside infections. They also have much smaller populations than the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea are relatively homogeneous culturally so obtaining compliance is much easier than in the USA. Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea also have governments that have frequently used major force to control the population.

I believe that we need to first look very hard at what will work here in the USA to prevent us from getting in a situation where we have community spread in many places. We have avoided previous pandemics by doing this, but in fact we were aided by the type of disease and some very good luck. We need to greatly beef up our capability to do this. This will include plans to safely repatriate US travelers when epidemics start in other nations. It may involve considerable inconvenience to travelers, but we are going to need the capability. We have too many people and too many points of entry to just ignore the issue. Once it gets going inside the USA, controlling it isn't ever going to be easy.

We also need to improve our local health departments ability to respond to outbreaks and control them early. IMHO the public needs to be educated to the idea that public health enforcement exists and will be used! We have the legal mechanisms in place because we previously used them to deal with localized epidemics. Our current politicians seem to believe that the population will simply revolt if they try to enforce isolation/quarantine. That has to change. The public has to know that these steps will be taken and will be enforced. In all the nations you cited as better examples (except Japan), that is the case. The local tracking and tracing capability needs to be maintained adequately to handle an outbreak, but that is pointless if there is no enforcement. We are experiencing that right now and have been for months.

The third arm of the changes we need was outlined by Tony Fauci in his conversation with the Dean of the medical school. We need to develop the capability to create antivirals "on demand" to attack things like COVID-19 early on. The "warp speed" effort to develop a vaccine is great, but this type of effort will always take many months because you have to vaccinate a large percentage of the population to gain an effect. In the meantime, you can't have people dying in large numbers. The only way to avoid lockdowns is to treat the disease successfully. We are getting there with COVID-19. 
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousd...definition

However, right now things like this take too long. We need more "generic" methodologies that deliver an effective treatment in weeks or at most two months. Is this easy? No. Can it be done? Probably. We are on the edge of being able to do it. Make it a priority and it will happen. This is the type of  approach that the public will like, because they don't have to do anything but fund it. No loss of freedoms or annoying isolation requirements. Money will be made as well. What's not to like? As a side benefit, we may actually cure the common cold.

The monoclonals do not decisively end the progression of Covid. They have to be given IV. It isn't a very practical approach when you need to treat 10,000,000 people or more in a short period. I believe we have a lot further to go than you are thinking. Effective treatments for viruses have been difficult to develop after decades of intense research. The most cost effective intervention in these diseases is the early intense public health intervention that occurred with SARS and MERS, but was botched by China in this instance.

---

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

I've never understood the post-facto blame game.  It's impossible to determine with any accuracy what might have been had the country done X, or had leadership been Z instead of F.  Speculating on excess deaths or any other kind of horror is just that:  speculation.  Way too many unknowns.  

Here's what I'm pretty sure I know:

1.  The White House leadership on Covid could not have been much worse.  Even a consistent message about the gravity of virus, the need to be smart, etc. - which could even have been coupled with optimistic comments, such as "We're going to shelter in place for X weeks to see if we can buy some time and gain a better understanding, and then we'll get back to normal as circumstances allow" (or some other reasonable/non-extreme messaging) - would have done wonders for American mindset and conformity to a basic set of precautions that would have reduced the numbers . . . by some unknown amount.

2.  The local governments - where the rubber hits the road on contact tracing - screwed the pooch on that very important task. Maybe this was a function of the horses having left the barn and a sense of hopelessness by the time their $hit was remotely together; a lack of $$; a lack of will; whatever.  I'm really not pointing fingers, just saying that contact tracing and quarantining in the US has been pretty much abject failure.

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

[OutsiderFan]

The greatest American failure with this pandemic, putting aside the incompetence and disinformation spread by the White House and its enablers, is how we have not put technology to good use for effective contact tracing, and not digitized our battle against the virus on an every person basis.

It's mind-blowing to me how any society that lives on its mobile phones and allows large corporations to spy on them and know everything about their lives, is somehow reticent to use information technology to track who is sick and who isn't, so everyone can use that data to protect themselves and each other.

