On 12/29/20, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Over and beyond the total bumbling of the COVID-19 Pandemic, from the
concealing of the rapid spread to the fumbling of the distribution of
the vaccine, as indefensible as all of that is, it pales beside the
deliberate
separation of children from their families, and deliberately losing
them from ever being reunited.
But there have been too many deliberate screw ups to pick just one.
If I had to, despite the on going suffering inflicted on Americans due
to an uncaring government, I would pick the pardon of four Blackwater
murderers by Donald Trump. So much is said by this one act. For a
very emotional account of that slaughter, and the nine year old boy
who was cut down in front of his father, and the bare face lies told
before a judge, go to, democracynow.org and listen to today's program.
If anyone needs a clear picture of the man we put in power in 2016,
just look at who and how many executions going forward, and who Donald
Trump is pardoning.
Donald Trump has no redeeming grace. His contempt for the average
American, and his open trashing of women and people of color, makes
the point.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/28/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Published on
Monday, December 28, 2020
byBeat the Press
Is the Distribution of Vaccines the Biggest Trump Screw-Up Yet?
We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the
day
a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure.
byDean Baker
President Trump speaks at the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit on
December 8, 2020, in Washington, D.C.
President Trump speaks at the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit on
December 8, 2020, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty
Images)
The Washington Post tells us that 7.7 million first doses of vaccines
have
been shipped to date (two million shots have been given), with a target
of
16 million by the end of the year. This is warp speed?
By comparison, we manage to get over 170 million flu shots in people's
arms
every year, without any heroic efforts by the government and the
military.
Most of those doses are given over roughly a four-month period, which
means
a bit less than 1.5 million a day. That puts our flu shot delivery system
ahead of Donald Trump's warp speed. What the f**k?
"We should have had major warehouses located around the country so that
as
soon as the FDA green-lighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered
to
hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country."
Last week I wrote a piece asking why we didn't have 400 million doses of
vaccines on hand by the start of December. Of course production takes
time,
and we didn't know back in the summer which vaccines would prove
effective,
but so what?
We could have started mass production of every vaccine that entered Phase
3
trials. If some of them proved to be ineffective, we would have wasted
some
money, but the cost would be trivial. The per shot cost of a vaccine is
in
the range of $2-$4. This means if we had to throw 200 million vaccines in
the toilet, we would have wasted $800 million dollars, using the higher
end
estimate. That is less than 20 percent of the two-year cost of Donald
Trump's three martini lunch tax break and less than 1 percent of the size
of
the double-dip tax break, allowing companies to write off expenses that
were
reimbursed under the paycheck protection program.
Along with massive production of vaccines, they should have been
pre-positioned to allow for faster distribution. We should have had major
warehouses located around the country so that as soon as the FDA
green-lighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered to hospitals and
clinics in every corner of the country.
The basic point here is that we have two distinct processes. One is the
manufacture and distribution of the vaccines. The other is the
determination
that they are safe and effective. These can go on simultaneously.
We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the
day
a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure, or as Donald
Trump
would say, #MAGA!.
