Who’s to blame for the ventilator and mask shortages . It ain’t us

Not sure if anybody saw this but I felt it was worth sharing. Especially after watching Andrew grab the headlines blaming everything republican. Then tug at liberal heart strings shamelessly using his mother as a advantage.

No Andy quit blaming everybody. Your the one that dropped the ball on this one.

It’s a little late. Several years ago, after learning that the Empire State’s stockpile of medical equipment had 16,000 fewer ventilators than the 18,000 New Yorkers would need in a severe pandemic, state public-health leaders came to a fork in the road.
They could have chosen to buy more ventilators to back up the supplies hospitals maintain. ­Instead, the health commissioner, Howard Zucker, assembled a task force for rationing the ventilators they already had.

In 2015, the state could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece, or a total of $576 million. It’s a lot of money, but in hindsight, spending half a percent of the budget to prepare for pandemic was the right thing to do.

Source


The next question on everyone’s mind is . How could the current administration be so ill prepared that they didn’t have enough safety masks on hand ?

Well that was their guys fault too.

Now as it will probably be 20 years from now. All roads lead to Obama.

The national shortage of N95 respirator masks can be traced back to 2009 after the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, when the Obama administration was advised to replenish a national stockpile but did not, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times.

Snip

In 2009, the H1N1 outbreak hit the United States, leading to 274,304 hospitalizations, 12,469 deaths, and a depletion of N95 respirator masks.
A federally backed task force and a safety equipment organization both recommended to the Obama administration that the stockpile be replenished with the 100 million masks used after the H1N1 outbreak.
Charles Johnson, president of the International Safety Equipment Association, said that advice was never heeded.

Source

The bottom line is. A well-designed strategic pandemic stock pile . Doesn’t function very well if you don’t stockpile it.

Instead they acted like good little politicians and passed the buck .

Working for the main stream media would be a dream job. We could research all the relevant facts. Then get paid for not running them.

Awww..... there was a rush on stick matches..... who is responsible for the shortage as people hoard them ?

See.......... it's the people, not any government . Who would of thought That Item would be a target. I recall seeing plenty of gloves and masks in stores, but people came and swept whole shelves empty with one sweep of their arm hoarding out of frantic fear.

So I'm just saying that the publics behavior made it a target. It could change to anything. Charcoal briquettes, paper plates, ice, salt, and on and on..

a reply to: Fallingdown

I'm no Obama fan, but it's been long enough that if the stockpiles were being properly assessed it should have been corrected by now. Does it rest entirely on the shoulders of POTUS, Obama or Trump? Somewhat I guess. There is an overall lack of accountability and it's shocklingly worse the more people get paid and the more responsibility they should have.

I'm not hopeful it will change overall, I do think Trump will follow through after this pandemic response and properly prepare for the next.

a reply to: Fallingdown

Thank you for this info.

SnF

a reply to: Fallingdown

Over here that would be Tory austerity and NHS cuts for about the past decade.

With Sars materializing a few years back now and The Spanish Flu on record only 100 years distant that killed between 50-200 million people "they" knew something like Covid 19 could be on the cards.

a reply to: Plotus

Who would have thought?!?! I don't know maybe the experts who get paid to plan and advise on the matter? I mean really though who woulda thought if the public panicked they wouldn't act human and try to get access to the items they need for protection? Who woulda thought that once the run on these items...like with any other common disaster like hurricanes...that people wouldn't hoard and try to price gouge these items?

This is why people say Idiocracy was a documentary...I agree more every day.

a reply to: Fallingdown

first question - who would operate and maintain +16k ventilators ???

next - initial outlay = $550 million

thats just bare units

add consumables and periodic calibratoion // service [ even when unused ]

and the killer - ventilators are only any use for a limited range of disasters

and are a white elephant the rest of the time

assuming you buy +16k ventilators

what about all the other senarios - where no ammont of ventilators will help ?????????

and infact that $550 million - is now tied up in useless ventilators - when you need other stuff for the issue de jour

originally posted by: RickyD

Who would have thought?!?! I don't know maybe the experts who get paid to plan and advise on the matter?

Yea, well you see there WAS an agency dedicated to pandemic planning. We also had someone embedded with China's equivalent of the CDC to monitor emerging diseases. That agency was disbanded in 2018 and the CDC liaison (who was there specifically to give us advanced warning) was removed last August.

Who was the genius that made those decisions?

The most common and standard shelf life of an N95 mask is five years from its production date.

www.echofavor.com...

Have the expired ones been replaced during Trump's tenure? This is not a place where blame can be placed on the previous administration or this administration.

a reply to: Fallingdown

A hardware store near my house told me that they were told to ship all their masks to China, in December.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Told by whom?

Did they do it?

a reply to: jtma508

And when that agency was no one listened anyway...so whats your point other than political brownie points.

On the topic of CDC they have their own share in this mess...right back to deciding They wanna use the new complicated 3 strain tests that didn't work due to an error in the chemicals used...thats why we didnt have tests...wonder who made those tests...and cashed those government checks?

a reply to: Phage

I blame them all...apparently they are all that dumb.

No Andy quit blaming everybody. Your the one that dropped the ball on this one.

Well, Cuomo certainly doesn't have an issue spending money:

Cuomo has wasted billions, and somehow he’s still here

The governor's Buffalo Billion and other revitalization projects have brought more headaches -- and in some cases convictions -- than jobs.

Then there’s the $8 million the governor spent putting up enormous “I ♥ NEW YORK” signs along the state’s highways. These signs are so egregious that the federal Department of Transportation ruled them a safety hazard and fined the state $14 million.

nypost.com...

a reply to: Plotus

See.......... it's the people, not any government . Who would of thought That Item would be a target. I recall seeing plenty of gloves and masks in stores, but people came and swept whole shelves empty with one sweep of their arm hoarding out of frantic fear.

For many items, yes.
But ventilators?
Who in the hell is hoarding them?
Not everyday people.
Not really anyone, I expect.

a reply to: RickyD

I worded it badly. "Equally to blame" would have been better.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: MotherMayEye

Told by whom?

Did they do it?

The shelves were completely empty. She told me that when I asked when they ran out.

I didn't bother asking any other questions because the lady started lecturing me about buying gloves. I told her I had kids and they were worried we hadn't bought anything yet. This was early-mid January.

Spot on..... and it's sad too... huh..!a reply to: RickyD

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won’t get sick.

Viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate most masks.

The shelves were/are completely empty of a lot more than just masks.

a reply to: Fallingdown

President Trump mentioned at a press briefing the other day how the Obama Administration left the country with empty stockpiles of a lot of things.

Thank you for digging up the specifics and sharing them here with us.