[OutsiderFan]

The greatest American failure with this pandemic, putting aside the incompetence and disinformation spread by the White House and its enablers, is how we have not put technology to good use for effective contact tracing, and not digitized our battle against the virus on an every person basis.

It's mind-blowing to me how any society that lives on its mobile phones and allows large corporations to spy on them and know everything about their lives, is somehow reticent to use information technology to track who is sick and who isn't, so everyone can use that data to protect themselves and each other.

[JustAnotherFan]

The greatest American failure with this pandemic, putting aside the incompetence and disinformation spread by the White House and its enablers, is how we have not put technology to good use for effective contact tracing, and not digitized our battle against the virus on an every person basis.

It's mind-blowing to me how any society that lives on its mobile phones and allows large corporations to spy on them and know everything about their lives, is somehow reticent to use information technology to track who is sick and who isn't, so everyone can use that data to protect themselves and each other.

Well if we tell everyone that we are using the freemium model where they can get it for free as long as they're okay with advertisements I think that most will quickly get over their reticence.

[JustAnotherFan]

The greatest American failure with this pandemic, putting aside the incompetence and disinformation spread by the White House and its enablers, is how we have not put technology to good use for effective contact tracing, and not digitized our battle against the virus on an every person basis.

It's mind-blowing to me how any society that lives on its mobile phones and allows large corporations to spy on them and know everything about their lives, is somehow reticent to use information technology to track who is sick and who isn't, so everyone can use that data to protect themselves and each other.

Well if we tell everyone that we are using the freemium model where they can get it for free as long as they're okay with advertisements I think that most will quickly get over their reticence.

[Goose]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

[Goose]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

[teejers1]

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

Could very well be - like I said, just a suspicion.

BTW, also agree with OF on the failure to use tracking capabilities of phones as being a big demerit on dealing with virus.

[teejers1]

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

Could very well be - like I said, just a suspicion.

BTW, also agree with OF on the failure to use tracking capabilities of phones as being a big demerit on dealing with virus.

[BostonCard]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

Is it any different than a hastily arranged press conference announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe (excluding the UK)?

BC

[BostonCard]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

Is it any different than a hastily arranged press conference announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe (excluding the UK)?

BC

[Genuine Realist]

The greatest American failure with this pandemic, putting aside the incompetence and disinformation spread by the White House and its enablers, is how we have not put technology to good use for effective contact tracing, and not digitized our battle against the virus on an every person basis.

It's mind-blowing to me how any society that lives on its mobile phones and allows large corporations to spy on them and know everything about their lives, is somehow reticent to use information technology to track who is sick and who isn't, so everyone can use that data to protect themselves and each other.

Couldn't agree more, but you had better relate that to the fashionable demonization of the infosphere between 2010 and 2016, the NSA, concerns about social information, etc. It is going on to this day, the recent privacy initiative enacted by proposition recently in California. There is also the tendy denunciation of facial recognition software, potentially a hugely valuable tool not only for law enforcement but in any number of social contexts, including contact tracing.

What stopped the US from using its information resources to do contact tracing wasn't the government as such, but the ACLU (to the Left), Rand Paul (to the Right), and numerous associated Luddites. It wasn't the authorities.

Repeating myself, information technology is value neutral, but an infinitely useful tool to whatever values a society espouses. The more you know about anything, the better you do it. You could use a database to ascertain which citizens have distant Jewish or African ancestors, or you can use it to find the right school for a a 'different' child - or to do contact tracing in a pandemic. It all depends on social values - the information technology is by itself neutral, just a tool. But no one seems to understand that.

[Genuine Realist]

The greatest American failure with this pandemic, putting aside the incompetence and disinformation spread by the White House and its enablers, is how we have not put technology to good use for effective contact tracing, and not digitized our battle against the virus on an every person basis.

It's mind-blowing to me how any society that lives on its mobile phones and allows large corporations to spy on them and know everything about their lives, is somehow reticent to use information technology to track who is sick and who isn't, so everyone can use that data to protect themselves and each other.

