What evidence is there that Democrats would've handled anything differently with Covid?

SimplyMe · May 27, 2020

disciple Clint said:
Well if you find any false news in it let me know right away and by the way the same could be said for the vast majority of the msm

No, I'm sorry, the same can't actually be said about the vast majority of the MSM. One thing that can help is buy using sites like Media Bias/Fact Check. They do a good job of determining a sites biases, as well as rating -- and providing sources -- for why a site earns the rating it does. It is also worth noting that they are used by several conservative news sources, such as Breitbart and Forbes (you can find links on the sites front page).

But to give you examples: The Federalist is rated as being Right leaning and having a Mixed record on factual reporting, which in their rating system means that the Federalist is a questionable source. Now, to be fair, CNN and Fox are also rated as Mixed, though obviously CNN is rated Left and Fox is rated Right. By contrast, though, the Washington Post is rated as Left-Center and has a High rating for Accuracy, as does the NY Times. Politico is rated as Least Biased and have a High accuracy rating. On the other side, they list the California Republican as being factual (cannot find where they've failed a fact check) but a Right biased source (and only runs articles that favor the Right).

Personally, I prefer looking at articles from multiple sites -- including those that favor both the Left and the Right. You see how they are reported differently and apply critical thinking to find the truth of the story and get past the bias.

timothyu · May 27, 2020

I'm a fan of news media that only reports the facts of who, what, when, where, why and leaves it to the reader to form their own opinion. However since the beginnings of cable news and failing newpapers, simple information no longer sells.

tall73 · May 27, 2020

rambot said:
Well, as mentioned they still would have kept the pandemic team in place AND they had the blueprint of a plan for the next pandemics

So argue this or that, but it could certainly logically be deduced the response would have been swifter. Otherwise, we have to see the report to know how it was different

They still had a pandemic monitoring team in place which alerted them quickly. And they still got all the experts in the room to wargame. Even the NY times article I cited earlier noted this.

The bigger issue was the decision to follow the usual playbook, including the playbook used for the influenza pandemic under Obama, to have the CDC handle rolling out the testing without using private companies. This included manufacturing the test kits in the CDC labs, which unfortunately contaminated them by not following their own procedures.

Also, under both the Obama and Trump administrations it was an intentional policy not to restock N95 masks in the stockpile, which were drawn down numerous times under the Obama administration. Rather they focused on developing non-disposable masks that could then be later stockpiled, and to focus on buying various therapeutics for known threats.

tall73 · May 27, 2020

SimplyMe said:
No, I'm sorry, the same can't actually be said about the vast majority of the MSM. One thing that can help is buy using sites like Media Bias/Fact Check.

Agreed, it is a helpful tool.

Aldebaran · May 27, 2020

timothyu said:
I'm a fan of news media that only reports the facts of who, what, when, where, why and leaves it to the reader to form their own opinion. However since the beginnings of cable news and failing newpapers, simple information no longer sells.

Telling the reader what to think and believe is just another one of their services. Saves the reader so much time.

rambot · May 27, 2020

tall73 said:
They still had a pandemic monitoring team in place which alerted them quickly. And they still got all the experts in the room to wargame. Even the NY times article I cited earlier noted this.

Isn't it blocked by a paywall?

The bigger issue was the decision to follow the usual playbook, including the playbook used for the influenza pandemic under Obama, to have the CDC handle rolling out the testing without using private companies. This included manufacturing the test kits in the CDC labs, which unfortunately contaminated them by not following their own procedures.

How does it work in other countries? Is it common for private companies to create tests?

timothyu · May 27, 2020

Aldebaran said:
Telling the reader what to think and believe is just another one of their services. Saves the reader so much time.

Worked for religion, so why not?

Aldebaran · May 27, 2020

timothyu said:
Worked for religion, so why not?

Is that why you're a Christian? Someone told you what to believe?

tall73 · May 27, 2020

rambot said:
Isn't it blocked by a paywall?

Not sure in Canada. It does not appear to be here due to COVID coverage:
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus

It was a very long article so I quoted a bit more than usual in post 103, staying under the percentage guidelines, if you want to reference it.

How does it work in other countries? Is it common for private companies to create tests?

We now know that Germany and South Korea turned early to private testing and production of tests, and this helped with their quick rollout.

Our response was the opposite, in that we have a fairly difficult process for any private lab test approval, and Azar, etc. made the decision to both develop and manufacture the test kits. While this same procedure was used before, the weakness of it was seen this time. It is not certain they could have scaled high enough in time for the need to start with. Then after the CDC successfully developed the test they did not turn to private labs to product them. When their own tests were tainted, this seriously set back our chances here.

