FWIW, states like New York and California have larger populations and economies than most European countries. That, I think, is an argument in favor of being more hands off and letting the governors figure out what’s right in their state. They’ll have a much better understanding of what their local problems and capabilities are.

The EU organised a joint purchase.

I'm not sure how much single-country purchasing has also happened.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

That article was from March 24th, more recently (and as things got even more serious) bigger EU countries like Germany have started going solo, like documented in this recent article [1]. The article is in German (which I don't know) but I'm going to post a translation provided by some other guy from whom I've taken the link:

> During the Corona crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in talks with China's President Xi, created the conditions for Germany to gain direct access to a state-owned Chinese manufacturer of protective clothing. This is stated in a paper with which the Federal Ministry of Health informed the Bundestag about the procurement of protective clothing.

> The paper for the Bundestag states that after a discussion between Merkel and Xi and subsequent talks between the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Federal Ministry of Health, "direct access to a state producer (Moheco) could be established" at the beginning of April. Moheco promised a "higher level of quality and delivery reliability". In addition, an "air bridge" between China and Germany will be established with unused Lufthansa passenger planes to transport the masks.

As a non-German EU citizen I find this type of tactics very, very wrong and fundamentally detrimental to the future of the Union.

[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/schutzausruestung-merkel...

If I recall correctly, at least the first tender failed. No manufacturer responded.

They don't have an army, a passport, borders, a seat an the UN or any real diplomacy ties.

So unless you want to turn the state into a country, its power of negotiation is limited.

No I don’t think it is. Their local problems are the exact same virus as everyone else’s local problems.

No its not, for instance just population density is a huge factor in the spread of a virus. If you live in an area where people are fairly isolated or travel outside their region very little, than you don't need to do the same extreme lockdowns or shut down the economy to the same degree to prevent the spread.

I live in a state that's barely being touched by this, and not because we don't have it, but because there are two large cities that have maybe 100+ cases or significant hospital load, and the spread is insignificant because its very easy for people to avoid each other and take basic precautions during interaction to prevent the spread. If you live in apartment buildings, 6 feet from your neighbor with only a wall to separate you stacked stories high with shared elevators, stairwells, hallways, and the majority of transport requires people to be in close proximity on sidewalks, buses, or trains, the factors and extreme measures needed to stop its spread are very different than someone living in Alaska or Idaho. Those people don't need to stay in their homes, they just need to avoid going anywhere unnecessary with large groups of people and wash their hands and cover their mouths.

Some states have higher rates of obesity or other risk factors, some states have higher populations of elderly than others. One size fits all measures doesn't work, you need focused precision efforts determined by locals and the only thing they need from the umbrella governments is support in their efforts for needs they've determined are necessary.

You don't know how many cases your state has because we're doing a piss poor job of testing. Unless you're in Alaska, Wyoming, or North Dakota, your state has more than 300+ cases, and probably a magnitude more.

This idea that states with smaller populations aren't at risk is a foolish one. Sure you may not end up with death counts like NYC, but you'll still end up with some; hopefully you won't overtax your healthcare system.

I figured someone would say that, the testing tells you if its spreading in asymptomatic or mild cases, but the reason for that is because we want to stop serious cases.

We know how many people are in the hospital. Honestly, that's all that matters, if we have less people in the hospitals relative to our population, then we have less spread. We have less capacity relative to population size, and they're not being overrun. You don't need testing to know if your hospitals and ICU's are overrun.

>This idea that states with smaller populations aren't at risk is a foolish one.

I never said that, I said the risk factors are different and the actions you need to take to prevent spread might be less drastic. I'm arguing against the idea of a one size fits all solution, something that needs to be done to stop the spread in a place like NYC is unnecessarily restrictive and dampening in the local economy in a small town, where people can just wash their hands, avoid going anywhere but work and shopping for necessities, and businesses taking basic precautions like WFH and avoiding direct interaction where possible, and avoiding gatherings of large groups.

I can leave my house, go out in my yard, and walk down my street and possibly not even see anyone else out, much less come within 6 feet of them. I can get in my car and go somewhere else and not have to come in contact with anyone. You can't do that in a city center, people have to stay in their apartments for two weeks, without leaving or wear protective gear when they do leave, because leaving their residence without interacting with people is impossible, you're liable to run into someone in the hallway, stairwell, elevator, sidewalk, bus, or train/subway, all of which are rolling the dice on infection. If you're in the same apartment building, its possible you're breathing the same air, and have the cruise ship effect. Someone in Oklahoma doesn't have those same risk factors, they don't interact with the same number of people going about their daily business, just avoiding travel is enough to keep the whole community isolated. Nothing much is gained by having them restricted to their house at all times, they just need to avoid certain things that would put them in more interaction with others than normal, or traveling outside their region and vice versa.