Couldn't agree more, but you had better relate that to the fashionable demonization of the infosphere between 2010 and 2016, the NSA, concerns about social information, etc. It is going on to this day, the recent privacy initiative enacted by proposition recently in California. There is also the tendy denunciation of facial recognition software, potentially a hugely valuable tool not only for law enforcement but in any number of social contexts, including contact tracing.

What stopped the US from using its information resources to do contact tracing wasn't the government as such, but the ACLU (to the Left), Rand Paul (to the Right), and numerous associated Luddites. It wasn't the authorities.

Repeating myself, information technology is value neutral, but an infinitely useful tool to whatever values a society espouses. The more you know about anything, the better you do it. You could use a database to ascertain which citizens have distant Jewish or African ancestors, or you can use it to find the right school for a a 'different' child - or to do contact tracing in a pandemic. It all depends on social values - the information technology is by itself neutral, just a tool. But no one seems to understand that.

[oregontim]

How much of this is hindsight bias? From Wikipedia:

The common tendency for people perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were ... People often believe, after an event has occurred, that they would have predicted, or perhaps even would have known this a high degree of certainty, what the outcome of an event would have been, before the event occurred.

Have you noticed how, after the fact, we dig down and discover the signs that we supposedly missed? A lot of that IMO is human nature uncomfortable with true random. Uncertainty is so troubling that we soften it with signs that we missed. So we could have predicted it. 

Remember last March? The most prevalent model had us shutting down hard and new cases disappearing, for good, in the summer. 

I think the significant failure of leadership began with the speech to the nation on March 12, and from then on continued to diverge from common sense and expert recommendations, both. And that at least 150K lives were lost because of the mismanagement. 

I suppose we couldn’t have been Taiwan, or New Zealand. But we could have been a much better USA, with maybe 60K or so dead by now, not 250K.

Which I hope bodes well for the future. Maybe we can reach unified messaging now?

[oregontim]

How much of this is hindsight bias? From Wikipedia:

The common tendency for people perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were ... People often believe, after an event has occurred, that they would have predicted, or perhaps even would have known this a high degree of certainty, what the outcome of an event would have been, before the event occurred.

Have you noticed how, after the fact, we dig down and discover the signs that we supposedly missed? A lot of that IMO is human nature uncomfortable with true random. Uncertainty is so troubling that we soften it with signs that we missed. So we could have predicted it. 

Remember last March? The most prevalent model had us shutting down hard and new cases disappearing, for good, in the summer. 

I think the significant failure of leadership began with the speech to the nation on March 12, and from then on continued to diverge from common sense and expert recommendations, both. And that at least 150K lives were lost because of the mismanagement. 

I suppose we couldn’t have been Taiwan, or New Zealand. But we could have been a much better USA, with maybe 60K or so dead by now, not 250K.

Which I hope bodes well for the future. Maybe we can reach unified messaging now?

[Goose]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

Is it any different than a hastily arranged press conference announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe (excluding the UK)?

BC

Yes, three important reasons. The travel ban from Europe didn't apply (and cannot apply) to US citizens. First, in the scenario that matches Taiwan, all US citizens would have been quarantined under government supervision on their return CONUS. That was not done at all in the Mach 12 travel ban, and was not even attempted. This was a serious problem with how the ban operated. Second, no ports of entry were closed, so the airlines could operate basically "normally". You could return to where you intended at least, and the flights didn't need to be rescheduled or rerouted. While there was a crush for people who wanted to return ASAP, they were not constrained by fewer flights to fewer places on airlines they didn't have tickets on. Third, the China travel ban was instituted on Jan 31. Many travelers saw that ban and either canceled their travel plans to Europe or came home as soon as they could. Italy wasn't a disaster yet, but it was getting there and people saw that. Lots of reason to come home. Therefore when the actual European ban went into effect, there were many fewer USA citizens traveling than there were on Jan 31. Made repatriation easier.

For these reasons I would say the disorganized return to the USA of travelers that we saw was a very bad thing because they were stuck in long lines at the airports/customs and didn't get quarantined. Doing the same on Jan 31 with fewer airports and more people would have been an even larger catastrophe and to add a quarantine under government supervision would have made it totally impossible.

