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   From: total-failures@disney.com   
      
   On 01 Sep 2020, Rudy Canoza  posted some   
   news:rim3kj$9kt$1@neodome.net:   
      
   >   
      
   On 2 December, the White House announced its winter plans for a likely   
   Covid surge that would come as cold temperatures and holiday plans drove   
   people indoors. It included an alarmingly inadequate plan to get at-home   
   tests to people.   
      
   The plan dropped nine days after scientists in South Africa had announced   
   that they had discovered a new variant of the coronavirus, one that   
   appeared to be even more transmissible. The US had acted quickly to ban   
   travel from South Africa and several other southern African countries,   
   claiming that such restrictions would “slow things down” and “buy time”   
   for the US to prepare.   
      
   But as the days ticked closer to Christmas and New Year’s, and the   
   inevitable surge of infections that would follow, it was difficult to see   
   what we were buying time for. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki,   
   had scoffed at the idea of providing free tests for Americans and mailing   
   them to homes, as many other countries have done.   
      
   Instead, the administration said that 150 million Americans – less than   
   half of the country – could be reimbursed for tests if they had insurance,   
   if they fronted the money, if they could wait to be reimbursed, and if   
   they didn’t buy them until mid-January. Tests purchased before the   
   holidays would be ineligible for reimbursement. Meanwhile, tests were   
   impossible to find in huge swathes of the country – or required standing   
   in lines so long that they were only accessible to those who could afford   
   what amounted to a tax on people’s time.   
      
   It was a plan that was so complicated, so limited, so inadequate, and so   
   fundamentally wrong-headed that it exemplified everything that has gone   
   wrong with the Biden administration’s response to the coronavirus to date.   
      
   A mantra of successful health campaigns is “make the healthy choice the   
   easy choice”. But the Biden administration has been intent on making   
   matters that should be easy difficult, prioritizing rules and regulations   
   over results, deferring to private industry in matters of state   
   responsibility, burdening individuals already at their breaking points,   
   adding cumbersome barriers of time and logistics, being too slow, and   
   displaying too much contempt and too little urgency in responding to cries   
   for help.   
      
   This week, the US shattered world records for the most coronavirus   
   infections and hospitalizations of any country since the pandemic began.   
   Two years into this crisis and a year into Biden’s presidency, we seem to   
   be even worse off than we were under Trump in the most lethal metric: more   
   deaths are taking place under the Democrat than occurred under his   
   predecessor.   
      
   What is going on? How did the richest country in the world – a country now   
   governed by the party that allegedly “believes the science” – get here?   
   Why have the Democrats given up on saving the lives of those they claim to   
   represent?   
      
   A promising start   
   When he took office, Biden flooded the country with vaccines, and rightly   
   so. The US had many advantages then: three approved, domestically produced   
   vaccines and a Democratic president and Congress that appropriately funded   
   getting jabs into arms via every possible lever of society. At one point,   
   the US was vaccinating four million people in a single day.   
      
   But Democrats around the country have pursued a vaccine-only strategy at   
   times when there is simply too much virus bouncing around communities.   
   Vaccines work best in tandem with other mitigation measures, such as   
   ventilation, masks, distancing, and paid lockdowns when necessary, so that   
   people encounter viruses as infrequently as possible.   
      
   Biden has fought Republicans to require employers of more than 100 people   
   to mandate vaccines or testing, a plan which the supreme court blocked in   
   a genocidal fashion this week. But even if that protection were still in   
   place, there were times when the president and Democratic governors and   
   mayors should have closed worksites wherever possible.   
      
   A vaccine is like a rain jacket. A good rain jacket will keep you dry in   
   the rain, especially if you also use an umbrella and rubber boots. But if   
   someone turns a firehose on you and points it at you for days or weeks,   
   you’re going to get wet, even in the best rain jacket possible.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)