America held hostage ... by Congressional Democrats (COVID-19) | A Pragmatist's Take | Douglas Moran | Palo Alto Online |

Local Blogs

A Pragmatist's Take

By Douglas Moran

E-mail Douglas Moran

About this blog: Real power doesn't reside with those who make the final decision, but with those who decide what qualifies as the viable choices. I stumbled across this insight as a teenager (in the 1960s). As a grad student, I belonged to an org...  (More)

View all posts from Douglas Moran

America held hostage ... by Congressional Democrats (COVID-19)

Uploaded: Apr 9, 2020
If you can't accept that criticism of one political party isn't necessarily advocacy for another, this blog is not for you.

Unemployment claims this week were 6.6 million, added to the 10 million claims in the previous two weeks (3.3 + 6.6). This is reportedly about 10% of the entire US labor force, and may be higher because unemployment offices have been overwhelmed. This exceeded the worst projections of economists: 5 million claims for last week which are 76% of what happened. Senate Republicans proposed adding $250 billion to the $350 billion ($600 billion total) to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that provides forgivable loans to small businesses to keep people on the payroll. The initial $350M allowed loans of up to $10M but averaged out to about $16K per small business. Because of the urgency, loans were provided on a first-come-first-served bias through already established mechanisms ... Small Business Administration (SBA) loans administered by banks. PPP is already overwhelmed by applications.

Keeping people on payrolls allows them to continue making a range of monthly payments, for example, one-third of renters failed to make their April payment. It also keeps them from being dropped from their employers' medical insurance. And importantly, it speeds recovery because surviving businesses don't have the delays of deciding whether and who to hire.

So what was the response of Senate Democrats? They blocked the bill until next week and are insisting on a range of additions. Some would delay aid by adding complexity and requiring a significant portion of the funding be administered by banks not already set up to handle SBA loans. Some were for programs for worthy recipients (hospitals, states, ...) that aren't in dire need, for example, still having funds available. And some was just left-wing ideology.

Unemployment destroys lives, both physically and mentally. Senate Democrats have made it clear that their ideology takes precedence over the lives of Americans, and that they are willing to hold us hostage to get what they want.

After passing the "CARES Act" (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act), the Republican-dominated Senate and the Democratic-dominated House adjourned for a multi-week vacation. According to multiple political analysts, the power of the majority and minority leadership of both houses was strengthen by the (deliberate?) failure to provide for remote voting. During this recess, bills can only pass by unanimous consent.

Congressional Democrats similarly delayed the passage of the CARES Act, although it was only by a few days -- from Monday March 23 to Friday March 27 -- those were critical days because people who lose their job typically lose their medical insurance on the first of the next month. This delay makes a mockery of Democrats purported concern about people having medical coverage.

During the weekend of March 21-22, some Senators from both parties worked out a compromise CARES Act that had broad support and was expected to be quickly passed on Monday. Although corporate Democrats and Republicans dominated the Senate, a small group of Senators managed to get a significant amount included for individuals and small businesses. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) is widely mentioned in media reports as the primary advocate for small businesses, with some also mentioning Ben Cardin (D-Maryland). For direct payments to individuals, the primary advocate seems to have been Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), with Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) providing supportive words from the campaign trail.

However, on Sunday night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democratic Senators to vote against the bill, and only one disobeyed (Doug Jones, D-Alabama). Pelosi's objected to the amount for big corporations, that is, it wasn't enough and needed to include more of the ones "supporting" Democrats. And she wanted funding for parts of the Democratic agenda unrelated to the coronavirus crisis. And she wanted to impose additional costs and regulations on businesses -- what better time than during a recession/depression (dripping sarcasm).(foot#1)(foot#2)

The bill included an "oversight" provision that was toothless and would not report until well after its findings had become irrelevant (except to historians and their equivalents in academic Political Science and Economics). Such oversight is a well-established mechanism for politicians to escape accountability.