[Goose]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

Yes, and this would have required rescheduling/re-routing the aircraft, which would have been a nightmare and required international cooperation. Eventually it is true that passengers would be reduced, but not initially, as the rush of US citizens returning home would have dwarfed the one we had anyway in response to the China travel ban. There would have been an even greater crunch, as there wouldn't have been about a month for prudent travelers to return home. I hesitate to imagine what LHR, FRA, CDG, or FCO would have looked like. The limited capacity into the reduced number of airports would have people waiting for days to get a flight. Re-issuing tickets to different cities where the airline you originally booked on didn't serve internationally (or maybe at all) before boggles the imagination.

Is it any different than a hastily arranged press conference announcing a 30-day suspension of all travel from Europe (excluding the UK)?

BC

Yes, three important reasons. The travel ban from Europe didn't apply (and cannot apply) to US citizens. First, in the scenario that matches Taiwan, all US citizens would have been quarantined under government supervision on their return CONUS. That was not done at all in the Mach 12 travel ban, and was not even attempted. This was a serious problem with how the ban operated. Second, no ports of entry were closed, so the airlines could operate basically "normally". You could return to where you intended at least, and the flights didn't need to be rescheduled or rerouted. While there was a crush for people who wanted to return ASAP, they were not constrained by fewer flights to fewer places on airlines they didn't have tickets on. Third, the China travel ban was instituted on Jan 31. Many travelers saw that ban and either canceled their travel plans to Europe or came home as soon as they could. Italy wasn't a disaster yet, but it was getting there and people saw that. Lots of reason to come home. Therefore when the actual European ban went into effect, there were many fewer USA citizens traveling than there were on Jan 31. Made repatriation easier.

For these reasons I would say the disorganized return to the USA of travelers that we saw was a very bad thing because they were stuck in long lines at the airports/customs and didn't get quarantined. Doing the same on Jan 31 with fewer airports and more people would have been an even larger catastrophe and to add a quarantine under government supervision would have made it totally impossible.

[Genuine Realist]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

The regulatory machinery of our nation actually is wonderfully efficient, in terms of ordinary organizational efficiency. It's only when you compare it to some mythical Utopia that it looks bad. Comparisons to seeking a perpetual motion machine are apt. Entropy is a fact in organizations as well as physics.

It was impossible to come up with a satisfactory regulatory scheme in a period no longer than six weeks and, by some reckonings, as short as ten days.

That said, maybe we could be doing a little better after nine months. Going back to the same draconian lock down does not speak well for the flexibility of our regulators. I'm thinking particularly of school closings, in which we are paying a much bigger price than we need to.

[Genuine Realist]

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

The regulatory machinery of our nation actually is wonderfully efficient, in terms of ordinary organizational efficiency. It's only when you compare it to some mythical Utopia that it looks bad. Comparisons to seeking a perpetual motion machine are apt. Entropy is a fact in organizations as well as physics.

It was impossible to come up with a satisfactory regulatory scheme in a period no longer than six weeks and, by some reckonings, as short as ten days.

That said, maybe we could be doing a little better after nine months. Going back to the same draconian lock down does not speak well for the flexibility of our regulators. I'm thinking particularly of school closings, in which we are paying a much bigger price than we need to.

[chrisk]

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

Could very well be - like I said, just a suspicion.

BTW, also agree with OF on the failure to use tracking capabilities of phones as being a big demerit on dealing with virus.

How many Americans would comply with the use of their phones in this way? About the same as mask-wearing compliance in March / April?

---

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

The regulatory machinery of our nation actually is wonderfully efficient, in terms of ordinary organizational efficiency. It's only when you compare it to some mythical Utopia that it looks bad. Comparisons to seeking a perpetual motion machine are apt. Entropy is a fact in organizations as well as physics.

It was impossible to come up with a satisfactory regulatory scheme in a period no longer than six weeks and, by some reckonings, as short as ten days.

That said, maybe we could be doing a little better after nine months. Going back to the same draconian lock down does not speak well for the flexibility of our regulators. I'm thinking particularly of school closings, in which we are paying a much bigger price than we need to.

