Dr. Steven Novella
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And so they're underfunded.
They're under-resourced.
USAID is gone.
The CDC is being cut back, is much smaller in resources than it was at the time.
And we don't have any of the infrastructure in place that we should have.
Who could have predicted this, Steve?
I mean, 10 years ago, I remember we were talking about whatever the Ebola outbreak was at that time.
And somebody characterized it as saying, this is like building the firehouse when the fire's going.
It's like, no, you've got to build the firehouse first.
Then you activate them when the fire is reported.
Yeah, we just tore down the fire.
Whatever fire, it was inadequate, but whatever we did have, we just tore it down.
Absolutely.
Now, of course, the government denies all that.
They say, oh, we're doing this, we're doing that.
But the people on the ground are like, no, this is all bullshit.
We are gutted.
We do not have the resources.
We cannot adequately respond to this.
And with outbreaks like this, it matters how quickly and how robustly you can get the resources in place.