We should have implemented testing at scale immediately, found the infected, and paid them to stay home. While this would have cost a lot of money, it would have been less than the PPP and stimulus efforts.
I think this implies a historicist perspective. In other words, you tacitly demand that the government tell the future and act accordingly. Well obviously the government can't do that.
I think "failure" should be a question of incompetent administration. That is, once a policy is decided, how well or poorly was it carried out? It may be that the government failed at carrying out mass testing.
I do not demand that the government successfully predict the future. In March 2020, it was obvious what was happening in other countries. We were informed by the past and the present to determine how to respond.
It was obvious to me and many others. I posted on March 11, 2020 that we should get our shit together and test at scale, as South Korea and other countries with effective government were doing. I was not demanding supernatural prognostication, just competence.
> In other words, you tacitly demand that the government tell the future and act accordingly.
This is a common excuse about every bad plan after the fact; that the critics are expecting decisionmakers to have been psychic. It scrupulously ignores that the critics were offering the same critique at the time.
It scrupulously ignores anything specific to the problem being discussed. It's the "no one could have known" or the "it's easy to be a backseat driver" defense.
> I think "failure" should be a question of incompetent administration. That is, once a policy is decided, how well or poorly was it carried out?
All people with responsibility agree with you, which is why they carefully avoid formulating a policy.
This is the most contrived apology for incompetence that I have read. I am quite amazed.
It would be different if we had never before experienced a pandemic. It would be different if we did not have the examples of countries and cultures with effective implementation of testing at scale while we did nothing.
This defense of inaction is like leaving potholes alone because doing the obvious thing might cause harm somehow.
I'm arguing for a distinction between being wrong and failure. I don't see anything from you (or the other poster) besides rhetoric. Apparently we should have "just known" that this virus was going to be a disaster. And evidence of this was "I knew" or "other countries knew". Great, and half of HN "knows" there is imminent hyperinflation.
It may be fair to describe the lack of available tests a failure. All the PCR testing sites near me were 100% booked whenever I checked and the state did nothing (as far as I know) to tell us where we could get tested. Perhaps that could be described as a failure. But the rhetoric from you and the other poster is post-hoc silliness. Neither of you seem to be aware that you're expecting the government to tell the future or what the drawbacks of that might be.
For a taste, consider that citizens blaming the government for 9/11 plausibly led to a years-long illegal wire-tapping and at least one clearly unnecessary war.
"post-hoc silliness"? In March, we had seen what had happened in China and Italy already. We were watching how other countries were investing. We chose not to invest.
When a government fails to do something about an entirely predictable outcome, that is not just an error, it is also a failure.
You have a really surprising way to view things: All governments can be excused for inaction or even the wrong action with this logic.
We should have implemented testing at scale immediately, found the infected, and paid them to stay home. While this would have cost a lot of money, it would have been less than the PPP and stimulus efforts.