The government also declined to make special provision to test existing community samples taken for an influenza study in Washington, due to consent. I am a big fan of informed consent of procedures, but I can also see how the person in the influenza study might want to know they were infected, and they could call and get permission. The lab eventually ran the test anyway in the last week of February, risking sanctions. But they could have identified community spread a few days earlier if given permission to test, as a sample from Feb. 24 was positive, with no association with travel, etc.

timothyu · May 27, 2020

Aldebaran said:
Is that why you're a Christian? Someone told you what to believe?

Somebody had to in the beginning. It was up so me to see past the human bias, which was not all that difficult.

tall73 · May 27, 2020

rambot said:
Is it common for private companies to create tests?

Regarding the problem with testing, this Washington Post article does seem to be behind a paywall, unfortunately. But I haven't seen the same reporting elsewhere. I will quote a bit of it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inve...7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html

The CDC facilities that assembled the kits violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process, the scientists said.

The cross contamination most likely occurred because chemical mixtures were assembled into the kits within a lab space that was also handling synthetic coronavirus material. The scientists also said the proximity deviated from accepted procedures and jeopardized testing for the virus.

The FDA’s examination of the CDC’s test kit exonerated its design — but concluded that the problem was caused by substandard manufacturing practices, according to an FDA statement. The FDA regulates the safety and effectiveness of medical devices, including the test kits manufactured to diagnose covid-19 disease in humans.

Officials at the CDC chose to have the test kits manufactured in-house, instead of by an outside contractor. The CDC facilities are typically staffed by experienced microbiologists and technicians, and the labs had successfully made test kits for other pathogens. Producing reliable test kits requires rigorous quality control.

After using the test to successfully diagnose the first U.S. patient, CDC technicians began a second phase of development — manufacturing the batch of kits that would go to the 26 public health labs. It was during this phase that the chemical materials for the kits became contaminated, according to a scientist with knowledge of what happened.

Because it worked in the first uncontaminated batch, it took time to track down what the problem was, leading to further delays. The CDC had produced and scaled such tests before. But their internal manufacturing system failed.

The FDA was brought into investigate, and found that they needed to have someone else manufacture it, which they did. And they found they could use the test without the third re-agent. So another agency came in to review the first, which is cooperation. But it took time to isolate the problem.

I am still not sure why the CDC didn't realize it could test with only two of the re-agents, as other countries were already doing. It would have been best to let them right away, and save weeks of delay.

tall73 · May 27, 2020

rambot said:
How does it work in other countries?

Now that I had time to look it up wanted to also give you information on the mask shortage in the stockpile.

PolitiFact

One thing the stockpile clearly doesn’t have enough of is face masks. News reports found that the N95 face masks were not substantially replenished after H1N1 in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration.

The Obama administration distributed 85 million N95 masks, 12.5 million regimens of antiviral drugs and 19.6 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) for H1N1, also called swine flu.

Since this happened under Obama's watch, and continued after, I am guessing this was not the result of firing the Obama team.

The Obama administration made reports that the equipment was needed. Congress appropriated a set amount for the stockpile, and the heads of the stockpile then prioritized what they wanted to add.

Face mask shortage in stockpile becomes political issue in election year

A review by CBS News of funding allocations showed similar priorities between the end of the Obama administration and into the the first two years of the Trump administration. Stockpile funding was largely devoted to ensuring the ability to respond to threats that included anthrax, smallpox and radiological or nuclear attacks. HHS estimated the necessary funding to be $325 million per year.

Last fall, under the Trump administration, the stockpile administrators and researchers added $170 million for new smallpox vaccines and $169 million for new anthrax antibiotics.

An administrator from the Obama administration said one focus after the 2009 H1N1 pandemic was developing new types of masks instead of restocking N95 masks that already existed in the commercial market. In the event of a crisis, the thinking went, the government could quickly buy existing models on the open market.

"There was a strong interest in developing better, more comfortable, reusable masks, which could then be purchased and stockpiled," Dr. Nicole Lurie, a former HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response whose division led the stockpile from 2009 to 2017, told CBS News

This continued. Here is the 2019 budget request:

Additional investments will include development of cost effective re-usable single size face masks and respirators.

Additional study on re-usable respirators

Summary - Reusable Elastomeric Respirators in Health Care - NCBI Bookshelf

It appears the administrators of the stockpile, under both Obama and Trump, prioritized viral treatment purchases over equipment, but also seemed to be depending on the development of multi-use respirators to address their shortages. This in theory sounded great, but they apparently never produced said respirators.

disciple Clint · May 27, 2020

iluvatar5150 said:
Here you go:
Former Obama Official Admits She Lied About Having Evidence of Russian Collusion

The OP in that thread quotes a story from Townhall which is itself a synopsis of a piece at The Federalist. The Federalist piece outright lies and several of us explain why it’s a lie.

