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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTime for a 9/11 style Covid Commission!
I guess the bills for one have been floating around in Congress since the beginning of the year going nowhere.
All the experts seem to think it's going to happen again so it's time to see what we can learn about mistakes that were made, the things we did right. Any lessons to be drawn from what other countries did
Can we do anything internationally to allow for greater transparency when an outbreak occurs. Apparently China wouldn't share info at the beginning.
Lots of issues. May as well try to learn something.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/571899-why-wouldnt-we-create-a-9-11-style-covid-commission
elleng
(130,128 posts)(of the week.)
Mad_Machine76
(24,355 posts)elleng
(130,128 posts)'the facts re:COVID-19 are pretty public already.
What amazing truths would a commission reveal?'
Mad_Machine76
(24,355 posts)and maybe how to better plan for the next one?
elleng
(130,128 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)Trump eliminated the response team and plans he had in place. Don't need any commission to figure that out.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)9/11 style ... I'm a bit more dubious. Depends on what is meant by that.
Mad_Machine76
(24,355 posts)a commission to examine the events surrounding the pandemic- similar to the commission that investigated 9/11 and its aftermath.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)to think it's a good idea.
9/11 was a massive crime, maybe the biggest ever ... whereas COVID is not necessarily so.
A '9/11 style' commission focused on 'was C19 released from a Chinese lab' would not necessarily get a thumbs up from me, for example.
Whereas one focused on 'how bad was the Trump admin's response' ... I could get behind
former9thward
(31,802 posts)I think that is pretty important given China is not going anywhere.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)I guess '9/11 style commission' is generally a good framework for what to look at, but I don't like the name '9/11 style' particularly.
That name has this ring to it, to me, that implies there's a underlying, horrific crime committed by foreigners ... and that kinda rubs me the wrong way in this case.
I think the REAL crimes ... were committed by IQ45, Jared, and various other Republicans.
So my complaint is more a matter of nomenclature you might say.
Mad_Machine76
(24,355 posts)investigating conspiracy theories. But legitimate questions about our national response, Trumps handling of it, how we help prevent or mitigate the next pandemic.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)whatever the freaking 'preferred nomenclature' is, over and over and ad nauseum in the leadup and during the damn thing.
Covid is not really 'like' 9/11 ... it's not a massive crime, and the failures weren't at NSA/CIA/FBI.
I just think it's a bad 'name' for the idea.
MHO.
Mad_Machine76
(24,355 posts)I think that they meant that it should be in the style thereof.
Girard442
(6,059 posts)What amazing truths would a commission reveal?
Tomconroy
(7,611 posts)Last edited Tue Sep 21, 2021, 01:55 PM - Edit history (1)
The lack of availability of rapid Covid tests. Cheap, gives a result in minutes. They are used a lot in Europe. Would much more testing with something that costs maybe less than a buck (if they weren't given out for free) available for every household to test everyone a couple of times a week have helped better ID where Covid was occurring? And maybe helped curb the spread? Part of the problem is the test instrument is considered a medical device and thus goes through a long approval process.
Could anything have been done differently to get greater acceptance of the vaccines? I don't know but it's an issue worth giving some thought to.
China, as I understand it, for quite a while wouldn't allow.access to Covid cultures (If that's the right word) which delayed vaccines from being developed. Can we get agreements for scientists to get rapid access in the future? If vaccines had come on line in Nov. 2000 instead of Feb 2001 lives would have been saved.
Apparently China succeeded where we failed. We probably do all they did but part of the response was mass testing was part of the response then maybe smaller lockdowns. Anything to learn there?
https://theconversation.com/from-ground-zero-to-zero-tolerance-how-china-learnt-from-its-covid-response-to-quickly-stamp-out-its-latest-outbreak-165963
Contact tracing? As far as I can tell the UK is way ahead of us. Why is that so?
Or maybe our response was perfect and we shouldn't worry about it.
I suspect there are many other issues out there.
Mad_Machine76
(24,355 posts)that once things are under control, trying to plan how to avoid or mitigate the next one- because there WILL be a next one and it could well be worse. There needs to be some kind of full accounting for all of the mistakes, missed opportunities, etc (many of them landing at Trump/GOP's feet, of course)
Tomconroy
(7,611 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)and that Trump eliminated. And, maybe even put our watchdog back in at the Wuhan Lab, if that's possible. Obama's people already pretty much did the work you are suggesting, but it was all gutted by Trump, which is largely why we are where we are now. The mistakes are pretty obvious, and we don't need a commission to figure them out.
Now, if you want one to weed out all of the corruption involved in the Trump Administration's response, or lack thereof, that's another story.
Tomconroy
(7,611 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,061 posts)A decent summary here: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285
Granted, Trump also gutted most of the various agencies, and/or politicized them to a point where they may have rendered any preparations or responses useless.
The ultimate problem here is that we had an incompetent boob running the show, who surrounded himself with other incompetents, all of whom were also taking marching orders from "drown the government in a bathtub" types. A competent leader would have done things like leave the watchdogs in the Wuhan lab, which would have at least given us an earlier warning. That way, we could have done things like shut down the border earlier and completely, rather than in the belated, haphazard way Trump did. He/she could also have instituted things like mask mandates, and not politicized them or any vaccines.
Tomconroy
(7,611 posts)Clowns. Maybe a report that named some names and addressed their failures would help.