The US was very active in quarantining the passengers on the Grand Princess. It even took over a hotel in San Carlos as well as government facilities. It made minimal attempt to quarantine people coming in by air. If it had made a coordinated effort it could have bought more time. But then the big issue, the US has not been effective in using the last 10 months to scale up testing and quarantine activities to an effective level.

By getting on top of the problem early (in January), Taiwan was able to reopen schools in February before the US even considered closing its schools. For a country that supposedly has good intelligence capabilities with competitors/enemies, the US really squandered the headstart it could have taken because of its great relationship with one of its greatest allies, Taiwan.

[chrisk]

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

Could very well be - like I said, just a suspicion.

BTW, also agree with OF on the failure to use tracking capabilities of phones as being a big demerit on dealing with virus.

How many Americans would comply with the use of their phones in this way? About the same as mask-wearing compliance in March / April?

---

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

The regulatory machinery of our nation actually is wonderfully efficient, in terms of ordinary organizational efficiency. It's only when you compare it to some mythical Utopia that it looks bad. Comparisons to seeking a perpetual motion machine are apt. Entropy is a fact in organizations as well as physics.

It was impossible to come up with a satisfactory regulatory scheme in a period no longer than six weeks and, by some reckonings, as short as ten days.

That said, maybe we could be doing a little better after nine months. Going back to the same draconian lock down does not speak well for the flexibility of our regulators. I'm thinking particularly of school closings, in which we are paying a much bigger price than we need to.

The US was very active in quarantining the passengers on the Grand Princess. It even took over a hotel in San Carlos as well as government facilities. It made minimal attempt to quarantine people coming in by air. If it had made a coordinated effort it could have bought more time. But then the big issue, the US has not been effective in using the last 10 months to scale up testing and quarantine activities to an effective level.

By getting on top of the problem early (in January), Taiwan was able to reopen schools in February before the US even considered closing its schools. For a country that supposedly has good intelligence capabilities with competitors/enemies, the US really squandered the headstart it could have taken because of its great relationship with one of its greatest allies, Taiwan.

[Genuine Realist]

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

Could very well be - like I said, just a suspicion.

BTW, also agree with OF on the failure to use tracking capabilities of phones as being a big demerit on dealing with virus.

How many Americans would comply with the use of their phones in this way?  About the same as mask-wearing compliance in March / April?

---

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

The regulatory machinery of our nation actually is wonderfully efficient, in terms of ordinary organizational efficiency. It's only when you compare it to some mythical Utopia that it looks bad. Comparisons to seeking a perpetual motion machine are apt. Entropy is a fact in organizations as well as physics.

It was impossible to come up with a satisfactory regulatory scheme in a period no longer than six weeks and, by some reckonings, as short as ten days.

That said, maybe we could be doing a little better after nine months. Going back to the same draconian lock down does not speak well for the flexibility of our regulators. I'm thinking particularly of school closings, in which we are paying a much bigger price than we need to.

The US was very active in quarantining the passengers on the Grand Princess.  It even took over a hotel in San Carlos as well as government facilities.  It made minimal attempt to quarantine people coming in by air.  If it had made a coordinated effort it could have bought more time.  But then the big issue, the US has not been effective in using the last 10 months to scale up testing and quarantine activities to an effective level.

By getting on top of the problem early (in January), Taiwan was able to reopen schools in February before the US even considered closing its schools.  For a country that supposedly has good intelligence capabilities with competitors/enemies, the US really squandered the headstart it could have taken because of its great relationship with one of its greatest allies, Taiwan.

"If it had made a coordinated effort.  .  " But the whole point is how difficult in this pluralistic, federated society to coordinate anything. Quarantining one cruise ship is one thing and has happened in the past with other diseases. A regimen for an entire nation ? Not so easy.

Many of you have forgotten too how nonchalant most of the world (not just the US) was about vivid until late February. A a practical matter, there was maybe a fortnight to get a regulatory scheme together. Ain't gonna happen.

[Genuine Realist]

This is what I suspect:

1.  That the virus was loose in the US prior to the generally accepted arrival date of late January/early February 2020.  Don't know if we'll ever know for sure on that, but it would be interesting to find out.  [This belief informed by that one study potentially showing 2019 presence in Italy, as well as anecdotes from friends who reported folks having "the worst flu of their lives" in late 2019].