Pelosi said that she would appoint a special House committee to monitor the spending, although to make it official she will have to wait until the House returns from vacation. And who did she say would be the head of this committee? James Clyburn (D-South Carolina) who is number 3 in the Democratic House Leadership (title: Majority Whip). In a phone call of March with Democratic House members, he said that the bill provided "a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision."(foot#3)

A rant: Establishment/corporate Republicans in the Senate deserve their own call-out: They wanted to cut the unemployment provision by half on the theory that "too generous" benefits would encourage workers to quit their jobs (without good cause). This ignored that you are eligible for unemployment if you quit. It ignored decades of psychological research on the importance of jobs to most people. It ignored almost 100 years of experience. This faulty assumption that people don't take pride in working and their work is part of the dominant ideology of the current Republican Party and its contempt for the working class and much of the middle class.

As opposed to the dominant faction of the current Democratic Party which is corporatist -- transferring wealth and power to the already rich and powerful -- and dividing the spoils to maintain the loyalty of various constituencies (details in video ^The Rules for Rulers^ (9:32) - CGP Grey, 2016-10-24). The lesser faction believes that people outside the elite/select (known elsewhere as a the "vanguard") need to be micromanaged to do the "right" thing, including forceful measures being needed and justified to eliminate "wrong-think". While this faction will be allowed some influence, it is likely to continue to be marginalized and patronized. Why? Because the Left has over 200 years of history of "eating its own", interspersed with self-sabotage. Its opponents need only wait for it to eviscerate (gut) itself.

Although populists seem to be the most numerous in the Republican Party base/electorate, they are very thinly represented among the elected officials. However, its Congress members have demonstrated outsized influence in critical areas on the coronavirus bills and funding. Democratic Party discipline appears to have suppressed the equivalent within their ranks.
End rant

Aside: The phrase "America held hostage" comes from the title of an ABC-TV late-night news show during the 1979-1981 ^Iranian Hostage Crisis^. That show morphed into Nightline.

----My other blogs on coronavirus (COVID-19)----
"Is Palo Alto prepared for a Coronavirus outbreak?", 2020-01-30.

"Coronavirus (COVID-19): Underappreciated Unknowns & inexplicable failures", 2020-02-28.

"Preparing for COVID-19: An epidemic is not a hurricane. Panic buying harmful", 2020-03-03.

"COVID-19: Critiquing News Releases: What's missing + teachable opportunities", 2020-03-19.

"Remember the failures for when it's time for fixes: COVID-19", 2020-03-27.

"Profiteering off medical equipment and its export unimpeded", 2020-04-03.

----Footnotes----
1. Conservative opinion writer's view on Pelosi version:
"^Democrats try to hijack coronavirus stimulus for liberal Christmas in March: Every time the country faces a crisis, real or perceived, there is a rush in Congress to pass massive bills that go far beyond responding to the matter at hand^" by James S. Robbins, USA Today, 2020-03-23.

2. New York Times spinning the news to favor Democrats:
They changed the headline of one article:
(1) "Democrats Block Action on $1.8 Trillion Stimulus"
(2) "Democrats Block Action on Stimulus Plan, Seeking Worker Protections"
(3) "Partisan Divide Threatens Deal on Rescue Plan"
I didn't find an archive site tracking these three changes, but they reportedly occurred within one hour. They were widely ridiculed in the media, for example, "^Trump rips NY Times for altering coronavirus negotiations headline 'to satisfy the radical left'^" - The Hill, 2020-03-23.
----
There was ^another set of changes recorded^, apparently after the above:
(a) "Emergency Economic Rescue Plan in Limbo as Democrats Raise Objections" (Sunday March 22, 4:25 PM ET)
(b) "Emergency Economic Rescue Plan in Limbo as Democrats Block Action" (later on Sunday March 22).

