2021.01.02 08:39
https://apnews.com/article/ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a
Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised
They’ve been warning about the next pandemic for years and criticized the Trump administration’s decision in 2018 to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.(from the text)
*I would like to propose "National anti-pandemic force" that is equivalent to military force for
national defense. Pandemic does not come as often as the war, but but both do not experience
the real thing frequently enough to have their skills up to date without training and its preparedness.
Headquarters is in Washington under the federal government. It should be organized throughout nation
to reach every town in America with voluntary and full-time employees together. They will participate
in the distribution of equipment for testing, vaccination, treatment, and protective gear for health care workers.
They will organize testing sites, treatment facilities, and contact tracing and quarantine. It should have
the authority to transact seamlessly through a fragmented profit-driven US health care system. It should also
be able to break the walls set up by the states. The force must be trained with periodic mobilization.
We felt that national security can be shaken by the virus just as much as a foreign invasion. We saw
how badly prepared the US was. FEMA, Army Corps of engineers, NSC, CDC, 51 state governments
and national guards.... all contribute their resources to the anti-pandemic work without central
coordination, not to mention fragmented profit driven health care system.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/01/politics/states-struggle-chaos-vaccine-distribution-warp-speed/index.html
A new year brings same problems with delayed vaccine distribution
In West Virginia, for instance, 42 people were mistakenly given a Covid-19 antibody treatment instead of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the West Virginia National Guard. In Wisconsin, police have arrested a recently fired pharmacist who they say removed 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine from a local hospital's refrigerator and left them to sit out, leading to 500 doses being discarded.