Lastly, the US has a LOT of work to do at all levels of government to be in better position to respond to the next pandemic when (not if) it happens.  Goose has generally covered the terrain very well, so I'll just say +1 to his commentary.

Those anecdotes have proven to be likely just that - anecdotes. When California researchers went back and checked antibodies to Covid (IgG) in people who had those symptoms in late December and in January, and had not been sick after that, none of them had had Covid. That testing was done as soon as the antibody test was available in April. There is still no evidence that Covid came to the USA prior to the new year.

Could very well be - like I said, just a suspicion.

BTW, also agree with OF on the failure to use tracking capabilities of phones as being a big demerit on dealing with virus.

How many Americans would comply with the use of their phones in this way?  About the same as mask-wearing compliance in March / April?

---

It probably would have meant consolidating international travelers into a handful of locations (maybe NY, Atlanta, Miami, Houston, Chicago, and LA) and closing to international flights outside of the dedicated ports of entry.  That is not a trivial task, and would have required massively reducing the number of flights and travelers to cope (of course, the volume of travelers would have reduced dramatically anyways had people known they would have to quarantine for 14 days).

BC

The regulatory machinery of our nation actually is wonderfully efficient, in terms of ordinary organizational efficiency. It's only when you compare it to some mythical Utopia that it looks bad. Comparisons to seeking a perpetual motion machine are apt. Entropy is a fact in organizations as well as physics.

It was impossible to come up with a satisfactory regulatory scheme in a period no longer than six weeks and, by some reckonings, as short as ten days.

That said, maybe we could be doing a little better after nine months. Going back to the same draconian lock down does not speak well for the flexibility of our regulators. I'm thinking particularly of school closings, in which we are paying a much bigger price than we need to.

The US was very active in quarantining the passengers on the Grand Princess.  It even took over a hotel in San Carlos as well as government facilities.  It made minimal attempt to quarantine people coming in by air.  If it had made a coordinated effort it could have bought more time.  But then the big issue, the US has not been effective in using the last 10 months to scale up testing and quarantine activities to an effective level.

By getting on top of the problem early (in January), Taiwan was able to reopen schools in February before the US even considered closing its schools.  For a country that supposedly has good intelligence capabilities with competitors/enemies, the US really squandered the headstart it could have taken because of its great relationship with one of its greatest allies, Taiwan.

"If it had made a coordinated effort.  .  " But the whole point is how difficult in this pluralistic, federated society to coordinate anything. Quarantining one cruise ship is one thing and has happened in the past with other diseases. A regimen for an entire nation ? Not so easy.

Many of you have forgotten too how nonchalant most of the world (not just the US) was about vivid until late February. A a practical matter, there was maybe a fortnight to get a regulatory scheme together. Ain't gonna happen.

[Goose]

The US was very active in quarantining the passengers on the Grand Princess.  It even took over a hotel in San Carlos as well as government facilities. 

Yes it was. And the ship was unable to dock for several days while that effort was arranged. Try that with the flood of returning passengers at the many points of entry into the US.

It made minimal attempt to quarantine people coming in by air.  If it had made a coordinated effort it could have bought more time.

If it had made a successful effort, it would have bought more time. However, the required quarantine would have been massive and in many places. I submit that without prior planning, getting such an effort together would take several weeks and best and even then had a high probability of failure.

But then the big issue, the US has not been effective in using the last 10 months to scale up testing and quarantine activities to an effective level.

Totally agree. Even worse, neither the various governmental organizations involved nor the media has really questioned this failure. I find that situation very difficult to explain.

By getting on top of the problem early (in January), Taiwan was able to reopen schools in February before the US even considered closing its schools.  For a country that supposedly has good intelligence capabilities with competitors/enemies, the US really squandered the headstart it could have taken because of its great relationship with one of its greatest allies, Taiwan.

We could not do what Taiwan did  because we had no plan in place to do it. Our problem was much larger (52 points of entry plus seaports) so we couldn't reasonably ad lib it. This all presupposes that we had the political will to act. It is a bit like saying the US knew that we were going to end up fighting Japan in WWII. We had the intelligence that was so. However, few believed it was going to happen, and little was done.

