Thread on Logistics. The Quid pro quo for us sheltering in place is that US surges resources to states based on need to flatten curve. It is why the #DefenseProductionAct is necessary, and the failure to strategically organize logistics is deadly for states. 1/ #surge
I sound like a broken record, but this is the easy part. It's not frontline stuff, saving a life, or science stuff like finding a vaccine. It's moving or manufacturing stuff from point A and getting it to point B. It's logistics. We know how to do this. We have laws to help. 2/
Today, FEMA director said he didn't know how many masks were available or being delivered. It's basic inventory stuff; should have been figured out weeks ago. Then, you determine where there are gaps and compel companies to make them. Again, simple.
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FEMA head even had gall to say that it's not about an "exact number." Actually, that's what it is EXACTLY about. Logistics are about numbers. And DPA ensures to companies that the US would be the market for mass production so that the states didn't have to do it on their own 4/
or outbid each other which is clearly happening. I am quite sympathetic that things look horrible in real time in a crisis. Been there; press never good. But that they can't get a grasp on numbers or the role of the federal government is deadly. 5/
Yes, this was utterly predictable. We are fighting a national war 50 states at a time. And yes, I'm reposting this. This is a 50 state disaster, first in American history. And we are fighting in like its America, 1781. @theatlantic 6/
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
States are creative; private sector is rising to the occasion. But the measure of success will be in how many deaths we could have avoided given a whole of government approach. And I am now quite convinced that number will be higher than it ought to be. 6/#UNITEDstates
Onward people. But this is the easy part.
“The war has been variously termed a war of production and a war of machines. Whatever else it is, so far as the US is concerned, it is a war of logistics.”
– Admiral E. J. King, WWII Naval Chief 7/7
“The war has been variously termed a war of production and a war of machines. Whatever else it is, so far as the US is concerned, it is a war of logistics.”
– Admiral E. J. King, WWII Naval Chief 7/7
