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Company prioritizes $15k ventilators over cheaper model specified in contract:
The Dutch company that received millions of taxpayer dollars to develop an affordable ventilator for pandemics but never delivered them has struck a much more lucrative deal with the federal government to make 43,000 ventilators at four times the price.
The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it plans to pay Royal Philips N.V. $646.7 million for the new ventilators—paying more than $15,000 each. The first 2,500 units are to arrive before the end of May, HHS said, and the rest by the end of December.
Philips refused to say which model of ventilator the government was buying. But in response to questions from ProPublica, HHS officials said the government is purchasing the Trilogy EV300, the more expensive version of the ventilator that was developed with federal funds.
The deal is a striking departure from the federal contract Philips' Respironics division signed in September to produce 10,000 ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each.
"This kind of profiteering—paying four times the negotiated price—is not only irresponsible to taxpayers but is particularly offensive when so many people are out of work," said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who served as the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response during the Obama administration. "And besides, most of these ventilators will come too late to make a difference in this pandemic. We'll then 'replenish' the stockpile at a ridiculously high price."
"What else," she asked, "won't we be able to buy as a result?"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2020, @10:43AM (22 children)
Well - caskets, maybe? No worries, mass graves and ̶c̶r̶e̶m̶a̶t̶o̶r̶i̶a̶ bonfires will cover for that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @01:18PM (20 children)
Nothing - money is an imaginary construct, we'll just leverage future labor's payroll taxes and get whatever strikes the current fancy, after all:
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2020, @01:30PM (8 children)
And, that does put a humorous side on things. Old, worn out bastards at the capitals instituting lockdowns, to protect themselves. Meanwhile, younger people continue to get horny, and circulate among other younger people. They're not immune, of course, but to them, it's not much more serious than the flu.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @02:24PM (6 children)
Only if you compare individual cases is it "not much more serious than the flu".
But when you consider the fact that this virus has the potential to infect an entire country in a matter of weeks, even among younger people we are looking at something like a ~0.1% mortality rate, and things are significantly more serious than your usual flu season.
The US already has over half a million confirmed cases. The real number of infected is probably about 10 times that, so we're looking at about one in every 100 Americans already infected. That's only going to get worse!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @02:48PM
Ooh, do tell how some people are immune to the flu.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2020, @03:06PM (3 children)
So, roughly 5 million Americans infected? Ohhhh-kay.
So, that puts the population of the US around 500 million? I'm expecting a mini-baby boom before Christmas. Did I miss the last one? Or, have we had that many illegal aliens crash the border in recent months?
May I suggest that you are just feeding the fear?
https://healthvigil.com/flu-season-deaths-us-worlswide/ [healthvigil.com]
So, uhhhh, what are the numbers for the China virus again? I'm not seeing an existential threat to mankind yet. I'm seeing an existential threat to the old, the sick, and the weak. Oh shit, I'm old!!! And, it appears that I am less fearful than you are.
BTW - "flu related" doesn't exactly mean that the flu killed them. Nor does "Covid-19 related" exactly mean that they died from the China virus. I've mentioned the talk show I listen to often enough. Guests often call in to discuss stuff. At the present time, in some locations, if someone dies, and it isn't known exactly why they died, doctors and coroners are often marking "corona virus related", even if there was no indication of the corona virus prior to death. Basically, when you're swamped, you justify a few shortcuts here and there.
New Orleans, which was made infamous for some truly heinous cowardly acts in the aftermath of Katrina ranks right up there with inflated Corona virus infections and deaths.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @05:18PM
It's definitely not an existential threat to mankind. But it is a terrible optics if you have mass graves for a few million.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 13 2020, @07:25PM (1 child)
Notice the use of the word "about". It covers a lot of numerical sins. Aboutly.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 14 2020, @02:58AM
I'm pretty sure numerical sins aren't among those that Jesus died for.
though, I'll have to reread Dante to find out what circle of Hell is designated for those type of sins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @08:35PM
Best data says that the asymptomatic cases seem to be about 50% of the known cases. Not 50% of all people. I think the data I've been seeing suggests a death rate of 1-3% of known cases leading to known infection rate of 5-10%, which would put the unknown cases at about 20% of the population total. Still pretty wicked, but not 50% of the population.
Coronavirus generally isn't very easy to get even in closer contact. But most of the measures are about flattening curves, not worrying about individual cases (i.e. lessen the impact of those who did get it).
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday April 13 2020, @11:22PM
It is more serious when the younger people then head home to their folks house, give it to them, then their parents end up in hospital or worse. Can't infect the hand that feeds you, lest it is too sick to feed you.
