Stevenson’s army, March 29

– NYT has a long piece on how the US suffered a “lost month” of inadequate testing to control the pandemic. And while the most senior officials could have done more, many of the problems appear to be at the senior career level.

The members of the coronavirus task force typically devoted only five or 10 minutes, often at the end of contentious meetings, to talk about testing, several participants recalled. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its leaders assured the others, had developed a diagnostic model that would be rolled out quickly as a first step.

But as the deadly virus from China spread with ferocity across the United States between late January and early March, large-scale testing of people who might have been infected did not happen — because of technical flaws, regulatory hurdles, business-as-usual bureaucracies and lack of leadership at multiple levels, according to interviews with more than 50 current and former public health officials, administration officials, senior scientists and companyexecutives.

The result was a lost month, when the world’s richest country — armed with some of the most highly trained scientists and infectious disease specialists — squandered its best chance of containing the virus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe.
-NYT also has a case study of failure — an effort begun 12 years ago to build a larger supply of better ventilators.

– But — Job Alert — Politico says the “national security priesthood” is now recognizing the need for experts on global health.
– And to help you get ready, here are several new CRS studies of coronavirus issues.
Stay safe.

I missed this from Charlie yesterday:

– The House approved the CARES Act [everything gets an acronym nowadays — for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act] by voice vote. Renegade Kentucky Congressman Massie tried to force a rollcall, but it failed because it didn’t receive a sufficient second of 44 supporters.
-President Trump signed it [with no Democrats invited to the signing ceremony] but issued a signing statement saying he would not comply with provisions requiring the new special inspector general to send reports to Congress. As I’ve said in class, presidents can increase their legal authorities by such actions. And this reduces congressional oversight of the new law.
– The president also issued an executive order under the Defense Production Act [DPA] to force General Motors to produce ventilators. This action had been delayed  for more than a week because of business opposition.
– I’ve also said in class that authorities matter. Trump announced yesterday that trade staffer Peter Navarro would be in charge of DPA action. He probably doesn’t realize that, as an unconfirmed WH staffer, Navarro is not an “officer of the United States” and is not allowed any directive authority. I’m not even sure what the chain of command beneath the president is for DPA, but Navarro can still make calls and send messages … and hope for compliance.
– Next week we’ll talk abut the budget process. Though I consider myself a budget hawk, I agree with NYT’s Neil Irwin that these extraordinary expenditures are necessary.

– WaPO has an oped on how to structure the coronavirus fight that I find persuasive, so here it is.
– FYI, as of last night, the US had still tested only 579,000 people for the virus. Where are those millions of test kits?
–Civ-mil clash:NYT reports that the US commander in Iraq has been ordered to plan attacks on Iran-linked forces but has warned against implementing them.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).