If you missed the news, we are now operating in a national emergency. Given that any activity with more than a few dozen people is getting canceled I suppose we’ll need something to talk about. Hey, national emergency, did you hear?
The left will not be impressed. Their groundlings are already spreading their own disease. The coronavirus is Trump’s fault. Sure, and Russian Collusion was real except that 30 million dollars and a room full of Trump-hating leftist investigators could not prove it.
Did you say something about a national emergency? I did. It’s not going to be cheap but whatever is these days. Billions are found in the Capitol Hill Couch cushions. But Mr. Trump, while no spendthrift, has added a bit of a twist to the latest formula.
“We’re announcing a new partnership with [the] private sector to vastly increase and accelerate our capacity to test for the coronavirus,” the president said. “We want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test very safely, quickly, and conveniently, but we don’t want people to take a test if we feel that they shouldn’t be doing it. And we don’t want everyone running out and taking, only if you have certain systems.”
If you had not heard the test kit problem was wholly a product of the Swamp creatures running the CDC and the FDA. I’ve mentioned them on occasion in recent weeks. The bureaucratic tendency to heel drag if it makes Trump look bad. Well, that may not have been the issue here. It was probably just the bureaucracy being the bureaucracy.
Michael Graham had a great piece about this in the Boston Herald today.
One great thing for government to do is to distribute test kits so we can quickly tell who has the coronavirus and get them quarantined. We have an entire government department, the Centers for Disease Control, that’s in charge of that; and another — the Food and Drug Administration — to regulate the tests. And what did they do?
They delayed coronavirus testing by weeks, all in the name of bureaucracy.
And what about those test kits?
It’s a job virtually any biolab can handle, but the government wouldn’t let them. So we ran out.
Why? Because the government was in charge. Thanks to its need to “regulate,” people are walking around right now infected with a virus that could kill their grandmas, and they have no idea. If we’d put the private sector in charge, there’d be test kits in every gas station bathroom in America, right next to the condoms.
And we have the proof. When the feds relaxed their regulations, labs immediately announced they were going to start cranking out tests. Earlier this week, the Cleveland Clinic announced it had created an in-house test that gave accurate results in just eight hours, not two or three days.
In other words, getting government out of the way solved this problem and private sector innovators are already improving on that solution. Because they want to benefit from the intellectual capital they create and the profit potential it represents.
And Democrats? They want to give the entire health care system over to bureaucrats. Pardon my “french” but F**k, no! If anything this should prove why any further expansion of the state into any corner of this industry should be stopped then rolled back. Faster than the Coronavirus spreads.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has also engaged Google or perhaps gotten the government out of their way to do something else useful.
“I want to thank Google, Google is helping to develop a website, it’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,” Trump said. “Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now.”
“Our overriding goal is to stop the spread of the virus and to help all Americans who have been impacted by this,” the president explained.
1700 engineers who work to create profit for a living (instead of more bureaucrats) are trying to rapidly deploy a digital tool of adequate functionality and power to address a real problem. No, not rescinding the Hyde Amendment. Rolling back the infection panic. If folks can determine their preliminary status and get a test within short order, they’ll know they are good or need treatment.
And you know what else? There are more private resources waiting for a chance to prove they can improve on it or do it better. And maybe for as little as a tax break.
The government has nothing that can compete and should consider getting out of the way more often, then staying out of the way. I’m not holding my breath, but this is an excellent opportunity for the private sector to shine, and I’m certain your President knows that.