3. Clyburn's statement to House Democrats
The articles I saw all appeared to be based upon "^Dem Rep. Told Colleagues Coronavirus Bill Is 'Tremendous Opportunity to Restructure Things to Fit Our Vision'^" by Tobias Hoonhout, National Review, 2020-03-23 (^archived^). National Review is an establishment/mainstream Conservative magazine.


----
An ^abbreviated index by topic and chronologically^ is available.


----Boilerplate on Commenting----
The ^Guidelines^ for comments on this blog are different from those on Town Square Forums. I am attempting to foster more civility and substantive comments by deleting violations of the guidelines.

I am particularly strict about misrepresenting what others have said (me or other commenters). If I judge your comment as likely to provoke a response of "That is not what was said", do not be surprised to have it deleted. My primary goal is to avoid unnecessary and undesirable back-and-forth, but such misrepresentations also indicate that the author is unwilling/unable to participate in a meaningful, respectful conversation on the topic.
A slur is not an argument. Neither are other forms of vilification of other participants.

If you behave like a ^Troll^, do not waste your time protesting when you get treated like one.
Democracy.
What is it worth to you?

Comments

Posted by Former PA resident, a resident of Mountain View,
on Apr 9, 2020 at 11:34 pm

Your initial paragraph should preclude any knee-jerk comments at all by people who just seek every possible outlet to vilify the Trump administration.

Experience, though, suggests it won't, and that the Usual Suspects who spend so much time commenting on the PA Weekly site will rehash their usual repertoires here; be justly deleted for content that's both off-topic and breaking the clear ground rules spelled out on this blog; and then, like sulking children, go and post wildly inaccurate claims about this blog on other of the Weekly's comments pages that aren't adequately monitored against such nonsense. (Seeing some of the wild fabrications they post when they do that, I wonder occasionally if a libel action might be salutary. With personal libel -- unlike trade libel -- there's no requirement to prove concrete damage, only willful or reckless inaccuracy.)


Posted by month old 'news', a resident of Palo Alto Orchards,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 9:00 am

> Because of the urgency...

The House passed the bill on Saturday, March 14th.

The Senate left town on Thursday, the 12th, not to return until the 16th.

The Senate took a 3 day weekend break in the middle of this crisis "because of the urgency..."

This is month old news.


Posted by Rick, a resident of Adobe-Meadow,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 9:57 am

All political rants these days, including this one, cannot help but serve to obfuscate the actual truth on the ground. Casting the "other" in a demonized role may not in turn specifically advocate for conservative principles, (which conservatives themselves admit would never prevail in a fair election), but it serves the same narrative. Hence, this blog is clearly not for me.

And, if I see the word "elite" used one more time in any post, anywhere, I shall scream!


Posted by Resident, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 10:02 am

I think it is important to note that while here there are people stating how poorly the situation is being dealt with in this country, it is worth noting that people who live in almost every country are complaining how their own particular governments are dealing with this. Every country is in this and every country is trying to do its best and regardless what they are doing the people can and do criticize. There is no "right" way, just a lot of learning going on.

There is no play book for something like this. There is no experienced method. There is no rules set in place. And for some, there is a lot going on behind our backs that we are not aware of. These things that are not publicized have been going on not only from when this pandemic started, but since the fear of germ warfare as part of a terrorist attack. If all the things that have been going on for many years was publicized we would be putting national security at risk - and that is not just for this country but for all countries worried and concerned about the risk of deliberate germ warfare attacks.

I won't criticize any government or any official in this. One of the things we must do is not panic. Any signs of panic from leadership will only panic the people. I actually think the people are coping remarkably well. I see no looting, no organized defiance, no mass hysteria, no mass civil unrest. This is a good thing. This is how it should be. If panic was seen at the top, then panic would escalate at the bottom.

The good news is that people are surviving. That people are helping each other. That we are safe in our homes. That there is food and money coming through. That there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Happy Easter.


