“At the height of the coronavirus outbreak this summer, Texas health officials were scrambling to overcome data backlogs and inconsistencies that clouded the toll of the virus and eroded trust among local leaders,” reported the Houston Chronicle.
The story takes the typical turn in the next sentence: “But while the Department of State Health Services says it has worked through the most pressing issues, many of its struggles run deeper — the result of years of underfunding, a fragmented public health system, and reluctance from agency officials and lawmakers to modernize the state’s disease reporting system, according to interviews with current and former state and local health employees.”
Yeah, right.
Recognize that the public health services were created to be ready to spring into action upon a big outbreak of contagious disease. Between pandemics officials in those services are supposed to game plan outbreaks and create protocols that can be pulled off the shelf and implemented instantly. They had little ready for WuFlu even though it is similar to other known recent outbreaks in nature and there is nothing about COVID that requires unique reporting systems.
The idea being pushed is that throwing more of our money at the public health services in slow times would magically have turned those agencies from clumsy government bureaucracies given to sluggishness by nature, into dynamic, innovative, and efficient agencies.
When and where has that ever worked? It’s a stupid premise.
Who made the original estimates for the spread of Covid. Some guy in Europe!!!! 2.4 million then sum number in the 100K!!! Such wild estimates should not be trusted, let alone determining how a country is to handle the outbreak…..