Hecaviator
Active member
Golfer Guys and Gals;
I have pretty much just monitored this thread but remained silent for the past several days. Those who read my previous comments know that I have been most concerned that testing has been and remains a key weakness of our country's response the coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic. I noted that Deming, the father of total quality management, was famous for saying "You can't manage what you can't measure." That is a big part of what has happened and continues to happen both here and around the world. Testing for both diagnostic and management purposes have been a complete failure, and the results are pretty obvious. The testing has been and remains flawed and far short of the effort that is needed. It is the key resource that has not been mobilized to address the pandemic. We don't really know what is happening and have few insights other than blunt measures about what might be beneficial. That concern remains, but I have also been trying to better understand how we f....... this up so badly in the wealthiest and one of the most technologically advanced nations on this Earth.
What I have found is that there has been willfull ignorance and dismissal of facts, data, science, and warnings based on that information among those whose responsibilities include keeping America and Americans safe and functional at all levels. I am not stating this as a political indictment. I am stating it as the simple reality that people in positions of power and influence have royally screwed the pooch (for whatever reasons), and the broad public of the country is and will continue to bear the consequences.
If any of you want to interpret this as a political statement, I think you miss my point. All of us need to become as familiar as possible with the underlying truths relating to the spread of the disease, the risk it poses to us individually and collectively, the actions that appear to be working (and those that don't), and the path out of this. One thing we need to look at carefully is how we managed to get to this point. I just reviewed 88 pages of emails posted by infectious disease experts across the country and others in that small community of people involved in infectious disease control. I recommend that all of you review these real-time, contemporaneous communications as the virus spread across the world and the United States. They portray a group of professionals scared Sh**le**, addressing how to get the message out and how to effectively respond, and wondering how and why the virus was being so ignored by so many for so long in the United States. It paints a chilling portrait of knowledgable observers watching incompetence running wild. Their emails projected disastrous consequences that have largely evolved, though belated efforts across the United States have moderated the impacts somewhat in some areas.
As some of you know, my wife and I returned to the USA from New Zealand on March 29. We had been self-isolating there for 8 days before we flew to Vancouver, B.C. and drove home. I had been carefully following what was happening and what measures were being taken or were on the horizon that might impact our safety and our ability to get home. We thought about staying in New Zealand, where they were clearly taking early and decisive steps to prepare for and battle the pandemic. We could have, but in the end we wanted to be home and felt our somewhat isolated community here in the islands would be more shielded from the Covid-19 impacts than most other parts of Western Washington. Fortunately, that has proved true so far. We have self-isolated at our home since we got back and it seems like perhaps we have avoided the coronavirus in spite of being in two crowded airports and flying 13 hours on a full aircraft. We will continue to self-isolate until the end of April out of an abundance of caution and also to ensure that we won't turn out to be asymptomatic carriers of the virus who might infect others.
We are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, but due to professional experience we can look at data and interpret it pretty well. If any of you think a good job has been done in the United States, or that it is the best that could be done in a bad situation, I suggest you investigate the experiences in other countries - most notably New Zealand. The Prime Minister there came to the stage earlier in the process than might have been politically optimal for her. (She also faces an election this fall.) Above all else, she is a great communicator. She was blunt, truthful, and yet empathetic with the worries of her people. She invoked New Zealand's highest level of emergency security and basically shut the country down on March 25. She also imposed controls on immigration, which is easier in her island nation than here or in Europe, and publicized effectively what is needed from the populace in this situation and why. She also brought the resources to bear necessary to conduct extensive testing and contact tracing of the infection. Her most powerful message was BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. The result is that, as of yesterday, New Zealand has had 1,349 confirmed cases and 5 deaths. They are admittedly later on the curve than we are. But, to put this in perspective compared to the USA, where we have about 62 times the population of New Zealand, if we had the same success in terms of the rate of deaths, about 310 Americans would have died, not 22,861. Twice that many people are dying every day in New York City alone.
After watching all this carefully, I also have concluded that we have to get over our national delusion that the United States is #1 in everything and smarter than the rest of the world. Right now, the only thing we are #1 in that really matters is Covid-19 confirmed infections and recorded deaths. There was an effective test for coronavirus infection available from Germany while our CDC efforts were failing, but it was rejected mostly because it "wasn't invented here" and would not accrue commercial benefit to our pharma industry. That is terribly sad and utterly disgusting .
I will now shut up and largely go back to just reading the posts on this site, though I might have something to say about wine from time to time.
Be well. Be kind. Be calm.