Seriously, you may be right but I tried to follow those posts but I could not follow the arguments. Could you give me the shortcut to the Federalist article, I will look at it and check it for facts. Thanks

disciple Clint · May 27, 2020

SimplyMe said:
No, I'm sorry, the same can't actually be said about the vast majority of the MSM. One thing that can help is buy using sites like Media Bias/Fact Check. They do a good job of determining a sites biases, as well as rating -- and providing sources -- for why a site earns the rating it does. It is also worth noting that they are used by several conservative news sources, such as Breitbart and Forbes (you can find links on the sites front page).

But to give you examples: The Federalist is rated as being Right leaning and having a Mixed record on factual reporting, which in their rating system means that the Federalist is a questionable source. Now, to be fair, CNN and Fox are also rated as Mixed, though obviously CNN is rated Left and Fox is rated Right. By contrast, though, the Washington Post is rated as Left-Center and has a High rating for Accuracy, as does the NY Times. Politico is rated as Least Biased and have a High accuracy rating. On the other side, they list the California Republican as being factual (cannot find where they've failed a fact check) but a Right biased source (and only runs articles that favor the Right).

Personally, I prefer looking at articles from multiple sites -- including those that favor both the Left and the Right. You see how they are reported differently and apply critical thinking to find the truth of the story and get past the bias.

Thank you that was very helpful. I also like to use multiple sources for news.

KCfromNC · May 28, 2020

Can't help but realize that this is another thread encouraging people to make up failings for hypothetical Democrats rather than addressing the actual failings of real Republicans. Seems to be some consistent messaging coming from somewhere.

Aldebaran · May 28, 2020

timothyu said:
Somebody had to in the beginning. It was up so me to see past the human bias, which was not all that difficult.

Then it's up to each of us to ultimately make our own decisions.

timothyu · May 28, 2020

Aldebaran said:
Then it's up to each of us to ultimately make our own decisions.

Yet most seem to follow the traditions and governance of man rather than the governance of God which runs contrary.

jardiniere · May 28, 2020

SimplyMe said:
No, I'm sorry, the same can't actually be said about the vast majority of the MSM. One thing that can help is buy using sites like Media Bias/Fact Check. They do a good job of determining a sites biases, as well as rating -- and providing sources -- for why a site earns the rating it does. It is also worth noting that they are used by several conservative news sources, such as Breitbart and Forbes (you can find links on the sites front page).
<snip>

Personally, I prefer looking at articles from multiple sites -- including those that favor both the Left and the Right. You see how they are reported differently and apply critical thinking to find the truth of the story and get past the bias.

And here's what NewsGuard says about the credibility of the Federalist:

<snip>
Credibility
The Federalist has repeatedly published false information.

In late September and early October 2019, the site published several stories that falsely claimed that the U.S. intelligence community “secretly” changed a rule that allowed a whistleblower to file a complaint that prompted an impeachment inquiry of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The first story, published on Sept. 27, 2019, reported that “between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings” — a change, the article said, that apparently cleared the path for a whistleblower who had acknowledged receiving some secondhand information about a call between Trump and Ukraine’s president.

The Federalist was correct in reporting that there had been edits made to the form used by whistleblowers to file complaints that were made in August 2019. However, it was false to report that these changes altered the rules governing who could file complaints, or the evidence required to do so, since such changes can only be made through legislation.

The Federalist mischaracterized the May 2018 version of the form in its report, saying that the “urgent concern” form used by the whistleblower only said that in order to process a complaint, the whistleblower “must be in possession of reliable, first-hand information.” The article omitted other language that was part of the form, which specified that whistleblowers could make claims if others told them about questionable actions.

In fact, the revised, August 2019 form retained the guideline that allowed whistleblowers to file a complaint based on information that they received seco...<snip>

NewsGuard is a plugin for Firefox which gives shorthand information on the reliability of news and opinion sites it has reviewed, with in depth pages one can click on for citations of their results.[/QUOTE]

Aldebaran · May 28, 2020

timothyu said:
Yet most seem to follow the traditions and governance of man rather than the governance of God which runs contrary.

Then that's what they'll do. But they aren't being forced into doing anything other than what they decide to do. That's free will.

timothyu · May 28, 2020

Aldebaran said:
Then that's what they'll do. But they aren't being forced into doing anything other than what they decide to do. That's free will.

agreed. The enforcement burnings and lynchings have fallen away as a part of church culture... for now. But there is still a clash between scripture and religion, ideals of man and ideals of the kingdom even in these forums, a product of that free will. How a democrat would handle a situation compared to a republican is similar to how a worldly Christian views scripture compared to those of the Kingdom (except for the fact of course both dem and republican are both of the world).

What evidence is there that Democrats would've handled anything differently with Covid?

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