[b112]

Stockpiles of masks and gloves where maintained in Canada, and I believe the US after SARS.

But a year before COVID, these warehouses were shut down, as the stockpiles were old, and needed a refresh, and politicians didnt see the need to spend tens of millions on new stockpiles.

The has happened several times over the last 100 years.

[michaelmrose]

Republicans didn't see the need to be precise

[fooo1882992]

In California they were set up by Schwarzenegger and dismantled by Jerry Brown in 2011 to save 1.7 million per year.

“When the Department of Finance was looking at this, they asked a question: ‘How many times have the mobile field hospitals been used since we bought them?’ ” he said. “That was the same question they asked (the Public Health Department). ‘You’re not using it, why do we have it?’ ”

https://revealnews.org/article/california-created-a-massive-...

[dude187]

Seems the decision to deprioritize n95s was done by the Obama administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_National_Stockpile

[michaelmrose]

This is a congressional decision not a presidential obe and it was done after the dems lost the majority because of the incllination towards austerity that always develops when a dem is president. Would you like to go over exactly what republican votes led to this?

[dude187]

Yes, please do so. Because there's plenty of Democrat majority Congresses in that time range that chose to not renew the supply

[michaelmrose]

Let's party like its 2009 We're dealing with the aftermath of the morgage crisis due in no small part to the legal and regulatory environment of 2001-2007 under George Bush. We are also dealing with the swine flu pandemic which is what actually depletes our strategic supplies in the first place.

By Mid 2010 we pass with great contention and argument both Dodd Frank and the ACA. By August we could finally declare the swine flu pandemic over and congress is worrying about their campaigns and the 2011 budget.

This would have been a good time to get the job done and indeed this was tried. They couldn't get the 60 needed to pass the senate in order to pass the 2011 budget and indeed no budget was passed we instead relies on continuing resolutions to fund the government at current levels which left no funds for the mission and no real time for some standalone effort. Fortunately we have 9 more years before this becomes a crisis.

2011-2018 Republicans controlled congress. In 2017,2018 Republicans controlled congress AND the presidency. In 2019 dems finally got congress back but couldn't do shit by virtue of Trump.

It's weird that you put this on the Dems when it is so so clearly a Republican fumble like the entire rest of the pandemic.