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Medicine Government The Almighty Buck United States

Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears (npr.org) 212

Posted by BeauHD from the cut-off dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Some local officials are disappointed the federal government will end funding for coronavirus testing sites this Friday. In a few places those sites will close as a result. This as criticism continues that not enough testing is available. In the Philadelphia suburbs, Montgomery County has a drive-through site that has tested 250 people a day since March 21. "It has been a very successful site. We are hoping by the time it closes Friday afternoon that we will have tested a little over 5,000 individuals," says Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, who chairs the commission in the county of more than 825,000 people. Arkoosh says the site, located on a local college campus, will shut down Friday. Similar announcements have been made in Colorado Springs, Colo., and nearby Philadelphia.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells NPR, "Many of the Community-Based Testing Sites (CBTS) are not closing, but rather transitioning to state-managed sites on or about April 10." The agency and a spokesperson for FEMA say the CBTS program originally included 41 sites. It was intended as a stop-gap to bring testing to critical locations, especially for health care facility workers and first responders. "The transition will ensure each state has the flexibility and autonomy to manage and operate testing sites within the needs of their specific community and to prioritize resources where they are needed the most," the HHS spokesperson said.
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Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears More

Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears

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  • Apparently we are getting back to our normal 24 hour non-stop Donald Trump reality show marathon. I doubt Donald had anything to do with this. It actually makes sense if the resources that went to these testing sites can be better directed elsewhere by local officials to let them make the decision.

  • Feds taking no responsibility, again (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SysEngineer ( 4726931 ) on Thursday April 09, 2020 @08:38PM (#59926648)
    My daughter is a Dr in NYC.She states that the support from both Fed and state is worthless. This crisis has had no leadership.

    • We have very few leaders, mostly idealogues. Pragmatists are having a hard time getting elected, regardless of what party they affiliate with.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        We do not need leaders so much as we need managers. Either way, the alleged administration is bereft of both. The alleged president is a failed business...well, something....driving his Mom and Pop operations into the ground 6 times. Then his dyspeptic gut tells him to put his clueless son-in-law in charge of the corona virus response. The man has no qualifications for anything which makes him a natural for this alleged administration.

    • The federal government does not manage crises at a local level. They can provide funding and some basic support, but it's up to the states to manage their own affairs. This is how the US is set up and always has been.

      • The federal government does not manage crises at a local level. They can provide funding and some basic support, but it's up to the states to manage their own affairs. This is how the US is set up and always has been.

        ~ JBMcB

        emphasis mine
        And a meaingful assay of viral infection is somehow immune to your interpretation that a common defense and currency is not applicable in this context?

        Hell, man. The federal department of education, spawned from a cabinet level by Carter and driven like a tank by Bush the Younger, achieved what, exactly, when shuttering schools for not reaching goals indexed by yearly report to allocate funds, in effect subsidize, Charter schools?

        When it suits lobbyists, there is no neat and historical lin

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          And a meaingful assay of viral infection is somehow immune to your interpretation that a common defense and currency is not applicable in this context?

          So whom would the federal government mobilize to perform the assay? Aside from the VA hospital system, the federal government does not employ doctors at any significant capacity. There are armed forces medical units, but those are already fully deployed.

          As others in this thread have pointed out, the direct funding was as stop gap until the regular streams of funding were set up through state agencies. The issue isn't with funding, it's with the state agencies reallocating these monies to other priorities.

        • Are you familiar with Federalism? Did you know that under the Constitution, public health, safety and education are under the sole sovereign authority of the States? They are powers reserved by the States.

    • Zeroth Response (Re:Feds taking no responsibility) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseer.earthlink@net> on Thursday April 09, 2020 @09:35PM (#59926800)

      My daughter is a Dr in NYC.She states that the support from both Fed and state is worthless. This crisis has had no leadership.

      Typical big city thinking, waiting on the government to fix things.

      I remember listening to a podcast a long time ago where someone observed the different ways the public responded to a hurricane. The people in rural communities immediately started to clear downed trees that were blocking traffic on their own. Those in the city just drove around them and complained to the city council. The rural communities immediately organized groups to repair neighbors' roofs to keep out the weather. The city dwellers sat on their front step to wait for some city official to come along.

      This is a big problem and the federal and state governments have a lot of things to deal with right now. They might not get to you for a while. Until then you need to do what you can on your own. The government isn't always going to provide leadership, which means you might have to step up and lead.

