(no subject)

[timelets]

What happens when vaccination gets politicized.



https://twitter.com/maolesen/status/1471188829302317056

Comments

[tijd]

Before vaccination, the main tool was testing, and it was decided to slow it down, because this was a "blue state" problem.

Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

As of today, the states with the highest cumulative Covid death rates are Mississippi and Alabama. Both have less than 50% vaccination.

[timelets]

Yes, the rollout of testing was a disaster and not a natural one.

[tijd]

The new Congress report sheds some light on it:

The Trump administration engaged in “deliberate efforts” to undermine the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic for political purposes, a congressional report released Friday concludes.
The report, prepared by the House select subcommittee investigating the nation’s Covid response, says the White House repeatedly overruled public health and testing guidance by the nation’s top infectious disease experts and silenced officials in order to promote then-President Donald Trump's political agenda.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-white-house-made-deliberate-efforts-undermine-covid-response-report-n1286211

[ppk_ptichkin]

Ну.. премию Дарвина никто не отменял.

[timelets]

Политика — дело заразное.