For a “way out of this pandemic”, the Washington Post turns to Danielle Allen, a political theorist, as one does when dealing with a health crisis. Dr. Allen proposes creating a Pandemic Testing Board analogous to the World War II War Production Board:
What would it do?
First, it would carry out a Pandemic Testing Supply Initiative.
That means the board would have authority to identify supply-chain elements necessary for manufacturing, procuring, scaling and deploying any items related to testing. It would have the power to procure these materials via contracting with producers and servicers, and the power to mandate production or services, akin to authorities in the Defense Production Act. Contracting firms would be required to follow all existing labor laws, including maintaining collective bargaining agreements.
At the same time, there would also need to be a Pandemic Testing Deployment Initiative. To deploy testing at scale, there would need to be sufficient personnel to test individuals outside of hospitals and doctors’ offices. So the Pandemic Testing Board would:
- Craft recommendations for states to use the National Guard to deploy testing in conjunction with business, labor, nonprofits and academia.
- If necessary, be authorized to create a Pandemic Response Corps, made up of tested civilians, to assist.
- Make recommendations on tracking the spread of the virus.
- Before disbanding, craft recommendations on long-term preparedness.
This entire idea is gobsmackingly half-baked but it’s about what you would expect from someone without practical experience of anything other than cracking a poli sci text. The effect of such a board would be to create an all-powerful soviet whose mandate would never end because the problem it was created to address would never be solved. As I’ve described it before, it would be the world’s largest, most expensive, most futile game of Whac-A-Mole.
Fortunately, we don’t need to do that. What we do need to do is create a plan for sampling the population and start using the tens of thousands of testing devices already installed in hospitals around the country, mobilizing such industrial support as is necessary to create more test kits. Let’s not buy the materials to do that from China, hmm?
It’s obvious that by opposing this you want to kill granny / sarc
The point IS to make it an all powerful, all seeing, all knowing agency to ensure everybody does the ‘right thing’ as decided by the ‘experts’. And anybody who balks is must be made to conform for the Good of All.
The proposals to control the populace using fear of Kung Flu are getting more and more absurd each day. And of course most are either unworkable or unverifiable, but see my first sentence for the typical response to any criticism of said proposals. And of course there will be blood on POTUS’ hands if he doesn’t promulgate and impose them to the absolute fullest extent.
“Fortunately, we don’t need to do that. What we do need to do is create a plan for sampling the population and start using the tens of thousands of testing devices already installed in hospitals around the country, mobilizing such industrial support as is necessary to create more test kits. ”
When you say “we” exactly who do you mean? I would hope that it had some consistency from place to place. Also, I hope people realize that we need much more than testing. In our weekly Zoom meeting people asked me when I thought we start opening up the hospital and things go back to more normal. Obviously, I dont know, but I do think the tail on the curve will be important. Availability of PPE gear will also be important. We still arent seeing more new stuff coming in. If we had another surge in a month or two and still had no new supplies we wouldn’t be able to care for people safely.
The free market here is not responding very quickly. 3M has been the major supplier for not only the US but a lot of other countries. They can make them fast enough. I guess I can table them. If 3M or any company gears up for this huge surge, then they likely end up with major over capacity until the next pandemic. How do they pay for that? What is the free market solution?
Steve
There was a private company in TX which was tapped by the fed govt to make massive amounts of masks for the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. They agreed to do this, adding shifts and staff to meet these expanded needs. As the pandemic ebbed, so did the immediate need for masks. Profit then became king, and contracts were made overseas with the Chinese, who could make masks on a 2 cent/ unit basis vs the 10 cents charged by the TX company. Needless to say the TX manufacturer was left holding a bag of debt and workers to fire. They were not as compliant to honor govt requests this time around.
Basically, it’s the outsourcing of products to get lower prices that has been biting us now in supplying much of what we need during the current pandemic. I hope lessons will be learned, rather than repeated.
