Posted on 04/05/2020 5:32:43 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
WASHINGTON - As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.
A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.
Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks.
“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, told AP.
Trump and his appointees have urged state and local governments, and hospitals, to buy their own masks and breathing machines, saying requests to the dwindling national stockpile should be a last resort.
“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, said at a White House briefing Thursday. “It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”
Experts in emergency preparedness and response have expressed dismay at such statements, saying the federal government must take the lead in ensuring medical supplies are available and distributed where they are needed most.
“States do not have the purchasing power of the federal government. They do not have the ability to run a deficit like the federal government. They do not have the logistical power of the federal government,” said Sebelius, who served as governor of Kansas before running the nation’s health care system.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Yes. I see urban areas depopulating, too. How that works itself out will be interesting to see.
There will always be the need for cities, but perhaps this phenomenon will give a boost to smaller cities around the country so that population is more dispersed.
I hope that is the case, because I live in one now. I have also lived in one of the largest cities in the country. I much prefer where I live now.
I think the answer for the respirators, PPE, etc, is that we need to make sure that we have enough dual purpose manufacturing in this country to handle surges in demand.
Seems that I remember Sebelius’ statements being problematic during the Obama administration...has she somehow become smarter since then?
I started buying extra groceries and goods during the first few weeks of January. I topped off in early February.
I started changing the way I paid bills, moving all revolving debt to a zero percent payoff. I started stashing away cash and upping my gold purchases.
More importantly, I started shorting the market. It was obvious it was going to crash.
But, Americans are more interested in watching rallies, bashing to President, or watching the reality TV crap. Americans, for the most part, are stupid, lazy, and sick.
So, the entire country missed out on two months of prep.
(But there were no masks available anywhere after 1/5. I bought the last ones at the local drug store a few days earlier. Because the smart folks were buying.)
Lawyers for Sen Burr and Loeffler wants to talk to you.
Well, it was interesting that the stockpile was nearly drained since Trump was elected too.
I agree with him.
My lefty neighbor was going off on Trump last night. I triggered her by stating that the democrats gave a damn about this until impeachment was over and only care now because they see it as the umpteenth opportunity to impeach Trump.
History begins now for every left wing goon. Never forget that.
They would walk into a store, dump gasoline, light the match and then scream about your failure to put the fire out. Bring up how it started and they just scream.
So in this case:
Forget about impeachment and how it shut down congress for two months.
Forget about calling the President’s travel ban xenophobic and accusing him of “just wanting to distract from impeachment.”
Forget about listening to his SOTU speech where he warned of this, tearing up said speech and then justifying said tearing because “you couldn’t find one thing truthful in it.”
Forget about wanting open borders.
Forget about the illegals having brought third world diseases back to this country before this outbreak.
Forget about belittling Trump’s warnings about China and the dangers it posed to the US.
Forget about Trump wanting to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
Forget about ridiculing Trump’s nationalism as white nationalism.
Forget about the Chinese having lied to us.
Forget about the left’s new “hero” and person we should turn our country over to, according to the left, having been dead wrong on this:
Forget Nancy Pelosi encouraging everyone to just get out there and mingle in Chinatown.
Forget about Pelosi using this crisis to make every leftist wet dream come true.
Oh now folks. HISTORY STARTS NOW. Orwell would be embarrassed that his nightmare vision of the future was mild in comparison to the reality.
Excellent post, thank you!
Reads like a hit piece by CNN.
No mention at all of the November-February Impeachment operation by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. Obviously no bias from former DEMOCRAT Gov. Sebelius (Kansas) in her viewpoint about waste. Article / author / fabulist / propagandist / shill / FAKE NEWSer 'reports' about 3 months since initial news about Covid-19 but makes no mention of the news through January that there was China & World Health Organization (WHO) reports of no human transmission and containment.
In short everything in this SLIME piece is anti Trump & Administration. A full LEFT screed and screech!
I think the immediate suburbs will see more flight than cities themselves; the cities will always attract people looking for a nanny state to care for and make decisions for them, while the closest suburbs are often burdened with the bills.
But this is what presents itself as non-partisan "news." Puke-inducing.
Very good point. We forget they are privy to way more timely information than the general public.
In January the vast majority of cases were in China and China was still trying to hide this problem.
An AP article... Total BULL$HIT!
plucked this from 2018 google but would not pay to read it all:
EPA spokesman called AP journalist an ‘anti-Trump reporter [Search domain www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/06/07/ Media critic. June 7, 2018 at 2:49 PM EDT. Michael Biesecker is an investigative reporter for the Associated Press. But to Jahan Wilcox, the pointlessly combative spokesman who works ...
So all Governors, all D’s, past admins, etc., are ignored - it’s just all PDJT’s fault.
Dumb. Also being a Monday morning QB too. We had no data, you don’t scramble because one person sneezes - and NOBODY was. Besides, this assertion that “if we had more masks and ventilators we’d not have all these deaths” is completely unproven. In fact it’s also dumb and needs to be called out. Journalists are making this assertion, not the medical profession.
How come this brilliant all-seeing writer from AP didn’t write an article like this in February?
Years... actually decades. SARS and MERS should have been a warning.
So the BIOTCH that was responsible for bungling the swine flu response under Barry's misadministration and who is responsible for not replacing masks, gloves and equipment depleted by the swine flu response........when it finally happened after over a thousand Americans died and many thousands were infected................That BIOTCH? has crawled out of her hole to blame Trump for her, Barry and Slow Joe's failure and Pelosi, Schumer and Schiff's interference with Trumps ability to perform his duties.
That takes a lot of balls, especially for a woman and a member of the party that accused Trump of overreacting and racism when he took early action while they were wasting time and resources with their impeachment farce.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.