old salt wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:50 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:57 pm
Hah, yes the “plan” was to dump the problem on the states and not fund it, but technically, that’s a “plan”. But really that’s a plan to fail.
Right. When Biden took office, state & local health depts suddenly became competent.
At the time, the limiting factor was supply, not fed funding.
No they remained as they had been, struggling to stand up capabilities state by state by state, redundant efforts and uncoordinated. No national database, no efficiencies.
However, the Feds simply took a much more active hand in distribution...And funded the heck out of it, which the Trump Admin had neglected to do...because they didn't want their hands on it IMO.
The Biden Admin had no such reluctance. They also had no reluctance about publicly recommending vaccination as well as other preventive measures. whereas Trump hid his own vaccination and politicized masking.
But what needed to be done in the 6 months prior to first rollout, (which as you may recall I was saying all during that fall before first release_, was not done. Not started. And that was a national database of Covid status, tests, vaccines taken, etc, such that all could be tracked and organized, and enabling ultimately a health passport for travel etc.
I'd have liked to see the Biden Admin do it as soon as they came in, but perhaps they felt it was too late or would be too politically demonized. But that's what should have happened. Heck, it still should.
I said back during the transition that I'd have no difficulty being critical of the Biden Admin for their errors, and I predicted they'd make their share, so it's not hard for me to say that I think they've continued to stub their toe in communications and organization at many a turn, most recently in not getting it much more clear that getting a booster after 6 most, MRNA, etc would be very good on an individual basis. Instead, they let some of the public health officials' concern about international supply get in the way of clarity on this. They knew it would be good to get boosted, but didn't say so full throatedly. They're now doing so.
They're also late in focusing on making rapid at home rapid testing cheap or free the way some European countries have done...couple this capability with the at home drugs likely to be released this winter, and continued emphasis on vaccination/boosters and we really could get to a very reasonable 'endemic' rather than 'pandemic' challenge going forward (as long as no variants throw a monkey wrench).