Larry Summers: “Why can’t the greatest economy in the history of the world produce swabs, face masks and ventilators in adequate supply?”
U.S. environmental standards regulate based upon the “potential to emit,” so compliance requirements are based upon the assumption that a plant is running at 100% for 24 hours a day; 7 days a week; 365 days a year. The long-term incentives (besides going elsewhere) for the last 30 years has been to make your plant as efficiently locked into what you plan to make.
I really can’t type. In the above I meant to say can’t (not can) make them fast enough. Even if companies cannot move factories overseas, why would they build a factory for a one year need? How do free markets respond to that?
Steve
Rather then a defense production board; I rather model something on the “Uranium committeeâ€; that led to the Manhattan project.
I would staff it with experts in mathematics, biology, epidemiology, manufacturing.
They would focus on two problems
1). Finding a therapeutic that reduces the risk of death by 90%; and manufacturing it at scale.
2). Find ways to reduce R by 50% that is not “lockdown†and don’t involve testing. Masks is one that is implemented — there are others.
Looking into (1) fits US strengths in biological sciences. (2) is something the Germans seem to have a head start on.
@steve, not sure I understand your question. If you want to operate a manufacturing plant, you need to get a permit to construct it first. You need to have an engineer design all of the component parts and model emissions from regulatory review. The amount of potential emissions determines the extent of the pollution control technology that will be required. Since these are projections/models, there may be a lot of back and forth, and eventually litigation.
To simplify, if your plant is going to omit NOx, the standards may differ whether its potentially 1 unit, 2 units, or 3 units. Maybe, the costs are that much different, but probably the planning will tend towards avoiding the next step up. So that’s one pollutant, let’s look at the next 100 or so potential pollutants. The tendency here is to build to projected need because there is a cost imposed for future flexibility. If your plant is mainly designed to manufacture medical drapes and tape, and you think you might want the flexibility to switch to masks, you might be imposed a cost for designs that allow that flexibility. This is a regulatory system that rewards closer relationship between production capacity and current projections. And we have a sudden anticipated event and this is a system ill fit to make modifications because the physical plant was designed to demonstrate it could only do certain things that it wanted to do.
“Maybe, the costs are[n’t] that much different . . .”
I don’t know if that was clear, but the point was that the plants are physically designed based upon regulatory incentives that have nothing to do with a situation like this.
PD- 3M is doubling its output. Regulations were not an issue. If a corporation came forward and said we will build a plant to make masks do you really think they would have trouble with environmental regulations? Be serious. The problem is that no company will do this because they will lose lots of money. Once the pandemic is under control they have an empty, useless factory.
Query- I have not seen this written about elsewhere but suppose things go very well. We decide to open up the economy in May. Where does industry get its new N 95, N100 and PAPRs? We (my network) were fortunate to have on hand a bit larger supply than many places of N 95s and PAPRs. To augment that we got a small amount from the US stockpile, some dry rotted masks from FEMA and most of what we got was from local industry, universities and small businesses. These devices are used an awful lot for industrial applications dealing with small particles or noxious fumes (welding). Heck, the serious woodworkers in my practice had some at home.
We know we will have some sort of tail with Covid. Hospitals arent getting new deliveries of PPE at a rate high enough to keep up with use. How are we going to supply industry so we can return to normal and supply the medical system? Are we going to switch from letting granny die to having Nancy nurse die so we can restart the economy?
Steve
IMO the greatest impediment will not be productive capacity but supply chains, particularly supply chains that run through China which is an awful lot of them. I think that China has drastically understated its own outbreak and continues to do so. Alternatively, it’s beginning Round 2. In any event Chinese suppliers will not be reliable or, at least, will not be deemed reliable. There may be some attempts to switch over to Indian suppliers but since India is in its own country-wide lockdown that probably won’t go very far except possibly WRT pharmaceuticals.
Restarting basic production will be harder and lengthier than restarting secondary and tertiary production. Not mention more politically fraught.