In the interest of accuracy, it has to be stated that even Taiwan did not have a full quarantine capability in mid-January when they first started screening passengers at the airport. They did pay special attention to people arriving from China and did request people quarantine, but it was a while (3 weeks I think) before they were actually enforcing it. Given the propensity of their returning nationals to comply that probably was not such a problem. They did have a plan to do such an action but did not immediately deploy it. There was some discussion inside the government.

"If it had made a coordinated effort.  .  " But the whole point is how difficult in this pluralistic, federated society to coordinate anything. Quarantining one cruise ship is one thing and has happened in the past with other diseases. A regimen for an entire nation ? Not so easy.



Many of you have forgotten too how nonchalant most of the world (not just the US) was about COVID-19 until late February. A a practical matter, there was maybe a fortnight to get a regulatory scheme together. Ain't gonna happen.

No matter how our society was organized it would have been very difficult to set up such a large effort without a prior plan. I am not even including lawsuits and the like. I totally agree there wasn't time to create and execute such a plan, and in late January (when Taiwan started to act), there certainly wasn't the will.

[Goose]

The US was very active in quarantining the passengers on the Grand Princess.  It even took over a hotel in San Carlos as well as government facilities. 

Yes it was. And the ship was unable to dock for several days while that effort was arranged. Try that with the flood of returning passengers at the many points of entry into the US.

It made minimal attempt to quarantine people coming in by air.  If it had made a coordinated effort it could have bought more time.

If it had made a successful effort, it would have bought more time. However, the required quarantine would have been massive and in many places. I submit that without prior planning, getting such an effort together would take several weeks and best and even then had a high probability of failure.

But then the big issue, the US has not been effective in using the last 10 months to scale up testing and quarantine activities to an effective level.

Totally agree. Even worse, neither the various governmental organizations involved nor the media has really questioned this failure. I find that situation very difficult to explain.

By getting on top of the problem early (in January), Taiwan was able to reopen schools in February before the US even considered closing its schools.  For a country that supposedly has good intelligence capabilities with competitors/enemies, the US really squandered the headstart it could have taken because of its great relationship with one of its greatest allies, Taiwan.

We could not do what Taiwan did  because we had no plan in place to do it. Our problem was much larger (52 points of entry plus seaports) so we couldn't reasonably ad lib it. This all presupposes that we had the political will to act. It is a bit like saying the US knew that we were going to end up fighting Japan in WWII. We had the intelligence that was so. However, few believed it was going to happen, and little was done.

In the interest of accuracy, it has to be stated that even Taiwan did not have a full quarantine capability in mid-January when they first started screening passengers at the airport. They did pay special attention to people arriving from China and did request people quarantine, but it was a while (3 weeks I think) before they were actually enforcing it. Given the propensity of their returning nationals to comply that probably was not such a problem. They did have a plan to do such an action but did not immediately deploy it. There was some discussion inside the government.

"If it had made a coordinated effort.  .  " But the whole point is how difficult in this pluralistic, federated society to coordinate anything. Quarantining one cruise ship is one thing and has happened in the past with other diseases. A regimen for an entire nation ? Not so easy.



Many of you have forgotten too how nonchalant most of the world (not just the US) was about COVID-19 until late February. A a practical matter, there was maybe a fortnight to get a regulatory scheme together. Ain't gonna happen.

No matter how our society was organized it would have been very difficult to set up such a large effort without a prior plan. I am not even including lawsuits and the like. I totally agree there wasn't time to create and execute such a plan, and in late January (when Taiwan started to act), there certainly wasn't the will.

[fullmetal]

In 2001, we shut down airports for days before restructuring the entire federal aviation security infrastructure over ~3,000 souls lost, not including the brave first responders who succumbed to early deaths due to the crash site hazards (who had their federal aid delayed ad nauseam by GOP lawmakers).

It was worth it then, and it sure would have been worth it now by any reckoning.

Don't tell me we couldn't have done it.  "We" didn't want to do it.