I have pretty much just monitored this thread but remained silent for the past several days. Those who read my previous comments know that I have been most concerned that testing has been and remains a key weakness of our country's response the coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic. I noted that Deming, the father of total quality management, was famous for saying "You can't manage what you can't measure." That is a big part of what has happened and continues to happen both here and around the world. Testing for both diagnostic and management purposes have been a complete failure, and the results are pretty obvious. The testing has been and remains flawed and far short of the effort that is needed. It is the key resource that has not been mobilized to address the pandemic. We don't really know what is happening and have few insights other than blunt measures about what might be beneficial. That concern remains, but I have also been trying to better understand how we f....... this up so badly in the wealthiest and one of the most technologically advanced nations on this Earth.
What I have found is that there has been willfull ignorance and dismissal of facts, data, science, and warnings based on that information among those whose responsibilities include keeping America and Americans safe and functional at all levels. I am not stating this as a political indictment. I am stating it as the simple reality that people in positions of power and influence have royally screwed the pooch (for whatever reasons), and the broad public of the country is and will continue to bear the consequences.
If any of you want to interpret this as a political statement, I think you miss my point. All of us need to become as familiar as possible with the underlying truths relating to the spread of the disease, the risk it poses to us individually and collectively, the actions that appear to be working (and those that don't), and the path out of this. One thing we need to look at carefully is how we managed to get to this point. I just reviewed 88 pages of emails posted by infectious disease experts across the country and others in that small community of people involved in infectious disease control. I recommend that all of you review these real-time, contemporaneous communications as the virus spread across the world and the United States. They portray a group of professionals scared Sh**le**, addressing how to get the message out and how to effectively respond, and wondering how and why the virus was being so ignored by so many for so long in the United States. It paints a chilling portrait of knowledgable observers watching incompetence running wild. Their emails projected disastrous consequences that have largely evolved, though belated efforts across the United States have moderated the impacts somewhat in some areas.
As some of you know, my wife and I returned to the USA from New Zealand on March 29. We had been self-isolating there for 8 days before we flew to Vancouver, B.C. and drove home. I had been carefully following what was happening and what measures were being taken or were on the horizon that might impact our safety and our ability to get home. We thought about staying in New Zealand, where they were clearly taking early and decisive steps to prepare for and battle the pandemic. We could have, but in the end we wanted to be home and felt our somewhat isolated community here in the islands would be more shielded from the Covid-19 impacts than most other parts of Western Washington. Fortunately, that has proved true so far. We have self-isolated at our home since we got back and it seems like perhaps we have avoided the coronavirus in spite of being in two crowded airports and flying 13 hours on a full aircraft. We will continue to self-isolate until the end of April out of an abundance of caution and also to ensure that we won't turn out to be asymptomatic carriers of the virus who might infect others.
We are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, but due to professional experience we can look at data and interpret it pretty well. If any of you think a good job has been done in the United States, or that it is the best that could be done in a bad situation, I suggest you investigate the experiences in other countries - most notably New Zealand. The Prime Minister there came to the stage earlier in the process than might have been politically optimal for her. (She also faces an election this fall.) Above all else, she is a great communicator. She was blunt, truthful, and yet empathetic with the worries of her people. She invoked New Zealand's highest level of emergency security and basically shut the country down on March 25. She also imposed controls on immigration, which is easier in her island nation than here or in Europe, and publicized effectively what is needed from the populace in this situation and why. She also brought the resources to bear necessary to conduct extensive testing and contact tracing of the infection. Her most powerful message was BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. The result is that, as of yesterday, New Zealand has had 1,349 confirmed cases and 5 deaths. They are admittedly later on the curve than we are. But, to put this in perspective compared to the USA, where we have about 62 times the population of New Zealand, if we had the same success in terms of the rate of deaths, about 310 Americans would have died, not 22,861. Twice that many people are dying every day in New York City alone.
After watching all this carefully, I also have concluded that we have to get over our national delusion that the United States is #1 in everything and smarter than the rest of the world. Right now, the only thing we are #1 in that really matters is Covid-19 confirmed infections and recorded deaths. There was an effective test for coronavirus infection available from Germany while our CDC efforts were failing, but it was rejected mostly because it "wasn't invented here" and would not accrue commercial benefit to our pharma industry. That is terribly sad and utterly disgusting .
I will now shut up and largely go back to just reading the posts on this site, though I might have something to say about wine from time to time.
Be well. Be kind. Be calm.
is the per capita coronavirus death rate: comparing the United States and major European countries.
is the per capita coronavirus death rate: comparing the United States and major European countries.
...
