Apr 7, 2020 | Business, Politics
From “Key Medical Supplies Were Shipped From U.S. Manufacturers to Foreign Buyers, Records Show” (The Intercept):Vessel manifests maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and reviewed by The Intercept show a steady flow of the medical equipment needed to treat the coronavirus being shipped abroad as recently as March 17.[…]Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare, a Pennsylvania-based health product firm that produces supplemental oxygen machines, sent at least three different shipments of respiratory equipment to Belgium in mid-February and early March. The total cargo included 14 containers weighing more than 55 tons.
Fifty-five tons!On March 8, two tons of Vapotherm’s high-flow disposable patient circuit units, used for operating its respiratory aids, were loaded onto a container ship in the Port of Los Angeles. The shipment was sent to Kobe, Japan, for Japan Medicalnext Co., a health care distributor.
The records show dozens of other shipments of respirator equipment, medical garments, medical masks, oxygen concentrators, and ventilators sent abroad over the last two months.[…]On February 28, a ship left New York for Hamburg, Germany, with about 1.5 tons of ventilator masks manufactured by Allied Healthcare Products, a health product business based in St. Louis. The masks are used for the company’s portable ventilator unit.
The reason?The U.S. government has placed no restrictions on exports of medical supplies while continuing to impose financial penalties on the import of personal protective gear, protective goggles, pulse oximeters, hand sanitizer, and other medical products from China. On March 10 and 12, President Donald Trump temporarily lifted tariffs, in place since 2017, on some of these medical products.
Apr 6, 2020 | Politics, Sci-Tech
In an excellent article in the UK Telegraph, WHO must answer serious questions before it is trusted with leading a Covid-19 inquiry (April 3, 2020), Matt Ridley shows that WHO’s actions demonstrate that WHO placed politics and cronyism above world health:[WHO]… failed to prepare the world for a pandemic, spending the years since the Sars and ebola alarms talking more about climate change, obesity and tobacco, while others, including the Wellcome Trust and the Gates foundation, actually set up a coalition for epidemic preparedness innovation, and countries like Singapore and South Korea put in place measures to cope with an outbreak like SARS in the future.[WHO]… once the epidemic began in China, WHO downplayed its significance, tweeting as late as January 14 that “preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus”, when it had already been warned by the Taiwanese health authorities among others of strong evidence for medical staff in Wuhan becoming ill. The Chinese government at this stage had known for weeks that the virus was spreading, probably person to person, yet WHO then sycophantically praised the Chinese government.[WHO]… has failed before. When the ebola outbreak in West Africa that was to kill 11,000 people began in late 2013, on its own admission WHO hindered the fight against the virus, obsessed with not letting others find out what was happening.
Apr 2, 2020 | Business, Politics
Yaron Brook, in an excellent Twitter thread, makes an off the cuff outline of how he thinks a free-market would respond to the COVID-19 crisis:In a truly capitalist society, here is how the market responds:1. Health insurance companies monitor for health risks (they have an economic interest to do so).2. Warn early — implement plans with hospitals, that have been developed well in advance.3. Demand from hospitals for extra equipment, causes prices to go up quickly.4. The market responds by bringing on new capacity quickly.5. Groceries raise prices on high in-demand goods, thus reducing “hoarding” and assuring continued supply.6. Hospitals (all private, and in a completely private market) activate emergency plans (which they have a profit-motive to have) for additional beds (in mothballed buildings, local hotels, or other facilities).7. Private pharmaceutical companies and labs develop tests at the request of hospitals and clinics.8. Private clinics start testing in mass.9. Goverment’s job — to make sure those who are a threat to others, are isolated.10. Private media and health experts, provide objective (non-political) advice to individuals and companies on how to deal, in the context of their own lives, with the pandemic.11. Testing provides individuals and companies with the kind of information crucial to making rational decisions.12. Private labs and pharma companies rush to innovate treatments and vaccines.13. Private testing and certification organizations (“FDA” replacements) ramp up to approve test kits, treatments, and vaccines.14. Business adjusts to peoples’ preferences for safety. Put in necessary protections and conveniences…15. People who don’t follow the reasonable guidelines suffer social ostracism and left to suffer consequences.16. Insurance contracts could be written in ways that say — if you want to be covered, behave…Feel free to add — private market responses to pandemic…
You can read the original thread and the responses here.
