Report: US COVID Response Exposed 'Collective National Incompetence'

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Facts

  • A group of crisis experts and federal advisors, called the COVID Crisis Group, released a report Tuesday detailing the US' alleged lack of disaster preparedness and coordination that it claims led to an unraveling of the nation's pandemic response.1
  • The book, titled "Lessons From the Covid War: An Investigative Report," was released by 34 expert physicians, epidemiologists, and former senior government officials with the promise of providing a "dispassionate guide" to the overheated arguments about the pandemic.2
  • The group first assembled two years ago in the event that Congress or the president would call for a 9/11-style commission to investigate the pandemic. When no such commission was established, they decided to issue their own report.2
  • The investigation, which included nearly 300 "listening sessions," was headed by former 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow and Mark McClellan, the former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) director under the George W. Bush admin.3
  • It criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) academic culture and slow decisions on school reopening guidance and warnings about the virus’s spread, alleging that the government was using a 19th-century cholera outbreak system to deal with a 21st-century problem.2
  • The crisis group concludes that the US isn't prepared for the next pandemic and that the public health, healthcare, and biopharma industries must be brought together with a pre-determined leader, though it says it doesn't necessarily have to be the CDC.1

Sources: 1Axios, 2Washington Post, and 3USA Today.

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by New York Times. While the US' COVID response was flawed, leaders, faced with unprecedented circumstances, did the best they could. As COVID will likely not be the last pandemic, the government must use this as a learning experience to develop a streamlined course of action for the next time a deadly virus reaches its shores. This includes pre-determined contracts with diagnostic test companies to develop and distribute test kits, agreements with insurance companies to cover the costs of those tests, and an abundant supply of protective equipment.
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Reason. The US was capable of combatting COVID early on, but the corrupt CDC — through its pursuit of streamlining the response process — actively hindered people from implementing appropriate measures. One of the most appalling examples of this, according to former FDA Director Scott Gottlieb, was when the agency deliberately scrapped the idea of mass testing at nursing homes from a science journal article. The world's leading infectious disease institution knew exactly what it was doing but didn't care about who would suffer.

Predictions