Going to war against the Wuhan (COVID-19) virus, awakens American to the on-going need to combat natural-arising, accidentally-released, or intentionally-targeted, biohazards with a counter-contagion force. Is it time to put the Pentagon in charge of pandemic prevention?
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11 replies on “Counter-Contagion Force: Put Pentagon in Charge of Pandemic Prevention”
never attribute to malice what you can easily attribute to stupidity
Intentional stupidity so that mistakes will certainty be made followed by plausible deniability for the inevitable deadly consequences.
“Who me? It was the people I selected to provide the service that failed. It is all their fault.”
Bottom line: he who selects the parts, owns the consequences.
Every time I hear bill say “China released this virus on purpose” I cringe.
it is far more reasonable to believe (as does Sen. Cotton and Cruz) that the Wuhan laboratory got lazy, and some virus accidentally got out. And that the CCP was so embarrassed (and the local communist leaders were also too embarrassed to tell their boss, without heavy threats) that they covered it up.
The Cover-up was on purpose, but there is no need to accuse China of intentionally putting the virus out to the world.
When Bill does this, he accidentally leaves himself open to easy criticism.
If I understand Bill’s suggestion correctly, I see immense dangers in it. Every pan-national entity who wants to get on the bandwagon will get even fatter, and sovereign bribery will be an out-of-control train. Here’s why: global understanding of potential infections depends on voluntary inputs and, while the US may be able unilaterally to identify and even track suspicious hotspots or activities via technology, it will then need to be able to go in with scientists, do sampling and run tests. But few nations on Earth will agree to US scientists and testing folks unilaterally entering their sovereign territory. The “solution” will be for international bodies (esp the UN) with the requisite “moral authority” to agree terms of engagement on a multilateral basis in order to legitimise entry and testing activities. Obviously, that will mutate in nanoseconds into ever higher budgets, new international bureaucracies and all sorts of creative sovereign bribery (in the name of aid or research grants, anyone?) to dozens of countries to obtain their agreement to entry and testing protocols. And you can only imagine how denuded such protocols will be and how easy it will remain for bad actors to hide stuff, like China has surely done. Maybe this isn’t what Bill is suggesting – Scott and Bill seem to me to be talking about different things – but if so I have no clear sense of what is being proposed.
Scott, I would love to see a show where y’all delve more deeply into … liberty vs. safety. Times are changing, from a technological point of view, from a societal point of view, etc. I reckon I hasome Libertarian blood in me in that I believe my right to swing my fists around ends at your nose. With that in mind, why shouldn’t somebody (a.k.a. The government) surveillance my body temperature etc. remotely? Why shouldn’t facial recognit cameras be used to determine if there is a warrant out for my arrest? Why … ! Well, you get the picture. In 2020 society, in the United States, what do you fellas reckon is … reasonable?
As a follow-up, do I have a right to gaze at you in public? If so, what is so different from a remote camera taking your picture? If I see you on, say a train, what is so different from the train line recording that you were on the train and then sharing that information with the government? Look, these sorts of things make me uncomfortable. VERY uncomfortable! But, I’m over 70 and I recognize that this ain’t my day no mo!
What I hear in this proposal: The full-employment stimulus for grant writers for medical laboratories, exploring “research” projects like “How to Eat Bat-On-a-Stick without contracting COVID-20: a proposal to bring globalism in wet markets to food deserts in economically depressed blighted urban areas.”
Scott – I just posted a video from 2005 of President Bush giving a speech on Pandemic Preparedness. Please check it out and suggest for Bill and Steve as well.
Kind of made me angry that this was 15 years ago.
It is an interesting concept. I also do not like the idea of putting more power intothe federal government.
If this were a type of Manhattan Project where the military uses its resources to look out for the threats and coordinates the efforts of civilian experts, I could more easily get on board. The truth is there is a great deal of effort being done on viruses, but it is being done in many places and other than the typical sharing of knowledge at conferences and journals, there is probably a lot of duplication. The total funding for this is probably less than a Marvel movie. So it can certainly be ratcheted up several levels.
The short term benefits would probably be highly beneficial: better vaccine protocols, earlier recognition, and the like.
Maybe we would even be able to cure one virus; something we cannot do now.
All in all – A very good launch point for what should be a national discussion.
The after action report will hopefully be very specific as to next steps to prevent this is the short term and hopefully not have to shut down everything. It will more likely be a partisan finger pointing exercise in how to blame Trump.
Ralph, is this not, perhaps, a Manhattan Project in its own right? There is no right answer, I suspect. I am torn on this.
Clever, but yes it is. I did a review of stats from John’s Hopkins covid-19 Map about 2 weeks ago. Since they break out counties I cold get data for all the counties in the NYC Statistical Zone. The population of those counties is approximately 20 Million, or nearly 1/16 of the US (6.25%) They had almost 40% of the deaths. The other 93+% of the country has 60%. So this really is a NYC (extended) problem. I need to update those numbers and maybe put it here as a blog post.