Re:How the World’s Richest Country Ran Out of Face Masks
by danans on Wednesday March 25, 2020 @11:58AM
(#22685797)
This points to an obvious bit of legislation that we need in the US: require hospitals to keep minimum stockpiles of pandemic response supplies, just like banks have minimum financial reserve requirements.
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Re:How the World’s Richest Country Ran Out of Face Masks
by ethbro on Wednesday March 25, 2020 @11:39PM
(#22690625)
Given that there's an accute shortage of hospitals serving rural areas, regulation of that nature better be accompanied by federal funding for that work.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some serious DHS money redirected to hospitals, after this is all over. They could certainly put it to better use than police departments.
Re:How the World’s Richest Country Ran Out of Face Masks
by mistermann on Thursday March 26, 2020 @01:12AM
(#22690892)
Alternatively, you could assign maintaining the mask inventory to admin staff. I know they often don't have advanced degrees, but I can't imagine they'd do a worse job of it. Actually, they'd probably take the job a lot more seriously than the "experts" who are in charge currently.
Assigning such tasks to a central body seems like an extremely fragile design, and as evidence for this assertion, I offer the current state of reality. I find it a rather convincing argument, but then I'm probably quite biased.