Posted by Rick, a resident of Adobe-Meadow,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 10:49 am

@Resident, we have food here in Palo Alto, delivered to our doorstep, no less. It would not surprise me to see insurrection in parts of the country when people cannot buy food to feed their families - point to Mr. Moran. If China starts to get a double infection peak We will know we are not ready to relax social distancing here. I don't know where the balance should be strick.


Posted by Former PA resident, a resident of Mountain View,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 11:41 am

Resident wrote: "There is no play book for something like this. There is no experienced method. There is no rules set in place."

That's a widespread US perception -- but it's not exactly true.

A shining example of preparedness and planned reaction is offered by Taiwan (which rarely gets media attention regarding the Covid-19 crisis, maybe because it has comparatively few deaths, which are what make headlines and attract viewer eyes). I see sporadic reports, but even that shows comparatively strong preparedness. Web Link

Located so near mainland China, Taiwan experienced real scares from SARS and other modern potenial pandemics originating there, and chose not to be complacent. Taiwan had an Epidemic Command Center and well-thought-out measures in place that the US could have emulated, but didn't (including pre-installed special washing stations at medical facilities, pro-active testing for other known epidemic diseases, and rapidly mobilized Covid-19 testing capability that allowed the country to gather epidemic intelligence and quickly isolate outbreaks).

I see the lack of timely testing as maybe the main strategic US failing. Ability to identify and focus on local outbreaks has allowed better-prepared regions to manage the disease and greatly reduce mortalities *without* the blanket shutdown of normal activity and work that is the necessary response to a contagion when you have, basically, no clue who's infected and who isn't.


Posted by Douglas Moran, a Palo Alto Online blogger,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 3:10 pm

Douglas Moran is a registered user.

@month old 'news'
The bill I was talking about here is referred to as "phase 3" of the response and its potential successor. You are talking about an earlier phase.
I fully agree with you that Congress - Republicans and Democrats - has shown a remarkable lack of a sense of urgency throughout, but by the time of phase 3, the need for urgent action was undeniable. And the almost immediate depletion of the PPP funds demonstrated that the situation was more dire than that.
While Congress routinely give their agendas and special interests priority over the needs of the country, the degree to which they did so here qualifies as "news" to me.

@Rich (first comment)
"Elite" is an established term in Political Science and History. The dislike for this term has come up several times in earlier blogs, but no one has provided an alternative that is widely understood to reference that group.

@Resident
Yes, people in many countries are complaining about their governments' handling the situation, but that is about ineptness, incompetence, and unpreparedness. This blog was about one political faction exploiting the emergency to advance their agenda, at the expense of the nation. In other countries, the similar worry is about the governing party taking a temporary reduction of rights of the citizenry that is justified by the emergency and making that permanent.

@Resident
Seconding "Former PA resident" on there not being a playbook not being true.
There is one dating back to the late 200x's, but multiple exercises since then have vividly demonstrated that the US was unprepared to execute that playbook, with the revealed problems persisting.
This was mentioned in my early blog "Remember the failures for when it's time for fixes: COVID-19" (2020-03-27) in section "A failure preordained by multi-admininstration failures".





Posted by Douglas Moran, a Palo Alto Online blogger,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 3:49 pm

Douglas Moran is a registered user.

@Rick (first comment, first paragraph)
The theme of this blog is criticism of those who seek to exploit the need for urgent action on an urgent problem. In a tangled way, you seem to be tying that to "conservative principles" and to me serving that narrative. You clearly didn't mean to argue that those who support such urgency should be supporting conservatives.
Oh, and I am letting pass your acknowledging the blog's opening sentence and then ignoring it.

A fundamental traditional conservative value is to accord a privileged status for the heirarchy - the rich, powerful, connected - and have various rationales for that, even if the person's only qualification was being born into the "right" family. This is still the hugely dominant faction of the leadership of Republican Party and I don't see this changing. This also holds true of the Democratic Party establishment: Look at how easily they maneuvered to crush Bernie Sanders' candidacy.


