Red That is.
The NYT recently published an informative, if not alarming, piece about how government red tape has stymied private and non-federal response to COVID-19. The piece focuses on discovering COVID's presence in the Seattle area, but the laboratory work couldn't carry on because it was the "wrong" lab and the samples couldn't be tested because they were "wrong" samples. The labs were research labs, not clinical and the samples were from a flu study, not a COVID study. The CDC was the sole source for the COVID testing kits and the CDC bungled the job.
I wrote here before about a book called The Death of Common Sense; How Law is Suffocating America. Our now apparent hamfisted response to COVID-19 is yet another real life scenario about how law and regulations has killed common sense. This time, though, the result isn't laughable bureaucratic SNAFU's. This time worshipping at the alter of rules and regulations has killed people.
Maybe many of you don't know why government officials from governors, to mayors to county commissioners declare disasters and emergencies. It isn't just a message to the public, and it isn't just a new funding stream. The biggie is that such declarations legally allow government to cut and ignore all the red tape, including changing due process rights, in furtherance of addressing the emergency.
If there a silver lining in this mess, let's hope that it will be the realization that we don't need the infinite web of regulations we have imposed on ourselves. Let's hope that we will give flexibility to those who administer regulations to use common sense. Really, it might be okay to carry a pint of hand sanitizer on your next flight without a TSA hearing.
Read the whole thing.
The NYT recently published an informative, if not alarming, piece about how government red tape has stymied private and non-federal response to COVID-19. The piece focuses on discovering COVID's presence in the Seattle area, but the laboratory work couldn't carry on because it was the "wrong" lab and the samples couldn't be tested because they were "wrong" samples. The labs were research labs, not clinical and the samples were from a flu study, not a COVID study. The CDC was the sole source for the COVID testing kits and the CDC bungled the job.
By Feb. 25, Dr. Chu [an infectious disease expert in Seattle] and her colleagues could not bear to wait any longer. They began performing coronavirus tests, without government approval.
What came back confirmed their worst fear. They quickly had a positive test from a local teenager with no recent travel history. The coronavirus had already established itself on American soil without anybody realizing it.
“It must have been here this entire time,” Dr. Chu recalled thinking with dread. “It’s just everywhere already.”
In fact, officials would later discover through testing, the virus had already contributed to the deaths of two people, and it would go on to kill 20 more in the Seattle region over the following days.
Federal and state officials said the flu study could not be repurposed because it did not have explicit permission from research subjects; the labs were also not certified for clinical work. While acknowledging the ethical questions, Dr. Chu and others argued there should be more flexibility in an emergency during which so many lives could be lost. On Monday night, state regulators told them to stop testing altogether.
The instruction not to test and distribute test results shows me that the bureaucrats in charge didn't understand the nature of the threat and that they were too focused on rules and regulations and not protecting the public. Not until February 29 did the FDA and CDC relent and took the shackles off private industry and academic labs to develop and distribute testing kits. While rules and regulations serve a legitimate purpose, they can be over done. If some rules are good, more rules aren't necessarily better. What came back confirmed their worst fear. They quickly had a positive test from a local teenager with no recent travel history. The coronavirus had already established itself on American soil without anybody realizing it.
“It must have been here this entire time,” Dr. Chu recalled thinking with dread. “It’s just everywhere already.”
In fact, officials would later discover through testing, the virus had already contributed to the deaths of two people, and it would go on to kill 20 more in the Seattle region over the following days.
Federal and state officials said the flu study could not be repurposed because it did not have explicit permission from research subjects; the labs were also not certified for clinical work. While acknowledging the ethical questions, Dr. Chu and others argued there should be more flexibility in an emergency during which so many lives could be lost. On Monday night, state regulators told them to stop testing altogether.
I wrote here before about a book called The Death of Common Sense; How Law is Suffocating America. Our now apparent hamfisted response to COVID-19 is yet another real life scenario about how law and regulations has killed common sense. This time, though, the result isn't laughable bureaucratic SNAFU's. This time worshipping at the alter of rules and regulations has killed people.
Maybe many of you don't know why government officials from governors, to mayors to county commissioners declare disasters and emergencies. It isn't just a message to the public, and it isn't just a new funding stream. The biggie is that such declarations legally allow government to cut and ignore all the red tape, including changing due process rights, in furtherance of addressing the emergency.
If there a silver lining in this mess, let's hope that it will be the realization that we don't need the infinite web of regulations we have imposed on ourselves. Let's hope that we will give flexibility to those who administer regulations to use common sense. Really, it might be okay to carry a pint of hand sanitizer on your next flight without a TSA hearing.
Read the whole thing.
