You really think these things should be decided by the feds, and force should be used if necessary?

Your “cure” is quite literally worse than the disease. Aside from the libertarian aspect of things, the feds don’t know enough (nor do the medical authorities) to do such a thing, because as I already said the locality that has been stripped of its ventilators can suddenly need them. And not just for COVID, but for “ordinary” cases of pneumonia and heart attack, etc..

There are emergency stocks of ventilators held by the government, and those will be released as needed anyway. But apparently the number wouldn’t be adequate if this thing goes on unchecked.

And one doesn’t train respiratory therapists to operate these machines quickly. It would be disastrous as well. The situation is tricky. The air flow has to be adjusted frequently in delicate ways that require a lot of training, experience, and judgment, or the ventilator can cause enormous complications. These aren’t simple things – they are very complex.

I did read somewhere that they are trying to hurry the certification of respiratory therapists who are close to the end of their training, though. I forget where I read it.

the training is not so much about using the machine when it goes well, the training is about all the stuff that goes wrong… most of the people with the need for such ad device have other conditions… emphysema, leukemia, diabetes, asthma… some have anemia, which changes the oxygen profile… and of course there is not much between good air and acidosis or alkalosis..

I was a trained EMT at once point in my young days, and it was not easy. this required extra courses… so i could do things like put tubes in peoples throats.. NOT as easy as the TV makes it look…

Report: 11 Rhode Island Deaths Attributed to Faulty EMT Intubation Methods
https://www.jems.com/2019/12/03/report-11-rhode-island-deaths-attributed-to-faulty-emt-intubation-methods/

Get it wrong and their stomach gets all the air… which is why you dont want people to be able to sue for stupid care provided by people who dont know medicine and have no skill to deal with it

will you also pay for their therapy later after they find out how many they kill and have a hard time dealing with it?

As an EMT in my teens, handling dying people was a tough thing… even if i wasn’t the one responsible for it (and i wasn’t)

Of the 11 patients, only one had been intubated by a paramedic. Eight had been treated by advanced-level EMS providers, called EMT-Cardiacs, who receive less training than paramedics but are licensed by the state to perform intubations. The records of the remaining two patients, Asselin said, did not identify the EMS provider.

one day, you may be lucky to be treated the way you thought best for others, and not even need a pandemic!!!!!!!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

The page presents four scenarios in a simulation of how the virus spreads:
1. Everyone has freedom to interact with anyone.
2. There are whole regions of quarantined people.
3. There is moderate “social distancing”.
4. There is much “social distancing”.

There is MUCH better prevention of the virus with MUCH “SOCIAL DISTANCING”.

One of the reasons we have a federal government operating with emergency powers is exactly so that someone can make the judgement that, say, region Y now has a greater need for ventilator equipment than region X, so X **must** ship some of its equipment — by force if necessary — to region Y, along of course with the associated people needed to operate it. The equipment is not being used in one place and is desperately needed in another. Do you really want to allow our local “Germans” not to assist our local “Italians”?

so your all ok with us becoming a soviet state and freedom be damned?
your point is NOT why we have a federal government…

but your point is exactly what happens in communist states!!!
not that it works… you think blasio taking over the medical companies would really make better hand sanitizer and more? research when the soviets did similar and what happened…

[Cuba is well known for doing EXACTLY what you point out, and in the medical area too]

after they do the changes you say after that paragraph, we will let them practice on you, your wife, and children first… bet you would LOVE to step forwards and be the test subject…

As far as training goes, that comes under the heading of cutting red tape. For example, if regions X and Y customarily require different amounts and types of training, well, those requirements can be waived — after all we are only talking about running one type of machine to help those with one type of illness. The mystique of medicine insists that most medicine is subtle and difficult. I don’t believe it. In fact, I bet that you could take any young person off the street who got good grades in a good high school and train them to set up and run ventilators in just a few days. This would be on-the-job training and the amateurs could be shown what to watch out for and when to call in the experts for non-routine or puzzling developments. In an emergency this would be better than no treatment at all for the very sick.

