Improper scarce resource allocation like ventilators during a time of crises could result in actual deaths. If Trump would of sent all of reserves to NY because Cuomo exaggerated saying we need 30k today and all of the sudden there is an urgent need in Chicago or New Orleans and people are dying there because the fed govt doesn't have any spare ventilators then that would of been a catastrophic outcome.

Ultimately the ventilator allocation decision probably wasn't made by Trump but by people that understand the above notion. Thank God there's people who are shrewd instead of reflexively giving into the screeching.

I mean, yeah, that's fender. Literally nobody takes him seriously. You might as well be talking to Ghot.

That is one thing I like about Trump. He's lazy enough that if he has to do real thinking to make a decision he pawns it off, and usually the person he pawns it off to is more competent (I mean, there's really nowhere to go but up on most decisions).

Now if only we could get him to pawn his speech writing and question answering off to more competent people. But that would take him away from the spotlight so I don't see it happening.


Yeah, if there's misallocation there could be actual deaths. Unfortunately nobody really knows beforehand what the ventilator need will be at any particular location. The more locations we get data from the more certain we can be. However, it's also important to understand that unused ventilators are unused. New York is capping right now so they will have a good idea of how many more they will need and can ship the remainder off to the next area. They had the unfortunate situation of being the first in the nation with a great need and so had the least amount of data to base their predictions on.

We tried discharging someone to a NH today and they couldn't. Went from no cases to "A LOT" pretty much over night.

get ready for weeks of "see trump was right" hindsight posts with zero allowance for what happened in real time. every underwhelming stat in hindsight will be fuel for the trump fellating idiots.

The argument about a fair resource allocation was never really about the better-case scenarios that we look to be headed toward atm. The argument was about a worst-case scenario in which demand for ventilators all across the country exceeds supplies. In this scenario, it would be unfair if the place which was screaming first (NY) had gotten all the ventilators from the national stockpile and kept them for the remainder of the crisis while everyone else is left out in the cold.

Simply put, the crisis being super bad in NY but not very problematic in the rest of the country was never a realistic scenario. In every realistic scenario where NY would really have needed 30k ventilators, it would have been unfair for them to get the full 30k, to get the entire national stockpile.

Tldr: it was never the right course of action to give in to their demands, irrespective from the uncertainty in the models.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 8 2020 10:22am

at the time Cuomo was crying NYC area had about 30% of all of the nation's cases, all in one healthcare system, in a geographical area about .000001% of the nation.

this hindsight justification is stupid, NYC was in full panic mode, and for good reason.

I dont blame Cuomo for making this demand, for NY being in full panic mode. I just explained why it was never right for the national government to give in to these demands.

The administration kept a cool head, which was the right thing to do; and criticizing Trump or his administration for it was always unjustified - and that's irrespective from the actual outcome, irrespective from the number ventilators NY ended up needing. Hence, the uncertainty in the models (which Thor was talkign about) was also irrelevant all along.


And of course the geographical area is totally the wrong metric. The right metric is the share of the national population, i.e. "NYC had about 30% of the nation's cases while making up only 6% of the nation's population".

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 8 2020 10:40am

the geographical area isnt a perfect metric, but it does factor in.

its not a 2 dimensional issue, it's 3 dimensional.

cases x population x geographical area. area plays a factor into spread potential, and in NYC's case public transport due to population density plays a factor as well.

i live in an area where healthcare thankfully isnt overburdened, yet. withholding ventilators for us at the cost of NYC lives would have been a disaster, your whole irrespective of the outcome bit comes off as callous.