Too few N95 masks — no real research on COVID aerosols — why is American Government fat ass sitting?

© 2020 Peter Free

 

14 July 2020

 

 

In COVID America — ain't nobody doin' nuthin — 'bout anything important

 

Capitalism refuses to anything necessary, unless there is a fairly immediate payoff.

 

We see this with the American COVID epidemic:

 

 

There is still a shortage of N95 masks.

 

And no one is bothering to pin down exactly how — and with what comparative infective efficiencies — SARS-CoV-2 is being transmitted.

 

 

Our typically American combination of capitalistic greed and leadership stupidity . . .

 

. . . rejects the possibility of Government itself doing what is so visibly necessary.

 

 

Contemplate our pitiful N95 mask situation

 

I suggested a bit back that — if the US were an actually serious country — its Government would have prompted an enormous PPE-production initiative, when SARS-CoV-2 started wandering around.

 

If people had ready and affordable access to N95 masks — the vulnerable and vulnerable-feeling could protect themselves with the somewhat virus-proof masks — while everyone else and the economy continued freely about their business.

 

Freedom for all.

 

Isn't that the American ideal?

 

 

Yet . . .

 

In spite of the obvious need for to having N95s available and affordable for everyone, Vox recently noticed that American Government never ramped Defense Production Act manufacturing to meet even existing PPE requirements. Much less enough to fill the public's virus-protection needs.

 

Nowhere, has there been even the slightest consideration for producing enough N95 masks to feel all foreseeable epidemiological needs across American society's full spectrum.

 

Nor has the Trump Administration bothered to funnel what production does exist, efficiently to where it is most needed.

 

 

Is the entirety of American leadership filled with combatively lazy do-nothings?

 

Yes.

 

Germany and a number of Asian societies could do what is necessary in their sleep.

 

 

So, here we are

 

Roughly 9 months after the epidemic began in China, the United States' manufacturing base is still doing nothing that is notably PPE-effective enough to cope with the massive COVID-19 surge underway in the United States today.

 

We cannot really fault greed-based capitalists for this shortage. After all, what's in it for them? The risks of overproduction are considerable. Stockpiles don't pay.

 

Security and public health areas are exactly where an actually Just Society directs its Government to step in.

 

That's been known for at least a century.

 

Yet in the United States, it's still crickets — all the time.

 

 

There is a parallel lack of American-sponsored epidemiological research

 

This lapse really pisses me off. It's such a good indicator of our stubborn cultural brainlessness.

 

Yes, there is no money to be had in tracking down the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2's spread. Again, capitalists 'gonna' hide.

 

Public interest research resides so clearly in the Government-sponsored domain, that one has to wonder why we have not gotten off our lardy bureaucratic asses to get it done.

 

 

Directly pertinent — is the revived debate over COVID aerosols

 

Why, after all these months, is this still a glaring unknown?

 

 

Where has contact tracing been?

 

Where's the physical research?

 

 

A group of even moderately talented high school students could come up with air sampling mechanisms to catch virions floating in the air, under different environmental conditions.

 

Animal studies with a variety of SARS-CoV-2 dosages — operating in experimentally constructed room shapes and air-filtration setups — could give us indicators as to the rest of what we need to know.

 

Obviously, there are ethical constraints regarding testing various transmission schemes with unvolunteered people.

 

 

We also have the purported (and not-purported) infectivity of children question

 

This is relevant to whether and how to reopen schools.

 

Why the sloth? What's so hard about tracking this data down?

 

We have the necessary, though inadvertent, experiments already running. Genuine contact tracing would give us some tentative answers.

 

We could bolster these with direct viral samples taken from volunteering children, as well as PCR and serology tests. This is ordinary stuff that virtually no one would object to.

 

Instead, the American Cricket Chorus continues in full-brainless mode.

 

 

The moral? — COVID-19 poses a societal intelligence test

 

The United States is solidly bogged in the Hopeless Moron category.

 

How is this unflattering ranking 'gonna' play — over the coming decades?

 

If we are optimistic, based on the above data, we're fools.