Tuesday, September 27, 2022

States Rights and Bureaucracy

 Reading Dr. Deborah Brix's "Silent Invasion", her memoir of her work in the pandemic. It's basically chronological, and I'm just about 2 weeks in.

She is trying to maneuver among the various camps in the Trump administration:

  • economics interests such as Sec. Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow, worried about economic impacts.
  • politicos like Joe Grogan worried about political impacts.
  • CDC scientists worried about science and being right.
  • HHS bureaucrats who worry about implementation.
  • Poli-scis, like Bob Redfield who's head of CDC and Tony Fauci, who's reluctant to get beyond the data.
Based on her experience in Pepfar--fighting HIV in Africa, she believes in the importance of data and worries about asymptomatic spread of virus.  She's also concerned about being a woman in a male world and an outsider/newcomer to the administration's effort.

Most of all she's concerned about maneuvering the players towards what she sees as important. 

A big hurdle is the lack of timely detailed data.  She explains that CDC did not require data from the states; indeed they were afraid of antagonizing state officials and had the history of coaxing them to cooperate.  I see this as fitting into a pet idea of mine--the fact that few federal government bureaucracies directly deal with citizens--FSA being one of the few. 

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