Zadroga Act history: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/...nders.html

[fullmetal]

In 2001, we shut down airports for days before restructuring the entire federal aviation security infrastructure over ~3,000 souls lost, not including the brave first responders who succumbed to early deaths due to the crash site hazards (who had their federal aid delayed ad nauseam by GOP lawmakers).

It was worth it then, and it sure would have been worth it now by any reckoning.

Don't tell me we couldn't have done it.  "We" didn't want to do it.



Zadroga Act history: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/...nders.html

[Goose]

In 2001, we shut down airports for days before restructuring the entire federal aviation security infrastructure over ~3,000 souls lost, not including the brave first responders who succumbed to early deaths due to the crash site hazards (who had their federal aid delayed ad nauseam by GOP lawmakers).

It was worth it then, and it sure would have been worth it now by any reckoning.

Don't tell me we couldn't have done it.  "We" didn't want to do it.



Zadroga Act history: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/...nders.html

I totally agree that we didn't want to do it. I also agree that we could have shut down all international travel for three days. What I don't agree with is the idea we could have restarted travel in three days and quarantined everybody arriving in the US for two weeks going forward.

The "restructuring" of the security structure was easy by comparison. We already had an anti-hijack security structure to build on. Further, almost all of the security changes took place at airports which are already government controlled. Many of the security measures we now have (like locking cockpit doors) were not present for quite a while. Most important, our new security system didn't have to work very well, especially right at the beginning. Nobody tried to repeat 9/11 immediately. Remember, the "shoe bomber" got on a plane. Then we all had to start taking off our shoes. Obtaining adequate quarantine facilities could not be done by modifying a few airport buildings a little. We would need to house hundreds of thousands PER DAY, at least during the initial returns to the USA. We would need to modify the places they were housed so the people couldn't leave, and we would need to have a guard force.

In Taiwan, they can trust their citizens to quarantine in their homes, but even they have a person who checks on the residents to ensure they are complying. In the USA, that wouldn't work. Some people would comply, some wouldn't. We would need guards. Australia had guards too, because they would have a similar problem. They have a much smaller population and many fewer points of entry. It took them quite a while to get ready, and if you read the papers you know what happened in Melbourne. So I think there is good reason to believe we couldn't have created a workable system in a few weeks, let alone a few days, even if we wanted to do so.

[Goose]

In 2001, we shut down airports for days before restructuring the entire federal aviation security infrastructure over ~3,000 souls lost, not including the brave first responders who succumbed to early deaths due to the crash site hazards (who had their federal aid delayed ad nauseam by GOP lawmakers).

It was worth it then, and it sure would have been worth it now by any reckoning.

Don't tell me we couldn't have done it.  "We" didn't want to do it.



Zadroga Act history: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/...nders.html

I totally agree that we didn't want to do it. I also agree that we could have shut down all international travel for three days. What I don't agree with is the idea we could have restarted travel in three days and quarantined everybody arriving in the US for two weeks going forward.

The "restructuring" of the security structure was easy by comparison. We already had an anti-hijack security structure to build on. Further, almost all of the security changes took place at airports which are already government controlled. Many of the security measures we now have (like locking cockpit doors) were not present for quite a while. Most important, our new security system didn't have to work very well, especially right at the beginning. Nobody tried to repeat 9/11 immediately. Remember, the "shoe bomber" got on a plane. Then we all had to start taking off our shoes. Obtaining adequate quarantine facilities could not be done by modifying a few airport buildings a little. We would need to house hundreds of thousands PER DAY, at least during the initial returns to the USA. We would need to modify the places they were housed so the people couldn't leave, and we would need to have a guard force.

In Taiwan, they can trust their citizens to quarantine in their homes, but even they have a person who checks on the residents to ensure they are complying. In the USA, that wouldn't work. Some people would comply, some wouldn't. We would need guards. Australia had guards too, because they would have a similar problem. They have a much smaller population and many fewer points of entry. It took them quite a while to get ready, and if you read the papers you know what happened in Melbourne. So I think there is good reason to believe we couldn't have created a workable system in a few weeks, let alone a few days, even if we wanted to do so.