Posted by YP, a resident of Crescent Park,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 4:44 pm

thanks of writing this Douglas Moran.

Well I'm not smart enough to get into this entire political debate but I see that 17,000,000 , yes 17 million people 10% of our workforce are out of work (with numbers to grow) and mostly those at the low end of the pay scale in service jobs like restaurants, hotels, store workers that are "non-essential".

Juxtaposed to total deaths in USA of 16,000 so far , yes to grow by a factor of 3 or 4. But ...

Simple question, easy for most of you elites sitting at home, working from home, zooming at home to say keep the economy "locked down", but let's start thinking about those out of a job and all the consequences of that depression, suicide, drug use, family breakdowns. How many of those 17+ million will literally and figuratively lose their lives?? My guess is many more than the victims of Covid.


Posted by YP, a resident of Crescent Park,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 4:49 pm

and by the way as Moran's article pointed out good luck on the government quickly coming to rescue given the divisiveness in congress. Many jobs, small businesses lost forever. We will save some but many and I fear most will be lost. So time to get serious about letting some businesses reopen, where masks, social distancing, limit number of people in stores, protect the elderly but todays "shelter in place" is economic ruin if continued for much longer


Posted by Norman Beamer, a resident of Crescent Park,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 8:40 pm

Norman Beamer is a registered user.

Isn't it the case that a laid-off employee in many cases is entitled to continue their health insurance policy for 18 months under the COBRA act? (Granted they may have trouble with payments.)


Posted by Douglas Moran, a Palo Alto Online blogger,
on Apr 10, 2020 at 9:11 pm

Douglas Moran is a registered user.

RE: COBRA coverage

Updated: When I said "dropped from their employers' medical insurance", I should of included the availability of COBRA for most. As you note, cost may be a problem because the unemployed now has to pay what was the employer's contribution which can sizable relative to the unemployed person's resources.

BTW, during the 2001 recession -- DotCom Bomb, 9/11 -- I vaguely remember that there were some situations that were excluded, I believe I heard about it relative to shuttered small start-ups.


Posted by Old Steve, a resident of St. Claire Gardens,
on Apr 11, 2020 at 3:27 pm

Mr. Moran,

Democrats only delayed the current legislation because it did not include equally urgent support for Hospitals and local governments (Congress is not on "vacation", they are sheltered like the rest of us). We can argue about whether local governments need immediate support. Hospitals clearly need whatever we can provide, just not all of them at the same time. There is indeed a playbook, only 69 pages in fact. Because it says "Obama" on the front, Nobody in Trump World appears to have read it. We halted commercial flights from China, but evacuated both inflected and healthy Americans on the same planes. We obviously got the start up of testing badly wrong. The President's retroactively defined "aspirational" rhetoric has been far from helpful. I won't go on because the longer I go, the angrier I get!


Posted by Douglas Moran, a Palo Alto Online blogger,
on Apr 11, 2020 at 4:18 pm

Douglas Moran is a registered user.

RE: Old Steve (immediately above)

> Democrats only delayed the current legislation because it did not include equally urgent support for Hospitals and local governments.

Doubly false. First, there is a range of other provisions they want included. Second, there isn't equally urgent need: A significant portion of the previous funding allocation for hospitals remains and while state and local governments will certainly need help, I have seen no claims of an immediate need.

> (Congress is not on "vacation", they are sheltered like the rest of us).

False. This is their traditional Easter recess. There was no need for most of them to return to their districts if sheltering was the rationale. The big effect of them scattering is the difficulty of the level of communication needed to hammer out appropriate legislation -- there have been multiple media reports of 200-participant teleconferences (House Democrats). I use the word "difficulty" instead of "problem" because the latter implies that the difficulty was unintentional.

> We can argue about whether local governments need immediate support.

Reversing your opening statement.

> Hospitals clearly need whatever we can provide, just not all of them at the same time.

Again you seem to be reversing your opening statement.