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Monday April 13 2020, @01:46PM (10 children)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Monday April 13 2020, @02:03PM (9 children)
I don't know - younger people tend to be more in-tune with the changing state of technology and society, but they also tend to lack the wisdom of experience.
Of course we're talking politicians here, so wisdom is pretty thin to begin with.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @02:25PM (2 children)
You make lack of experience sound like a bad thing. With a couple of exceptions, the Senators' "experience" is better described as corruption. They have no skin in the game for many of the issues that they're making policies on. Many of them are going to be dead before the consequences of some of these policies come true. And, even if they aren't dead, they'll be out of office and living in the lap of luxury.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @05:50PM (1 child)
The biggest selling point for the current US administration was this lack of experience and how it was going to "drain the swamp" and "shake things up". Well, a whole new level of swamp was dumped, and all the experience and expertise has been run off. We are certainly "shook up", and we're basically fucked over on SO many levels now.
Yes, experience really does count. REALLY.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @10:16PM
You're confused, what we have here is called corruption. He selected people based purely upon loyalty to him and a willingness to do whatever he wants and then take the fall if it doesn't work out. He could have found experts whose experience matched what he wanted.
Without the corruption, a lot of this stuff could be done more effectively without automatically going with experience. Experience is why we have MRSA, experts keep pushing the abuse of antibiotics because in their world view, bacteria cause infections, so we need to get rid of bacteria in order to clear up the infection. And when they do that, they use antibiotics that wipe out entire ecosystems of bacteria. Shockingly, it has resulted in MRSA, but rather than admit that it's a fool's errand to try and use antibiotics the way they've been using them, they've doubled down on it.
In many cases, it makes far more sense to add benign and beneficial bacteria than it does to try and eliminate the harmful ones. And even when we do need to remove the harmful ones, it's foolish to use treatments that don't target that specific strain, rather than carpet bombing all of them.
We see the same thing with weight loss and nutrition, where the experts have no idea what they're talking about and you've got huge numbers of people that faithfully follow the advice they're being given and still are overweight.
Having experience can be really helpful, but you're a great fool if you don't see that it isn't automatically optimal.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @02:50PM (4 children)
Experience / wisdom is, unfortunately, not a quantity that can be objectively measured like age - all attempts to do so have been invariably biased and inaccurate, most likely because the words themselves: experience and wisdom, are inherently imprecise and vary in their interpretation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 13 2020, @03:37PM (3 children)
True, and they don't even necessarily increase with age. However, they're far less common among the young.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @05:06PM (2 children)
As measured by whom? (Am I even using whom correctly? Doubt I'll ever care enough to learn that with confidence no matter my age.)
There are some objective measures of neurological phenomena which pretty much let teenagers out from being trusted to independently make important decisions for a larger group, but by the mid 20s most people have outgrown that. There are some sociological phenomena that put most people in their 20s and early 30s "in a box" where they don't get the bigger picture, but that's not tied to age so much as it is life experiences. There are other sociological phenomena that keep many people in similar boxes all their lives, unable to understand, or care, what happens outside their little corner of the world. There's also the "out to prove something" phenomenon that gets in the way of optimal decision making for a lot of people who are "on their way up."
The true tragedy of judging wisdom and even experience in the ballot box is that the voters mostly have to do it based on television appearances, sound bites, meta-meta analysis from media channels with multiple agendas of their own, etc.
Now, if the candidate can cloak themselves in a staff with deep knowledge, experience and wisdom and present that picture to the public, that's actually what we want and it doesn't matter if the candidate themselves is a wax figure with some animatronics installed. Gaining entre' into those circles usually takes time, so even very bright, capable, well traveled and educated individuals will take years to build up the connections that can make a good leader or legislator. I think the founding Fathers' age limit of at least 35 is reasonable, even good, though when I was 22 I was convinced I could do it by 28 (given a thousand things I had no chance of ever having access to...)
What we've got now is a the BEST example of how not to do it, his cheering section is really astounding in their devotion.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @05:55PM (1 child)
You did use "whom" correctly. I don't know why it is so confusing. Even very high profile people have complained about it. People don't have any problem knowing whether to use "he/she" or "him/her", and it is the same thing here. If you're not sure which to use, switch it out and try either "he" or "him" to see what makes sense. For instance, "According to who/whom", you would try "According to he" and "According to him" and then it becomes obvious.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday April 13 2020, @08:38PM
Damn...modded you Insightful instead of "Holy Feck, I learned something today!"
Spanks!
Now...can old age let me remember this?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @11:18PM
Uhhh... I dunno Wisdom is a bit overrated and can be a double-edged sword. One person's "Wisdom" can be another person's noose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @02:52PM
Dude, that's just another rip-off version of body bag! You work for HHS, too, eh.