      I'll put this another way. Do you have a fire extinguisher in your home? If you don't then you should. Even though the city will operate a fire fighting service this doesn't relieve you of the obligation of being a "zeroth responder". This means if there is a fire then you need to fight that fire and call the first responders. If the police, fire, and ambulance services are the first responders then you are the "zeroth responder". The first person obligated to respond to an emergency is not someone in a government issued uniform. That person is going to be the victim or a bystander.

      Should the government provide a fire fighting service? Absolutely. I believe the government is obligated to do so. That doesn't mean you are relieved of any responsibility.

      For someone that I assume is a licensed physician I'd think your daughter would be capable of providing some leadership. I'll assume the hospital, clinic, or wherever she works has some kind of chain of command. Even though the NYC city government might be leaderless there's still going to be community leadership, volunteer organizations, and so forth that should be able to give some leadership.

      I'm hearing a lot of people giving Samaritan's Purse a hard time in NYC. To any detractors of this group I say fuck you. This is precisely the kind of response we should be seeing in cases like this. People are calling this shameful that a private group has to step in for the government failures. I'm thinking people forget what the government is. The government is people. People organized by the community to solve problems that cannot be solved by the individual. You don't need to wait for election day to organize some new kind of community support structure. This needs to be a continuous process. Some of that running in parallel, with the highly structured organization of a government along with the less formal non-government organizations.

      Sometimes the government funded first response will be right there. Sometimes they will be delayed. There may be times where there is no government first response. In every case there needs to be someone to provide a "zeroth response". On Spaceship Earth everyone needs to be part of the crew, not just a passenger.

    • The thing is leadership wouldn't be visible in NYC. Competent leaders supported early enough interventions not to have crises. Look to the Governors of Ohio, Washington or California.

  • The agenda of herd immunity delivered.

    The subversion of a public interest achieved by the model of a President leading by example died, again, when a 4th Estate would not, or could not, challenge Trump's report that his doctor had excused his need for a test on the basis of not showing symptoms.

    A fog of cultural war sufficient to present proxy for substance when the Press clamored to know the results of a test once given. Governing through crisis, precept given documented expression after Alexander Haig'

  • National defense isn't a federal thing anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cajun Hell ( 725246 ) on Thursday April 09, 2020 @09:46PM (#59926842) Homepage Journal

    Is national defense not a federal thing anymore? Is it up to the states to, uhh, form a union by which to address concerns shared by every single state, such as, uhh, an invasion that's gonna kill at least as many Americans as the Vietnam War? And if we can form that union, can we fire the old one?

    I knew national defense issues have often been very partisan, but... did they trade sides?

    • Well I'd have to say you have to look to the top of the federal government for that answer. In past administrations even when the federal response was lacking, it was at least acknowledged that it was responsibility of the federal government. This administration has demonstrated an alarming lack of acceptance of its responsibility.
      • I'm wondering how we should apportion the nukes that the feds don't want and obviously can't be trusted to manage. Proportional by electoral votes? Auction? Presidential prerogative?
    • Is someone shooting at us?

  • Changed their mind.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by lionchild ( 581331 ) on Thursday April 09, 2020 @09:56PM (#59926856) Journal

    They changed their mind, 24 hours later.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/c... [npr.org]

  • NPR: In Reversal, Federal Support For Coronavirus Testing Sites Continues. https://www.npr.org/sections/c... [npr.org]

  • Always running to the federal government for help? Most things are (supposed to be) the job of the States. Including this.

    • So, let me get this right, you would rather have 52 different states all doing their own thing, than a co ordinated national response and supplies being allocated on a needs basis. Sounds legit. One of the reason Australia is doing so well is we created a bi partisan national cabinet of state and federal leaders that are coordinating our efforts very well, and not publicly squabbling for political gain, as is so obvious in the US, where federal policy is based around Trumps fickle need for compliments, and

      • Well for one, that's an absurd assumption about Trump's motives. Second, while Australia may also have a Federal system, that doesn't mean authority is assigned the same way under our respective Constitutions.

        Besides, it's not like we aren't doing basically the same thing. State governors and the Federal response team are in constant contact, and on the whole the governors are satisfied with the situation.

  • Why is this shit so difficult to fund? Can somebody please add on an aircraft carrier to the testing site funding so we can get some money in there?

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