After the community decided that President Trump is “fair” game and after having multiple comments temped from the Covid19-March thread in the Health and Fitness forum, I stopped posting there several days ago. I think many posters on this website are made to feel safer and happier expressing a fear and loathing for Trump, which (if I squint hard enough) I think is understandable.
Hence this thread, which is designed to include a fair defense of Trump and a discussion, pub/IP style, of the possible impacts of Covid19 on the US 2020 elections. Hopefully posters who are perhaps more anxious/fearful by nature and who avoid participation in IP will not feel threatened by the discussion here.
Kicking it off with a reasonTV clip that discusses attempts to bypass the kinds of Federal regulations that inhibit new vaccine development. This kind of biz regulation busting is what Trump has been famous for so far in his first term.
If these start-ups can synthesize a DIY vaccine for Covid19 outside FDA regulation, should it be allowed to go to market?
Trump’s using emergency power very wisely.
Allowing doctors to cross state lines for virus treatment demand needs.
Allowing hospitals to increase # of beds in case they are needed (regulations limit them somehow)
Speeding up drug testing.
Getting Walmart to open its parking spaces for walk-through testing, etc.
All kinds of other positive actions unseen yet in the U.S. that are too many to name here.
It would be my hope that the Trump administration would used this time to their advantage. By studying the fallout to see how to really bring back jobs and not be dependent on foriegn supply chains.
It also is my hope that health care, raising the minimum wage takes center stage in debates
This is really very opportune time for a savy, disciplined politician. If any of the candidates can tap into the conversation Americans are having about this situation, I believe they have a strong chance at a landslide.
I feel for the people who, because of lack of insurance, inability to get insured or inability to pay hospital bills will be fearful of going to the hospital to get proper care and unwittingly spread the virus or even die.
I think this might push people towards A universal system, whether it be Medicare for All or another idea.
One thing that nobody has really talked about afaik is that Trump has won a slam dunk on the issue of the border wall. Will def contribute to flattening the infections parabola. He’s also pointed out, years ago, that the costs of open trade with China were potentially much higher than simply lost mfg jobs.
I have to wonder if it’s smart strategy for the Democrat prez candidate (whoever that is) to debate Trump at all late this summer and early fall, since obviously Trump is going to bring up Democrat intransigence on controlling the borders, free healthcare for illegal immigrants who make it through an unprotected border, abolition/gelding of ICE and the CBP, sanctuary cities, etc.
Trump has been way out in front of almost everything re:Covid19. Not only has the Democrat party lagged the curve, they’ve argued long and hard for policies that would have been damaging to any halt of an imported pandemic.
So my take on the DIY vaccine is that yes, if one were invented in a guy’s garage that proved safe and effective, then the FDA should step aside and allow it to come to market.
By coming to market, I don’t necessarily mean the inventor is free to price gouge. Could be smarter for the Fed govt to license the patent for a flat fee (or a variable one), and then offer the vaccine to all Americans independent of health insurance.
Would be far, far less costly than nationalizing healthcare or simply allowing the economy to crash and trying to use quant easing to reinflate it.
It’s an interesting area of investment. Jobs invented Apple in his garage, and Bill Gates invented early DOS in his. Would be very nice to see the market come up with a fast and effective vaccine. Will happen much sooner privately than if the gubmint has it’s big nose in the way.
Not a one-variable function of time, that. Depends on the content of the supply chain, the source, the finished/assembled product, labor capacity, and capital needs in the US.
Now if you mean that it’s impossible to snap one’s fingers and poof, new supply chain, then yeah can’t be done overnight. But I don’t think the poster meant or even implied that.
Enabling MDs to practice across state lines will have huge impact, as will easing other regulations on # of beds and hospital configurations.
This kind of sweeping away of biz regs is something Trump has been very successful at since taking office in 2017.
We in the US are very fortunate to have in office a prez who starts from a position of distrust of biz regulations. God I can’t imagine the hell the US would be facing now if Hillary! had won.
Scott Adams makes an interesting argument that we can quantify the cost of impeachment. Not in $, but in lives. His point is that we should have been focusing on Covid19 by January 2020 at the latest, so that we could be 3D printing ventilators and making decisions about flattening the infection curve by late February.
It’s probably not possible to paint Trump as a total villain here, although we are certainly seeing heroic efforts in that direction.
An example of Trump’s White House warnings about outsourcing to China of manufacturing critical to national security, this from last summer.
And sure enough, China’s response is in the second article below, from FOX yesterday.
[Christopher Priest, acting deputy assistant director for health care operations and Tricare for the Defense Health Agency] told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that the White House National Security Council is trying to identify medications most at risk if the Chinese decide to use drug supply as a weapon. An NSC spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
In an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency that’s largely considered the mouthpiece of the party, Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in the city of Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge America into “the mighty sea of coronavirus.”
Yes, Trump has been trying to do something about that since the day he got in and been fighting resistance from all those involved. He brought up the issue of Steel initially and has been encouraging firms to reinvest in the US and further brought tariffs to bring about the same.
Back in January when he first initiated a travel ban from China the Democrats and media were too busy trying to impeach him with noticing the Coronavirus. Now the supply chain issue comes into focus and about 3 years after Trump started pushing it, they all have a fantastic idea, the same one they have been mocking him relentlessly for 3 years.
