COVID-19 Exposes Need for Federal Investments in Technology
House Budget, Software Update Required: COVID-19 Exposes Need for Federal Investments in Technology, July 15, 2020
The underlying problem with all of these issues is turf. Every agency and state funds its own technology and makes its own rules. Congressional committee structures encourage such siloing. This is fine, although inconvenient, on a day to day basis. It fails in a crisis.
Federal telecommunications are linked to a series of central contract vehicles. If the same were done for administrative software and included training, all agencies would have a common electronic voice, including the IRS. If technology funding were independent of agency budgets, no agency would lag behind.
The same principle can be applied to purchasing and funding state systems. Training and infrastructure often take a budgetary backseat. A common tech contract and budget ends the problem. Energy infrastructure and weapons systems would, of course, not be included in the common structure, adding an additional level of security.
Likewise, data silos made the distribution of COVID funds problematic. If all agencies used the same version of SAS software (and no other language), information could be shared by sending data files through a hardwired system (rather than the Internet) or through tape delivery and be accessible through a SAS data step. Screening who should and should not get a stimulus check would have been managed by a few lines of code.
Sending stimulus money for retirees, the disabled and state beneficiaries could have been delivered through these systems rather than the IRS. Not doing so is a flaw in the law, not in agency procedures. It was not even a committee problem, as Ways and Means and Finance have jurisdiction over both funding streams.
In other words, blame Congress, not the IRS, for the problems in getting the money out the door.
Unemployment Insurance claim processing was complicated by the need to telecommute in a pandemic shut down. The next shut down will be able to take advantage of the work already completed. The system could not handle a firehose of funds when it was used to a garden hose. Because many workers are still idle or, if they have returned to work, have existing accounts, adding funds will be much less complicated.
The manner of the first shutdown also had an impact. While viruses do not respect borders, a person to person disease spread does not hit all regions equally. Much of the nation did not need to be idled until the first wave hit (as it is now doing in much of the nation).
The disease model, which originally omitted nasal symptoms so as not to concede that the virus begins as a cold, made proper screening and shut down length impossible. The current spread results from leaving out two weeks of nasal symptoms. I can say from being ill and comparing notes from fellow survivors that it starts as a cold, drips into the lungs and then spreads through the body and triggers SARS symptoms. Simply inhaling it without multiplication in the sinuses does not pose the same level of danger.
Those with healthier immune systems fight off the virus in the nose. Without such immunities, which are acquired through more frequent contact with cold sufferers, the patient is a sitting duck for SARS. This is why children don’t get infected, smokers do and seniors sequestered in nursing homes following CDC guidance cleanliness are doomed.
While treating the symptoms like asthma or with anti-retrovirals will save many, it is too late for our most vulnerable seniors. Proposals for long term social distance and anti-viral precautions will leave us all more vulnerable. The CDC is doubling down on this point for social, not scientific reasons.
Contact tracing a cold four weeks after exposure is impossible. Likewise, leaving heavy sneezes out of the list of screening criteria mean many with the virus are unaware they have it nor are they excluded from daily activities (such as work and shopping) in a manner which would have stemmed virus spread.
There is a great deal of worry about asymptomatic transmission. Between the last sneeze and the first wheeze is a one to two-week period where there are no symptoms. For many, there is never a wheeze. After a few weeks, however, it is unlikely that spread will continue. Ignoring nasal symptoms has made asymptomatic transmission seem random. It is not.
Currently, we predict over 400,000 deaths and over 7 million reported (and countless unreported) cases. Please see that attached state by state breakdown, which applies a 0.12% of population mortality figure (New York was 0.15) to each state. There is little we can do to improve this, especially because the public now considers diagnosis a death sentence. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Neither Donald Trump nor the coincidental reopening of the economy (including taverns) caused the current spate of illness. The first shut down happened for social, not scientific reasons. Indeed, the problem are a result of incomplete science responding to social imperatives. The virus cares nothing for policy, just as it does not care about politics.
The electoral fate of the President should not be tied to virus progression (although it will be). His public bluster is the underlying reason for his fate. Whether he can control it is a matter for a different kind of medicine. It is the ultimate reason for his standing in the polls, as well as of members of Congress who link their fortunes to his.
As we have stated previously, our budget process is badly broken. Our solutions to this ongoing crisis are again presented in the Attachment. These also include why the Tax and Job Cuts Act (not a typo) aggravates the problem. We agree with the background paper that we need more spending, not less, on both entitlements and discretionary programs.
