NY pays millions of dollars to these companies and none of them deliver any ventilators because NY didn't do any due diligence.
This one guy gets called out because a NY state official claims he came at the "direct recommendation of the White House." This makes no sense, but Buzzfeed rolls with it, and it's likely CYA for the state official to pass the blame onto the federal government.
"After this article was published, a spokesperson for Pence, Katie Miller, said in a statement that "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all."
It seems far more likely the WHCTF gave a blanket recommendation like "get ventilators where you can, ASAP, don't focus on due diligence" and that statement is being used as cover for bad picks.
And of course that note is at the bottom of the article.
This is a perfect example of fake news. Deep down there is a story of incompetence and duress on the part of NY State, but instead it’s presented to the public as yet another made up anti-Trump circle jerk.
1. This administration has outright lied about a number of things, including denying to the press things we know actually did happen.
2. "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract" does not actually deny having recommended the vendor to NY. It's a pretty careful wording that doesn't actually contradict the article at all.
> 2. "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract" does not actually deny having recommended the vendor to NY.
By truncating the rest of the quoted text you’re further proving my point of the fake news circle jerk. The full quote from the article that you selectively truncated is (emphasis mine):
>> "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all."
My layman’s reading of “not involved at all” would cover denying recommending the vendor.
The rest of the wording is just as careful, and logically follows from the first part (you can hardly be involved in a contract if you don’t know about it).
“We recommended the vendor and put them in touch with NY, then washed our hands of it” fits just fine with the wording there.
If it's he-said/she-said between officials from NY state and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, I don't see any reason to automatically side with the White House except for political bias. This White House has proven itself to be mendacious, incompetent, and disorganized many times over.
None of that excuses NY from doing due diligence, but I'm just saying I wouldn't jump to conclusions about who told whom what.
Lets use this as an opportunity to count how many countries actually managed to deliver on making brand new emergency ventilators during the emergency?
I counted only three: Turkey — Baykar Biyovent, Pakistan — Kamra PakVent 1, India — Marutu Suzuki emergency ventilator. That's very few.
Even if NYC government didn't dish those money to him, it would still be unrealistic to expect anybody being able to deliver on that in any capacity, other than existing manufacturers.
How they didn't know that?
Similarly, the story with PCR tests. Those were available at least a month prior to emergency in NYC, yet USG spent sweet time dishing out random grants and contracts, despite the solution already being on the table.
> But as noted by NPR, The American Society of Anesthesiologists warned in guidance published on February 23 that BiPAP machines may actually "increase the risk of infectious transmission." Experts have said the non-invasive devices can let air escape, resulting in potential virus spread.
They might slightly increase the already high level of transmission in the covid wing of the hospital, but the point is that they save the life of the person they are ventilating.
I'm always surprised at the degree to which people will take a good deed and twist it make it seem wrong or ineffective. Why? Is it a general hatred for Musk? ...or something more general? A hatred of successful people? Or a hatred of wealthy people? Why the irrational bias?
You mean the state of New York did absolutely zero due diligence? I understand they were grasping in grappling with trying to get all the ventilators they could, but did no one think to Google the company?
> A state official, speaking on background because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the terms of the deal, said New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force.
I've run into vendors who don't have websites or any appreciable presence, where you wind up going "holy crap, I had no idea you existed and you serve like half the industry". (I've also been one of these.)
It's plausible they assumed the White House had one of these sorts of vendors.
I get that as chief executive, the president is ultimately responsible for everything, but is this literally where we're dumping the blame?
The President failed to make sure the task force member who recommended the vendor had done his diligence and the state government was just 100% blindly trusting of the very same White House they claim to hate at every step of the way, therefore it's Trump's fault?
What ever happened to trust but verify?
I just don't understand why type of micro-manager would be needed for this to not be his fault then. It wouldn't be a human at that point, you'd need some sort of AI that manages the smallest of minutia of every aspect of government.
Please don't fall prey to the emo journalism of the day. And don't rachet it up even farther. For the most part, these are professionals doing their jobs. There's been a lot more failure than typical, on both sides, in the face of an historical pandemic. But let's not demonize either side here, or assume that others do.
For the record, Trump does run the executive branch, and if one of its people pushed this through, it reflects horribly on his leadership and whoever eventually gets thrown under the bus.
But, this article doesn't bring much to the table in terms of sources. Doesn't make sense to point fingers until someone involved in the purchase does, without anonymity.
It's worth reading the article. The subtitle adds a bit of necessary context:
> The Silicon Valley engineer, who had no background in medical supplies but was recommended by the White House, never delivered the ventilators.
The article has a direct quote:
> “The guy was recommended to us by the White House coronavirus task force because they were doing business with him as well,” said the New York state official.
I don't think the state government expected that the White House would recommend a scammer.
Holding people responsible for their decisions isn't blaming the victim. This is their job. They failed at it. NY keeps making bad decisions and then blaming the federal government -- they take credit but push off blame/responsibility. I'm not happy with how my government is handling this.
If you check the article, there is now an update where a spokesman for the white house denies there was ever any contact or recommendation from the coronavirus task force.
No, that's not what the White House statement says.
> After this article was published, a spokesperson for Pence, Katie Miller, said in a statement that "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all."
Contract, not contact. They deny knowing about or being part of the contract. Nowhere do they deny recommending the vendor.
This is very real life. Government procurement is often a mess in the best of times; the crisis has just made it much more so (because they're in a rush) and more visibly so.
NY pays millions of dollars to these companies and none of them deliver any ventilators because NY didn't do any due diligence.
This one guy gets called out because a NY state official claims he came at the "direct recommendation of the White House." This makes no sense, but Buzzfeed rolls with it, and it's likely CYA for the state official to pass the blame onto the federal government.