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Re:U.S. Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial start... by jfk13 on Monday March 16, 2020 @05:46AM (#22591296)
How much extra tax do you think people will be happy to pay -- forever, not just now while we have a pandemic on our hands -- to support this?
Re:U.S. Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial start... by jerf on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:35AM (#22592504)
You question contains an implication in it that all current other tax spending will not be reduced, and that "pandemic preparedness" will have to be added to the current load.

If this goes really badly in the next couple of weeks or months, that's not going to be a true assumption. A changed nation is going to be looking at its spending priorities and a lot of reassessing will be done. Predicting exactly what the result will be is difficult, but predicting that there could be a lot of change is not.

If we cross the logistic curve's inflection point today, then this may ultimately blow over and be remembered as an inconvenience (and, humans being humans, an overreaction). If this continues on for much longer and kills hundreds of thousands and (based on some of the nasty stuff I've read about) permanently damages the lungs of millions more or other such things, causing disability and long-tail mortality increases for the next 50 years, this will be a generation-defining event comparable to the Great Depression, and the usually-reliable "tomorrow will be mostly like today" prediction methodology will catastrophically break down in the next couple of months.

Re:U.S. Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial start... by calvinmorrison on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:25AM (#22592954)
I guess the implication that the US military and also non discretionary fund won't be reduced based on the last 50 years of data is probably a status quo bet.
Re:U.S. Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial start... by callmeal on Monday March 16, 2020 @08:31AM (#22592089)
given that the US has spent[0] over $5,000,000,000,000 on pointless wars, redirecting even a fraction of that toward a necessary one should be a no-brainer.

[0]: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/war/

Re:U.S. Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial start... by dzonga on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:27PM (#22594073)
wars make money, viruses don't. hence why wars are never won or end.