> There is indeed a playbook, only 69 pages in fact. Because it says "Obama" on the front, Nobody in Trump World appears to have read it.

As I discussed in an earlier blog, there was an exercise on this playbook in 2017 -- which is during the Trump administration. It was a major failure, same as the earlier exercises during the previous administrations and the after-action assessments indicate that the failings were the responsibility of the professionals/bureaucrats/permanent government.

> We halted commercial flights from China, but evacuated both inflected and healthy Americans on the same planes.

That was against Trump's explicit instructions, backed by the CDC. They were overridden by low/middle-level bureaucrats in the State Dept and somewhere in HHS. Discussed in a previous blog.

> We obviously got the start up of testing badly wrong.

Again, this was the result of multiple failure of the bureaucrats in the CDC and FDA. Discussed in earlier blog. Also see "The Infuriating Story of How the Government Stalled Coronavirus Testing" by Julia Ioffe in GQ.

> The President's retroactively defined "aspirational" rhetoric has been far from helpful.

That is a very controversal judgment. In the emergency management literature, there is much debate about what the appropriate level of hope that the top leadership should convey.

>I won't go on because the longer I go, the angrier I get!

Media outlets long ago learned that outrage/anger promotes continued engagement, that is, it boosts ad revenue. For various outlets, stoking outrage takes priority over providing good information.
Some media outlets function as partisan political propaganda operations, and outrage is what they are selling.
If you aren't looking to have your anger stoked, may I suggest that you switch the media outlets you are reading/listening to. This typically takes some experimentation.


Posted by Rick, a resident of Adobe-Meadow,
on Apr 12, 2020 at 10:41 pm

[[Deleted: An insult is not an argument.]]


Posted by BruceS, a resident of Greenmeadow,
on Apr 13, 2020 at 10:49 am

BruceS is a registered user.

Here are (some of) the problems with your argument:

1. This is additional money. There is already something like $350B allocated, and not one penny has been received yet. So just what is the big hurry here?

2. I don't know the details of the Democratic proposals, but the main things I know of are for funds to be included for state governments (obviously and very much needed) and for hospitals (any argument there?). Why not include those? Which leads me to ...

3. As you acknowledge, getting Congress to meet will get very dicey for a while. So it seems very important to make every bill count.

4. Delaying bills to get them 'right' is very important in any case, and the Republicans have been known to push thru bills very quickly with no review that are extremely flawed - witness their tax bill, which had provisions that were so badly written that even the Republicans wanted to pass additional legislation to correct them.

In addition, I strongly urge Democrats to force a provision to provide states money to manage voting by mail for November. After Wisconsin this is a requirement.


Posted by TomB, a resident of Charleston Gardens,
on Apr 13, 2020 at 11:59 am

TomB is a registered user.

Your statement "Senate Democrats have made it clear that their ideology takes precedence over the lives of Americans, and that they are willing to hold us hostage to get what they want." is not helpful to any useful discussion.

We all have our own viewpoints and both conscious and unconscious biases. But we can only be certain of our own motivations.


Posted by Gale Johnson, a resident of Adobe-Meadow,
on Apr 13, 2020 at 1:09 pm

Gale Johnson is a registered user.

Why I like Dr. Fauci? He is an experienced and serious science and fact/data driven researcher and straight shooter, and stands up to anyone who isn't...yes, even our President. And he knows how to handle obvious planted baited questions from CNN hosts. Jake Tapper is the most egregious example. He never lets up on asking if Trump would have introduced the separation, self-quarantining, and stay at home ideas earlier, would that have spared more lives? Well one big 'duh' to Jake. Of course it would have. I expect this to become one of the Democrats campaign main talking points. If the epidemic is over and life and business activity is starting to get back to normalcy by November Trump's trumped up failures will fade away.


Posted by Douglas Moran, a Palo Alto Online blogger,
on Apr 13, 2020 at 2:46 pm

Douglas Moran is a registered user.

