I was just thinking

  

 

If we were considering going to war with another country, we’d want to think about how we got our weapons.  If we realized that we were procuring all our weapons from the country we were considering attacking, or that we were concerned might attack us, we’d probably find a way to ramp up production at home, even if the arms industry had to be subsidized, until we were self-sufficient in that regard.  It would be in our national interest and national security to be self-sufficient; to be prepared.

 

Now we’re in a world war with a virus.  Not something I ever considered.  Never occurred to me to think about the entire world having to shut down to let a curse pass.  But there are planners.  There are strategists.  There are people who spend their entire lives thinking about these things, and I’m sure they don’t limit themselves to thinking just about regional conflicts.  They think about what to do in the event of a hurricane, an earthquake, a tornado, or even, possibly, a global pandemic.

 

If we were sitting around brainstorming about a global pandemic, what would be the first question we would ask?  How about, “Do we have the resources to get through this?”  I’m thinking ventilators, masks, and gowns; personal protective gear; hospital facilities, staffing, and test kits; not because I know anything about these things, but because that is what has been on the news.  Of course, we’re not going to have everything we would need on hand, just in case, for something that might happen someday.  But the question has to have been asked “If there are immediate needs in an emergency, do we have the ability to meet those needs as fast as we will need them; do we have a plan?”  If the answer to that question was “No, we would have to buy significant quantities of what we would need from other countries”, who of course, would need the exact same things at home, then what next in this exercise?  Stop?  Game over?  I don’t think so.  We would determine what it would take to be confident we could produce what we needed, even if that industry had to be subsidized to keep it tenable.  It would be in our national interest, a matter of national security, to have a plan.

 

Just thinking; wondering how many people, whose jobs it is to think through these scenarios, have had to watch their conclusions and recommendations disregarded.  “No one could have seen this coming!”  No, I’m sure there were plenty of people who saw this coming.  There are people who have prepared all their lives for this moment.  They saw it coming.  We just didn’t hear them when they told us.

 

Here is a chart showing responses to this infection.

 

The long line starting at the left represents how China, a country with four times the population of ours, responded and capped the number of cases at about 80,000.  Perhaps China saw it coming and had a plan.  The blue line, starting much later, rising like a rocket, represents how the United States has responded so far.  120,000 cases.  It remains to be seen how high our line, the measure of our response, goes.