Why US Failed to Build a Ventilator Stockpile (March, dollar, vs)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A REAL leader says "the buck stops with me." Trump doesn't do that and always deflects blame at someone else. Trump is not a real leader, he is simply a fraud. I didn't vote Obama either time, but he was a real leader. For all the bad calls W. Bush and Clinton made, they were real leaders.
Yup. I was No fan of G.W but I’d take him in a heartbeat if we could.
A REAL leader says "the buck stops with me." Trump doesn't do that and always deflects blame at someone else. Trump is not a real leader, he is simply a fraud. I didn't vote Obama either time, but he was a real leader. For all the bad calls W. Bush and Clinton made, they were real leaders.
How are you holding the Trump Administration accountable for this as it's only had less than three months so far to deal with it?
How are you holding the Trump Administration accountable for this as it's only had less than three months so far to deal with it?
He had three years to plan for a virtual pandemic. Reports show that he was briefed on this back in December 2016. He knew about this particular CcoronaVirus strain in December 2019 and prior to making the Chinese travel ban and from that point doing nothing until the Dow Jones crashed. Yeah, great leadership there...
He had three years to plan for a virtual pandemic. Reports show that he was briefed on this back in December 2016. He knew about this particular CcoronaVirus strain in December 2019 and prior to making the Chinese travel ban and from that point doing nothing until the Dow Jones crashed. Yeah, great leadership there...
And the Obama Administration had 8 years, two pandemics and one epidemic and what exactly did that administration do?
And the Obama Administration had 8 years, two pandemics and one epidemic and what exactly did that administration do?
Um, that administration controlled those epidemics to the point where they didn't cause a total economic shutdown. It did that in large part by taking them seriously from Day One rather than going into denialism.
Our government did not sign a well-thought-out contract. It's common for small businesses to be bought out by larger ones, it's common for there to be mergers like that. Our government contracted with a company, why didn't stipulate that they could not sell their company out from under the US government and then refuse to fulfill their contract?
This was a trend with our federal government over the last 10 years or more they didn't properly stock ventilators the used up masks face Shields gowns and other PPE during SARS and H1N1 virus, and they never restocked the PPE that they used. I mean it's total incompetence from the federal government.
The US tried to build a ventilator stockpile years ago, but this article explains why that effort failed:
The US does have a ventilator stockpile.
That stockpile was increased after the pH1N1 pandemic in 2009 that originated in Canada and killed 9,000 to 18,000 Americans according to the CDC.
Read:
Assuming a moderate, 2009-type influenza pandemic, the authors estimate a 30% chance of this expected unmet need occurring. To meet this level of unmet demand in Texas, planning for a moderate or a severe pandemic requires stockpiling as few as 1,172 or as many as 15,697 ventilators, respectively. However, actually deploying and using such high volumes of mechanical ventilators would be challenging in terms of having enough hospital space and staff to support additional ventilator use.
[emphasis added]
It's easy for non-starters and the not-too-bright to scream, "Stockpile ventilators!" but there are inherent logistical problems that people who don't know what they're talking about are too lame to envision.
1) You have to have the money to buy the ventilators, because Santa Claus doesn't give them to you for free;
2) You have to have space to stockpile the ventilators, and space costs money and you have to rent or purchase space, because the Easter Bunny isn't going to give you the space for free;
3) Your stockpile has to be secured and maintained lest it be damaged, spoiled or not in good working order, or stolen and the Tooth Fairy does not provide security and maintenance for free;
4) In any crisis, you need people to operate those ventilators, because they're not self-driving ventilators that drive to a patient, set themselves up and start operating and you also need to get the patients to the ventilators in the stockpile or be able to deliver the ventilators to the patients because the Enchanted Unicorn doesn't make that happen.
There is way too much POTUS blaming here as for some reason you're expecting the POTUS to know every single item going on in their administrations. Who should be held accountable are the people who were in charge of these contracts that have spanned three administrations, spent Millions of dollars on and have gotten nothing to show for it. This has been going on for 16 years. Also keep in mind that if we had enough ventilators, we'd still need the disposable parts that are replaced on a near daily basis. So depending on who is using what manufacturers ventilator and the size of a persons face, hoses and pressure chambers, figure on around eight parts need to available daily. That's nearly 3000 parts over the course of a year for "each" machine. As each item has a shelf life, for non-pandemic years that turns a lot of waste.
Now looking at the span of years these contracts have been going on and the last two pandemics, then the administration that's held it the longest and doing nearly nothing has been the Obama Administration.
I would add that it is not George Bush's fault, not Barack Obama's fault, and it's not Donald Trump's fault. The fault lies squarely with the career professionals who work in our federal health care agencies. They're the ones who let us down, they are the ones who spent 16 years not properly restocking the national stockpile with ventilators. Remember they didn't STOCK enough PPE either, so the ventilator fiasco is not a one off.
All because they had some cool new idea that little portable ones be really nice to have. So when that deal fell through, those career professional should have made sure that we had ventilators in the stockpile. And then later on they go ahead with their plans to pursue they're small portable ventilators and then slowly integrate those into the stockpile
I think it's fair to say that the ventilator issue is multi administration failure but only Trump basically shut down the entire mechanism for Pandemic response.
Not a fan of Obama, if his decision on the States being responsible for emergency responses and forming 5heor own stockpiles, then it was the right decision.
IMHO, Obama wasn’t a good leader, butwithout question, he’s a good man.
If you consider an anti-American who hates whites, hates police, hates military, and who spent eight years doing everything in his power to bring America to her knees a good man, then you are correct. He was/is the great race divider, the damage he has done will take many years to undo. Fortunately we now have Trump who has done wonders undoing the obama messes.
As much as I hate that despicable man, I don't believe the venerates ever got up to his level, he wasn't given the chance to screw that one up....
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.