@BruceS "... not one penny has been received yet. So just what is the big hurry here?

Notice the choice of the word "received". The need for the additional funding was based upon the much larger than expected number of applications and that the loans were intended to be made very quickly.
This word choice indicates that that this initial point was at least disingenuous if not designed to be deceptive. And if the commenter started with deception, I discount any of the remaining points being sincere.


Posted by Douglas Moran, a Palo Alto Online blogger,
on Apr 13, 2020 at 2:46 pm

Douglas Moran is a registered user.

@TomB "... we can only be certain of our own motivations."

"Certain", yes. But beyond a reasonable doubt is sometimes possible.

The Senate Democrats negotiated an urgent bill that they said they were willing to vote for. But just before the vote -- on the instructions of the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-Wall Street) conveyed from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- they voted it down. They, and House Democrats, demanded a laundry list of items unrelated to the crisis. And it was subsequently revealed that the House Majority Whip (#3 Democratic leader) had announced that intention in a phone call to House Democrats the preceding Thursday.

So we have the announcement of intent, action corresponding to that intent, plus bad-faith bargaining to delay the funding that increased the leverage for that intent. What more does one need?? (rhetorical)


Posted by Hindsight 20/20, a resident of Mountain View,
on Apr 14, 2020 at 1:25 pm

I just wish everyone would STOP THE BLAME, as @resident above stated,
[[Blogger: To find/search this comment, use "by resident," or "Apr 10, 2020 at 10:02 am"]]
there is no playbook for this and everyday brings a new scenario, and new way of looking how we move forward. But for those who continue to post false allegations that Trump waited too long I would like you to please read and absorb this:

Here's a quote from Dr. Anothony Fauci to the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health given on December 4th, 2019.

Improving Vaccine Production Strategies

Most existing influenza vaccines are produced by growing the virus in eggs. This is a time-honored, but time-consuming process. Furthermore, the vaccine undergoes a process of adaptation to grow in eggs that may in itself lead to mutations that make the resulting vaccine less effective. In recognition of these limitations, the President signed the Executive Order on Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health on September 19, 2019. Broadly, the Executive Order directs BARDA, CDC, NIH, and FDA to accelerate the adoption of improved influenza vaccine technologies. In alignment with the goals of the Executive Order, NIAID is conducting and supporting research to develop state- of-the-art vaccine platform technologies that could be used to develop universal influenza vaccines as well as to improve the speed and agility of the influenza vaccine manufacturing process. These platform technologies include DNA, messenger RNA (mRNA), virus-like particles, vector-based, and self-assembling nanoparticle vaccines. For example, NIAID- supported scientists are investigating an mRNA vaccine candidate that would allow for a more rapid and flexible response to both seasonal and pandemic influenza than do existing vaccine production strategies.

I repeat: President signed the Executive Order on Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health on September 19, 2019.

Sharing this just in case anyone out there is listening to this BS that he dropped the ball on the virus. Here is a link to the full testimony: Web Link


Posted by Hindsight 20/20, a resident of Mountain View,
on Apr 15, 2020 at 12:17 am

Crickets. Fascinating.

[[Blogger: Readers, notice that this comment is open to various interpretations as to what sort of response was expected in the 11 hours since the original comment.
Please take this ambiguity into account in any responses.
]]


Follow this blogger.
Sign up to be notified of new posts by this blogger.

Email:

SUBMIT

Post a comment

Sorry, but further commenting on this topic has been closed.

Stay informed.

Get the day's top headlines from Palo Alto Online sent to your inbox in the Express newsletter.

New artisanal croissant shop debuts in Santa Clara
By The Peninsula Foodist | 2 comments | 2,864 views

Tree Walk: Edible Urban Forest - July 8
By Laura Stec | 4 comments | 865 views

Marriage Interview #17: They Renew Their Vows Every 5 Years
By Chandrama Anderson | 2 comments | 803 views