Sunday, March 29, 2020

Pathogen Preparations: Another Failure of Fake Meritocracy

In the past, I read a few PDFs on pathogen preparedness, policy recommendations written by establishment groups. I don't remember much about the PDFs or who wrote them. What I do remember: the PDFs were filled with the vapid generalities groups driven by groupthink and opportunism write.

For specifics, the PDFs had many so-and-so will be in charge of such-and-such claims. B should take orders from A. X should get training from Y. The type of thinking befitting a nation dominated by oligarchal neoconservatism. Some organizational stuff is helpful, but far more was required.

To be fair, obscure websites likely had better prescriptions that I, or most others, never found.

Nowhere did I read: We must stockpile thousands of ventilators. We must stockpile billions of PPE supplies, then rotate the stock. We should domestically produce far more nurses and physicians. We must take on the forces keeping supplies low. We must require the government to buy nearly all its supplies from domestic manufacturers to keep domestic suppliers viable. We must eviscerate the power of finance, health insurers, and other parasitic oligopolies. We must improve BSL safety.

Those would have been bridges too far or too painful for elites--Operation Cronyistic Market Failure.