Joe Biden's COVID leadership skills
The Biden administration has boosted federal support to more than 30 states over the last two weeks by providing ventilators, ambulances and protective equipment in the fight against the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The Strategic National Stockpile is something I didn't know about before this week. It's something worth knowing, especially during a pandemic. According to this website, "The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is part of the federal medical response infrastructure and can supplement medical countermeasures needed by states, tribal nations, territories and the largest metropolitan areas during public health emergencies. The supplies, medicines, and devices for lifesaving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term, stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of these materials may not be available or sufficient. The SNS team works every day to prepare and respond to emergencies, support state and local preparedness activities, and ensure availability of critical medical assets to protect the health of Americans."
I'm betting that COVID testing kits, whether they're rapid tests that get results in a matter of hours or other tests that deliver results in 2-3 days, are supposed to be part of the SNS. If I'm right, and I'm betting that I'm right, the Biden administration messed up in not stockpiling COVID testing kits during the pandemic. This webpage is particularly damning:
Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) has large quantities of medicine and medical supplies to protect the American public if there is a public health emergency (terrorist attack, outbreak, earthquake) severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. Once Federal and local authorities agree that the SNS is needed, medicines will be delivered to any state in the U.S. in time for them to be effective. Each state has plans to receive and distribute SNS medicine and medical supplies to local communities as quickly as possible.TRANSLATION: The federal government is responsible for stockpiling medicine and medical supplies. State governments are responsible governments are responsible for receiving and distributing "medicine and medical supplies to local communities as quickly as possible." The federal government can order in bigger quantities than states can. That, theoretically, lowers per unit costs. State and local governments best know the needs of local governments and the people.
At this point, it's worth noting that it's almost irrelevant whether the Vanity Fair article is legitimate. Knowing that the SNS exists as a national warehouse for storing medical supplies for the federal government is a game-changer. The Biden administration has an affirmative responsibility to maintain a healthy stockpile of testing kits for COVID during a pandemic. Further, the Biden administration should have a much more comprehensive understanding of what's required within the Strategic National Stockpile, aka SNS, 2 years into the pandemic than the Trump administration would've had at the advent of the novel coronavirus. Think of it like the difference between a pamphlet a month into the start of the coronavirus vs. a complete set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
It's worth thinking of the federal government as the warehouse where the inventory is kept while the states are thought of as the corporate headquarters where policies are established and HR is located. That's quite a difference in responsibilities. This video gives a slanted but somewhat decent explanation of the SNS:
It asks the question whether the SNS "has already failed or if it's too early to tell." Just 3 months into the pandemic, I'd argue that it was too early to tell. Now it's another year into the pandemic. It isn't too early to determine whether the Biden administration has failed. It has.df
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