It definitely doesn’t have to go before a board or commission but if there is funny business I’d expect something to come out.
Coronavirus Coronavirus: In-Iowa General Discussion (Not Limited)
- Thread starter Jer
- Start date
- Status
If oversight and bidding processes can't be followed, an abundence of transparency is required. That is one of the communication items that the Governor has not done well, in my opinion.
If you want to discuss partisan politics or the 2022 election, please go to the thread in the Politics forum
I agree her communication has been abysmal but I guess I don’t get what transparency is required here. Yeah we don’t want to wait a month or more so we are using a no bid emergency procurement. There’s only so much due diligence you can do in that situation. A majority of the due diligence will be via the contract. They should have terms such that explain what standards they have for accuracy and such.
I can tell you a much worse no bid contract that she’s done in the last year. That one has legit concerns and yet frankly nobody cares.
That’s my biggest gripe with Reynolds’ handling of this situation. Her lack of transparency makes it look like she’s making decisions to satisfy donors or some political end, vs helping the common good.
You realize most other places still had busy grocery stores, busy parks, etc. And Iowa opening up hasn't been like months in advance. 3 more weeks in WI for example and people have still been traveling all over and there's been some opening up of some places.
Some of you act like SIP was Spain levels and that's not accurate at all.
I know India failed the test, but that doesn't necessarily mean the tests are bad. That could be an SOP issue with how samples are collected and preserved. SHL is doing their own evaluation of the tests so we'll see.
How isn't that part of the problem? They've been collecting Test Iowa tests for weeks now and the state lab hasn't even qualified the tests yet. It sure seems like the order is all wrong here. It seems like the contract was signed in a hurry before due diligence was done in order to say "we've expanded testing so we can re-open" while not actually knowing if the tests collected are valid!
Just because there is a contract doesn’t mean they’ve been paid anything. I would have hoped it could be qualified by this point but I don’t know the process they are following. Like I said there is only so much due diligence you can do before the contract in a situation like this. If the tests just don’t work then the company will be in breach of the contract and won’t get paid for the tests.
The legislature has adjourned and given her broad executive authority in their absence. And even if it were in session to conduct oversight, you'll recall that both houses are controlled by her party, which has conducted exactly no meaningful oversight over her, ever.
As it is, whatever oversight is taking place is being done by journalists, and they've exposed all kinds of flaws in the deal.
I agree that these are unusual times and if there were ever a reason for a no-bid contract, this is it. But there's an extensive educational and medical infrastructure in Iowa already, and apparently it didn't occur to her to try that? Suddenly she gets on the phone with Kelso and we have a solution?
It defies logic.
Go look at what Utah article says about these tests. The tests wouldn't normally be allowed to be used under normal rules but since regs have been relaxed these tests are ok to use in the U.S. These tests require a higher threshold of the virus to be present in the sample to get a positive result than what I will call the 'good' tests or maybe I should say industry standard. What that means is that there will be a higher number of false negatives which is obviously not good. So yeah these aren't the greatest tests to use.
Usually the most obvious answer is the correct answer.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either want to get a testing program up and running quickly or you take your time while the pandemic passes you by. It's not like this was a new test no one had ever heard of. It was being used in many other countries and was approved for testing in the US.
I'm not going to say this is ideal, but the failures started long before the pandemic got here and now everyone is trying to play catch up. Could Test Iowa be a colossal failure? Yes. And Reynolds will have to answer for that if it is. But I'm not going to label it a failure before it is. Would more transparency be nice, absolutely. But I'm not going to presume a total lack of judgment just because I don't know every last detail that went in to the decision.
If I read the India article correctly they failed it for false positives.
The naivete here is really something. "If there's funny business I'd expect it to come out" is a real gem, deserving of one of those passive-aggressive "creative" ratings.
As for her other big no-bid contract, of course people care. It just got snowed under once coronavirus took hold.
It absolutely is a new test - it wasn't approved by the FDA or CDC for usage in this country until the second week in April
You can chose to trust Gov. Reynolds. Based on past performance I'll chose not to.
Well technically they are all new tests, but was it not already being used by many other countries and already had approval in the US when we decided to use it?
From talking to state employees I absolutely believe that. She is not well liked at all so it’s not like there is some loyalty to cover something up.
Heck the Workday fiasco came out before it was even actually announced that it was happening.
At the end of the day there are enough people working for the state with enough political persuasions that stuff will come out.
- Status