What is being done now is probably best, you set baseline restrictions for the nation as a whole, and then each regional government increases or adds on to those restrictions based on the needs of their area.

Population density and demographics vary widely between New York City and the farms upstate and the old steel towns in western New York State. Maybe we should make each mayor fight the virus alone since they know their community better than the governor? Big differences between Manhattan and Staten Island too, maybe each borough is on its own?

The feud between DeBlasio and Cuomo in NYC is one instance in which the mayor did know better. Mayor DeBlasio wanted to lockdown the city sooner, but Governor Cuomo blocked it.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/17/cuomo-de-blasio-clash-over-pos...

DeBlasio was telling people on March 2 to go out on the town and watch a movie on Twitter.

Trump is an easy scapegoat for obvious reasons, so politicians and local people use him when not wanting to accept personal responsibility for the consequences of their own actions, or lack there of. If you already take the position that the President can't be relied on and should be out of office, why would you delay taking action yourself to prevent a scenario where you're waiting on hospital ships and the US Army to assist, or acting like you're the only place in the US that needs help, then complaining later that the President didn't do more? It's schizophrenic and hypocritical.

The claim about size is basically a red herring. A small independent nation could set whatever course it wanted. But California is administered on a day to day basis based on Local, State and Federal policy. You might see local and state officials and workers more often but to a substantial degree they are executing Federal policy that come in the form of grants to states and municipalities.

And this is to say that the states are not prepared act as nations at a moment's notice and without the expectation that they will act independently, they don't have either the resources or the experience (but I guess they're learning fast).

Even more, if you live in the US, you might have noticed you pay far income tax to the Federal Government than to your state government. A lot of this money goes back to the states but only for particular, mandated purposes. This makes it rather difficult, again, for states to suddenly offer their own emergency management system, especially when Feds have a fully budgeted emergency management agency (FEMA, the, uh, Federal Emergency Management Agency) where the states don't agencies with equivalent funding. So when FEMA doesn't actually act, we have a serious problem.

I imagine you're going to want coordination so that states are not competing with each other to purchase ventilators / PPE / whatever else they need. Otherwise you're going to drive up the price for everyone. There's certainly an argument to be had that the federal government preventing states from acting can be costly, but I do think you need some level of coordination in order to prevent waste on a massive scale.

But the demand is worldwide. Surely a single state negotiating on its own is irrelevant in comparison to the fact that every single country on earth is trying to procure supplies at a level never before experienced.

There's nothing local specific in PPE. Everybody needs the same things.

There are a lot of good answers to your questions here. On balance, I tend to agree the federal government should be doing more coordination, less official policy setting, but more collaboration with state governments to help them set sensible policies.

Regardless, I think part of the problem is visceral reactions like this. Understandable, considering the scope of the problem we're facing, but I'd ask people to exercise a little empathy for the other side, consider that our instincts may be wrong in at least limited situations, and generally do more listening. COVID had exacerbated the political problems in our country, but it didn't create them, and they'll still be here when COVID has been exterminated. Something for us all to work on.

The US's system seems to be dominated by the states (writing as an observer from abroad).

This may work well during normal times but it has limitations, which show in times like what we're experiencing now.

It was mentioned on the BBC recently that the federal government has no power to impose lockdowns, for example.

While technically correct (i.e. Federal powers are limited), realistically they can, and do, use the power of the purse to get cooperation. 'Oh, you want Federal resources for this? We're going to need you to do your part by doing X, Y and Z first...' Also, many many years ago we had a Congress that would actually pass laws that States would have to follow... but that was so long ago it probably sounds like fiction to most reading this.

The larger issue (and we're seeing it with the current crisis) is that many things are broken at the Federal, State and local levels and each level is busy pointing fingers at another level(s) in an attempt to redirect blame.

That's a good thing! The state governors at least nominally care about their people.

Great points in favor of a good QB. Fat middlement don't disappear with centralization though -- see: defense contractor fraud [1]

[1]: https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/05/defense-contracting-fr...

You've obviously never dealt with the federal procurement process!

The US is a federal republic. That structure is one of its great strengths. Wishing it was a unitary state at this time does not get us anywhere.

Consider the CDC bungling of getting out the initial test kits and the regulations that kicked in that prevented states from developing tests for a few weeks. That was some critical time wasted in the name of "efficient centralization".