Yes, the information is out there. I think that could probably be said about everything the media reports. The function of media is to take that information stream and condense it into something easily accessible to the average person who doesn't want to snatch it from various sources.
I gave the example of a couple of questions. How many tests can we do? I've seen web sites that give how many we are actually doing, updated daily. How many do we need to do? This is where the media falls flat on its face. that information is out there as well, and I've seen it reported sometimes, but every time I have seen it reported it has been in the context of a Trump statement. Trump says X, but expert says Y.
How about just skipping the Trump part sometimes? Putting him into the center of the story just confuses the issue. He's not a credible source anyway. That's sad, but I doubt I'll get much disagreement about that around here, and even in Trump-friendly editorials, they are more inclined to dodge than to actually claim Trump is right about anything related to the numbers.
Plus, he would blow a gasket if CNN just ignored him. I would love to see a daily coronavirus update from CNN that never mentioned Trump, ever. If absolutely necessary, mention some government officials.
I would if Trump wasn't behind the false testing capacity claims.
I'm working in the field where the claims from the 'feds' didn't match at all what was happening on the ground.
Here are some numbers:
NPR, June 1st: White House Coronavirus Testing Czar To Stand Down
When Giroir took charge, on March 12, there were only 5,247 tests done per day nationally.
By the end of May, there were around 400,000 tests done daily according to The COVID Tracking Project.
So that's after 2.5 months at a critical time in the US epidemic.
While that's a significant increase, some public health experts say that in order to safely reopen, as many as 900,000 daily tests may be needed.
2.5 months and tests were still at less than half that needed.
Here's what your article says:
At the beginning of March, there were fewer than 1,000 tests in the country on most days. By the end of March, there were more than 100,000 a day. The number climbed again before hovering somewhere around 150,000 a day for much of April.
Then it bumped up again, to more than 200,000 at the end of the month. It surpassed 400,000 for the first time on May 17. On May 29, it was nearly 500,000. It’s been in the range of 400,000 to 500,000 most days since, with a high of more than 580,000 just this just Friday.
More than 23 million tests have been run altogether, more than 3 million over just the last week. In April, 32 million tests were produced, and in May, 39 million, with the trajectory further upward. Giroir expects to be able to perform 50 million tests per month by September.
Those numbers don't match.
400,000 end of May vs May 17
500,000 end of May
Then the general goes off into the millions because that sounds great.
50 million tests a month by September? That's 3 months from now. La te da.
And you think this was a plan:
The White House had the idea of opening hundreds of ambitious mobile testing sites at the outset of the coronavirus crisis. But there was a problem: Officials quickly realized that creating that many sites would use up an inordinate amount of the nation’s limited supply of testing swabs.
It's not a plan, it's imagining one has a plan. Honestly, who didn't implement as many testing sites as possible given the availability of testing supplies and techs to administer the test?
He makes it sound like 'planning' and you complained the news media didn't report on this positive news. No surprise considering this is the National Review though I'm surprised they aren't currently dissing Trump:
The Media Focused Solely on Failure
There has been a lot of media attention, and justifiably so, on the initial CDC and FDA foul-ups and the initial overpromising on testing. But as the administration moved beyond that and pursued a considered but urgent approach to testing, the media persisted in harsh critiques that betrayed a misunderstanding of what was really happening.
The media often insisted that there was no testing plan, simply because the plan wasn’t centralized enough, a line of attack pursued by Democrats as well.
They admit right there the negative news reports were valid.
The criticism of the media gets very partisan:
Vox deemed April, just as the country was on the cusp of an enormous increase in testing, a “lost month.” The publication interviewed an expert who insisted, “Testing is not going to be resolved until the federal government takes ownership of expanding it; as long as they keep kicking it to the states, we will remain stuck.”
(The day the piece was published, the U.S. performed 273,000 tests; a little more than a week later, it performed more than 360,000.)
The 'feds'
were kicking it to the states. What was the news media supposed to report?
This is what
Vox reported:
Despite some gains in March on health care capacity and testing, the US failed to capitalize on social distancing throughout April to continue scaling up measures and get the coronavirus under control.
So it wasn't just about testing that they were referring to when they said April was a lost month.
More about the "stalled April":
In April, that progress seemed to stall out. In the last week of April, the US averaged around 220,000 tests a day — not much of an improvement from the roughly 150,000 a day that it reported during the first few weeks of the month, and far from what experts say is needed to control the outbreak
How was the Vox story all about the negative when there was a positive story out there? General what's his face figured out the difference between manufacturers and distributors.
How is this guy a general that he thinks this is a big revelation?
Amateur hour and they are bragging about their revelations and accomplishments. From where I stand that is what I see.
Having said that, I'm glad to be back at work. This long 'everything on hold' period, given all the other things that were going on, it got very stale. I really felt anxious and disoriented at times. A co-worker and I were discussing this at work today. He agreed; after the first couple weeks it felt weird!