In general, our approach to medical training in normal times tries to make sure that medical workers know how to handle a wide range of patients with a certain mimimum level of competence. This emergency is for just one type of patient who needs mostly one type of treatment. Amateurs performing this treatment are very much better than no treatment — or trying to guess who is going to die anyway and withholding treatment. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

(And pass a bill in Congress removing the ability of lawyers to sue for malpractice during the duration of this emergency.)

Next Strain is a great source to see where and how the disease progressed by tracking the genetic mutations and how the US is mostly one strain, Europe is another, etc.

https://reason.com/2020/03/15/tired-there-are-no-libertarians-in-a-pandemic-wired-there-are-only-libertarians-in-a-pandemic/

Man, it seems like only a few days ago that the smart set was writing off small-government types (again!) in articles with such snarky headlines as “There Are No Libertarians in a Pandemic.”

By now it might be more correct to believe there are only libertarians in a pandemic, including officials who are suddenly willing and able to waive all sorts of ostensibly important rules and procedures in the name of helping people out.
…
As Reason’s Ronald Bailey has noted, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “stymied private and academic development of diagnostic tests that might have provided an early warning and a head start on controlling the epidemic that is now spreading across the country.”

You can probably see where I’m going with this: If the policies and decisions above are worth tossing out in an emergency, maybe they ought to be sidelined during normal times too.

Situations like the 9/11 attacks and the coronavirus outbreak often open the door to naked power grabs whose terrible consequences stick around long after the events that inspired them (looking at you, TSA!). Governments rarely return power once they’ve amassed it. But if you listen carefully, you can hear them telling us what stuff they realize can be safely tossed. When the infection rates come down and the theaters and schools and everything else get back to normal, it may be tempting just to go back to the way we were. Resist the temptation: A lot of the rules we put up with every day are worth reevaluating, and not only during an emergency.

https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/03/16/fauci-social-distancing-measures-look-like-overreaction-youre-probably-right-thing/

“COVID-19 is related to SARS and MERS in particular. It is also related to certain coronaviruses that cause common colds. It is NOT related to the flu virus. However, H1N1 2009 is related to the flu virus, in particular the H1N1 virus that cause the 1918 pandemic.”

I will add that until now the SARS or MERS coronaviruses had not been a big problem in the USA (virtually no cases on USA soil). So we have no “collective” experience with a) how to manage the virus, and b) what to expect. And our actions – government and individual – reflect that.

While we have been living with the Influenza virus for a 100+ years – and have come to understand and accept the risk.

Facts without Compares/ History = Fear the Risk.

Facts with Compares/ History = Understand the Risk.

***
1) Influenza Virus Deaths: USA

• 2019-2020: 22K (season not over)
• 2018-2019: 60K
• 2017-2018: 80K
• 2016-2017: 38K
• 2015-2016: 23K
• 2014-2015: 51K
• 2013-2014:
• 2012-2013: 56K
• 2011-2012: 12K
• 2010-2011:
• 2009: 12K [H1N1-Swine Flu Pandemic]
• 1968: 34-100K [H3N2-Hong Kong Flu Pandemic]
• 1957: 70-116K [H2N2-Asian Flu Pandemic]
• 1918: 675K [H1N1-Spanish Flu Pandemic]

2) Coronavirus – SARS-CoV2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) – Deaths: USA

• 2019-2020: 69 *** (6,705 deaths worldwide/ as of March 16, 2020)

3) Coronavirus – MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) – Deaths: USA

• 2012-2020: 2 cases, 0 deaths *** (862 deaths worldwide)

4) Coronavirus – SARS-CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) – Deaths: USA

• 2003-2005: 8 cases, 0 deaths *** (774 deaths worldwide)

5) Coronavirus – “Common Cold” – Deaths: USA

• No data

The bouncing ball simulation is actually quite interesting…