Progressives (Liberals)

coldjoint wrote:

Quote:

implicating Chinese people.

No, it does not, it identifies where the virus comes from. I know racism and oppression are all you got. People are bright enough not to blame anything on the Chinese people. Maybe you are not.

Yes it does. If he wanted to identify where the virus came from he could have used a more locational term like "China virus." Saying "Chinese" implies Chinese people.

Don't be a racist.

Stop oppressing people.

But the lack of someone in the White House to coordinate the response to a widespread disease outbreak in the U.S. is something numerous experts and groups at the time had cautioned against.

In a November 2019 report, the Center for Strategic & International Studies recommended restoring the global health security position on the NSC as one of seven key changes to better protect the American public from global health threats.

“It remains unclear who would be in charge at the White House in the case of a grave pandemic threat or cross-border biological crisis,” the report reads, noting that such leadership is “critical in navigating challenging political issues like quarantines and travel bans and in communicating to and reassuring the American public.”

“The authorities currently in place at HHS are insufficient to address these critical, complex, and often urgent interagency demands,” the report continues. “In addition to coordinating the interagency process, a global health security and biodefense directorate at the NSC can reform fragmented programs and ensure higher efficiencies, strengthened accountability, and better spending of scarce resources.”

We reached out to the White House press office, but we haven’t received any information on the NSC staffing.

He is talking to Blatham about his claim. 4 posts back.

The bottom line is, the story in the Vox piece is not invalidated by the FactCheck article.

It’s a waste of energy trying to reason with you.

Correct.

In a statement to Reuters, the U.S. CDC said the elimination of the adviser position did not hinder Washington’s ability to get information and “had absolutely nothing to do with CDC not learning of cases in China earlier.”

The agency said its decision not to have a resident adviser “started well before last summer and was due to China’s excellent technical capability and maturity of the program.”

The CDC said it has assigned two of its Chinese employees as “mentors” to help with the training program. The agency did not respond to questions about the mentors’ specific role or expertise.

“CDC has had a 30-year partnership with China CDC and close collaboration,” the statement said. “We had the right staff to engage China and ability to provide technical assistance were it requested.”

...

One disease expert told Reuters he was skeptical that the U.S. resident adviser would have been able to get earlier or better information to the Trump administration, given the Chinese government’s suppression of information.

“In the end, based on circumstances in China, it probably wouldn’t have had made a big difference,” Scott McNabb, who was a CDC epidemiologist for 20 years and is now a research professor at Emory University. “The problem was how the Chinese handled it. What should have changed was the Chinese should have acknowledged it earlier and didn’t.”

“It was heartbreaking to watch,” said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2007 and 2011. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.”

(...)

The CDC would not make Quick, who still works for the agency, available for comment.

(...)

The CDC team, aside from Quick, was housed at U.S. Embassy facilities. No American CDC staffer besides Quick was embedded with China’s disease control agency, the sources said.

(...)

Nevertheless, the infectious disease experts who spoke with Reuters said, the United States could use people like Quick with contacts on the ground, especially if fears of a second wave of infections materializes.

Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the CDC, said that if the U.S. resident adviser had still been in China, “it is possible that we would know more today about how this coronavirus is spreading and what works best to stop it.”

(...)

“The message from the administration was, ‘Don’t work with China, they’re our rival,’” Frieden said.

Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the CDC, said that if the U.S. resident adviser had still been in China, “it is possible that we would know more today about how this coronavirus is spreading and what works best to stop it.”

Quote:

blatham wrote:
Correct.

But it's not.

Possible, eh? What the hell does that mean?

It's also "possible" that Trump could have nuked the entire city where this kung flu started and saved both China and the entire world a lot of grief.

Looks like the people who still work there want to keep their jobs and the people who've left are free to speak the truth. Sounds like the CDC is engaging in damage control.

Frieden's statement represents the opinion of someone who directed the CDC and suggests that we lost an opportunity.

"Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure."
NBC: "What would be your message to the American public?"
Woman: "Oh my God. Don't take anything. Don't believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the President says & his people...call your doctor." https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1242212084647104514

So that "suggests" to me that Joe Biden fucks farm animals.

Quote:

Possible, eh? What the hell does that mean?

You know what it means, as you were able to come up with an example.

Quote:

It's also "possible" that Trump could have nuked the entire city where this kung flu started and saved both China and the entire world a lot of grief.

Frieden's statement represents the opinion of someone who directed the CDC and suggests that we lost an opportunity when the embedded epidemiologist's position was cut. So I take it with a greater degree of seriousness than I do the fanciful scenario which you just made up and isn't based on any direct experience. A possibility is distinct from an event which can be shown to have occurred. So what?

“In the end, based on circumstances in China, it probably wouldn’t have had made a big difference,” Scott McNabb, who was a CDC epidemiologist for 20 years and is now a research professor at Emory University. “The problem was how the Chinese handled it. What should have changed was the Chinese should have acknowledged it earlier and didn’t.”