The underlying problem with all of these issues is turf. Every agency and state funds its own technology and makes its own rules. Congressional committee structures encourage such siloing. This is fine, although inconvenient, on a day to day basis. It fails in a crisis.
Federal telecommunications are linked to a series of central contract vehicles. If the same were done for administrative software and included training, all agencies would have a common electronic voice, including the IRS. If technology funding were independent of agency budgets, no agency would lag behind.
The same principle can be applied to purchasing and funding state systems. Training and infrastructure often take a budgetary backseat. A common tech contract and budget ends the problem. Energy infrastructure and weapons systems would, of course, not be included in the common structure, adding an additional level of security.
Likewise, data silos made the distribution of COVID funds problematic. If all agencies used the same version of SAS software (and no other language), information could be shared by sending data files through a hardwired system (rather than the Internet) or through tape delivery and be accessible through a SAS data step. Screening who should and should not get a stimulus check would have been managed by a few lines of code.
Sending stimulus money for retirees, the disabled and state beneficiaries could have been delivered through these systems rather than the IRS. Not doing so is a flaw in the law, not in agency procedures. It was not even a committee problem, as Ways and Means and Finance have jurisdiction over both funding streams.
In other words, blame Congress, not the IRS, for the problems in getting the money out the door.
Unemployment Insurance claim processing was complicated by the need to telecommute in a pandemic shut down. The next shut down will be able to take advantage of the work already completed. The system could not handle a firehose of funds when it was used to a garden hose. Because many workers are still idle or, if they have returned to work, have existing accounts, adding funds will be much less complicated.
The manner of the first shutdown also had an impact. While viruses do not respect borders, a person to person disease spread does not hit all regions equally. Much of the nation did not need to be idled until the first wave hit (as it is now doing in much of the nation).
The disease model, which originally omitted nasal symptoms so as not to concede that the virus begins as a cold, made proper screening and shut down length impossible. The current spread results from leaving out two weeks of nasal symptoms. I can say from being ill and comparing notes from fellow survivors that it starts as a cold, drips into the lungs and then spreads through the body and triggers SARS symptoms. Simply inhaling it without multiplication in the sinuses does not pose the same level of danger.
Those with healthier immune systems fight off the virus in the nose. Without such immunities, which are acquired through more frequent contact with cold sufferers, the patient is a sitting duck for SARS. This is why children don’t get infected, smokers do and seniors sequestered in nursing homes following CDC guidance cleanliness are doomed.
While treating the symptoms like asthma or with anti-retrovirals will save many, it is too late for our most vulnerable seniors. Proposals for long term social distance and anti-viral precautions will leave us all more vulnerable. The CDC is doubling down on this point for social, not scientific reasons.
Contact tracing a cold four weeks after exposure is impossible. Likewise, leaving heavy sneezes out of the list of screening criteria mean many with the virus are unaware they have it nor are they excluded from daily activities (such as work and shopping) in a manner which would have stemmed virus spread.
There is a great deal of worry about asymptomatic transmission. Between the last sneeze and the first wheeze is a one to two-week period where there are no symptoms. For many, there is never a wheeze. After a few weeks, however, it is unlikely that spread will continue. Ignoring nasal symptoms has made asymptomatic transmission seem random. It is not.
Currently, we predict over 400,000 deaths and over 7 million reported (and countless unreported) cases. Please see that attached state by state breakdown, which applies a 0.12% of population mortality figure (New York was 0.15) to each state. There is little we can do to improve this, especially because the public now considers diagnosis a death sentence. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Neither Donald Trump nor the coincidental reopening of the economy (including taverns) caused the current spate of illness. The first shut down happened for social, not scientific reasons. Indeed, the problem are a result of incomplete science responding to social imperatives. The virus cares nothing for policy, just as it does not care about politics.
The electoral fate of the President should not be tied to virus progression (although it will be). His public bluster is the underlying reason for his fate. Whether he can control it is a matter for a different kind of medicine. It is the ultimate reason for his standing in the polls, as well as of members of Congress who link their fortunes to his.
As we have stated previously, our budget process is badly broken. Our solutions to this ongoing crisis are again presented in the Attachment. These also include why the Tax and Job Cuts Act (not a typo) aggravates the problem. We agree with the background paper that we need more spending, not less, on both entitlements and discretionary programs.
Attachment: The Budget Process, February 27, 2019
posted by Michael Bindner at 2:00 PM
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