I think the article takes a very balanced stance. It is pointed out multiple times the that people are glad the hospitals are mostly unused, that they now exist if there is a surge, and that the excess bed capacity is very helpful during a crisis like this. The real criticism is nothing like you've paraphrased.
> They praised the Army Corps for quickly providing thousands of extra beds, but experts said there wasn't enough planning to make sure these field hospitals could be put to use once they were finished.
>The Army Corps limited the competition in awarding the projects to speed the process, which usually takes six to nine months, according to agency documents. Officials noted they were able to complete the contract award for the Stony Brook project in a "little more than three days."
>The two Long Island field hospitals were completed in late April. They never opened to the public and didn't treat any patients.
>The plan was for the Javits Center to take patients from overwhelmed hospitals in the city. But in practice it wasn't that easy. Some hospitals complained that the intake process was too complicated. And they sent few patients to Javits — even as they resorted to treating patients in the hallways.
Seemingly like all of the US coronavirus reactions we dragged our feet at multiple points, had no reliable central coordination, and large sums of money was made against the backdrop of human suffering.
the Detroit area "field hospitals" (convention centers) had very strict restrictions on who could be admitted- you had to be sick, but not too sick. In practice only a handful of patients were eligible and admitted before they closed.
I am starting to suspect that the whole exercise amounted to a giveaway to the convention center owners who previously were forced to shut down.
>I think the article takes a very balanced stance.
Not really. It just does the usual cowardly trick of complaining about something by selectively citing cherry-picked experts. Rather than this quote salad I'd very much prefer honest, direct criticism where the outlet or the authors make it clear what is their stance and why.
That is the responsible thing to do. It wouldn't present opinion as news (as is the case with this article) and it would give a better opportunity for people to respond to criticism.
I prefer outlets that do their very best to attempt to remain impartial and present a "just the facts and all the facts please" view, even if we all know it's not 100% achievable.
I agree with you, this article is not that. If you listen to any economist, healthcare provider, or logistics expert, they will all tell you that this was the prudent choice given the worst-case tail scenario, and that this resource is one that has continuing value for some time.
But this article takes all that information and manages to paint that information in a negative light. It is "an opinion of the author" piece that even manages to express the opposite opinion FROM the expert opinions it reports.
Nothing personal, but I found it a bit ironic that your own criticism of the parent amounted to simply asserting "Not really" without addressing any specific points. You didn't say which experts you would have chosen, and why, and how you know that the author of the article has purposefully attempted to cherry pick specific people. Its one thing to simply dismiss someones work, its quite another to provide constructive criticism with actionable material.
Speaking only of the headline, it should be a banner ad for successful preparation and containment; it should not hint at overkill or wasted money, which it does (unless there actually was money wasted on overkill that the article wishes to expose). Even on a psychological basis, it made the populous feel more secure that the authorities were doing their best to cope. And economically speaking, it's standard economic theory that injecting money into the slowing economy will have a near term beneficial effect beyond just the direct recipients of the money.
That's just the headline, and the people who write the articles famously don't write the headlines, but still, the headline is a bad headline.
The opening is: "As hospitals were overrun by coronavirus patients in other parts of the world, the Army Corps of Engineers mobilized in the U.S., hiring private contractors to build emergency field hospitals around the country. The endeavor cost more than $660 million, according to an NPR analysis of federal spending records. But nearly four months into the pandemic, most of these facilities haven't treated a single patient."
The motivating event is that we're starting to decommission these facilities, but the author instead chooses to emphasize how much they cost and how few patients were treated.
It's also a bit cynical to say "nearly four months into the pandemic", as if there have been four months where the hospitals could have been seeing patients in the US but didn't.
Also, in the big picture this cost is trivial. 660m is less than $2 per person. Compare that to the 3T bailout or so (numbers change so quickly I can't keep up), which is around $10,000 per person.
Its not cynical, if the entire point is to flatten the curve below maximum capacity. Flattening significantly below capacity (or increasing capacity and not using it) only extends the required time in lockdown (based on some admittedly questionably assumptions, but assumptions currently being relied on).
And no matter how much you trivialize costs, it's always better to spend on resources that will be used that ones that won't. Like funding the ERs that are currently dealing with the double whammy of covid patients and seeing only 40-50% of normal patient numbers (and therefore 40-50% of normal income).
Plus we really don't want to flatten the curve to the point where people start losing aquired immunity before we've reached levels for herd immunity. Then it's no longer a curve, but a never-ending line. At least until a successful vaccine is developed.
Funny I wrote a longer response that I trimmed down to just my broken windows fallacy jab where I talked about how building, stocking, and manning field hospitals that remain underutilized is wasting resources, akin to hoarding spare windows.
> They praised the Army Corps for quickly providing thousands of extra beds, but experts said there wasn't enough planning to make sure these field hospitals could be put to use once they were finished.
>The Army Corps limited the competition in awarding the projects to speed the process, which usually takes six to nine months, according to agency documents. Officials noted they were able to complete the contract award for the Stony Brook project in a "little more than three days."
>The two Long Island field hospitals were completed in late April. They never opened to the public and didn't treat any patients.
>The plan was for the Javits Center to take patients from overwhelmed hospitals in the city. But in practice it wasn't that easy. Some hospitals complained that the intake process was too complicated. And they sent few patients to Javits — even as they resorted to treating patients in the hallways.
Seemingly like all of the US coronavirus reactions we dragged our feet at multiple points, had no reliable central coordination, and large sums of money was made against the backdrop of human suffering.