I have often snarled at the .dotmil, who never seem to miss an opportunity to create weapons systems that are so laden with bells and whistles that they add all sorts of other problems, e.g. COST not to mention MORE THINGS TO BREAK.
It’s not just the military, of course. Try this wonderful screw-up from a different government department (emphasis added):
There’s a massive shortage of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) test kits in the U.S., as cases continue to skyrocket in places like Seattle and New York City. This is largely due to the failure of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to distribute the tests in a timely fashion.
But it didn’t have to be this way. Back in January and February—when cases of the deadly disease began aggressively circulating outside of China—diagnostics already existed in places like Wuhan, where the pandemic began. Those tests followed World Health Organization (WHO) test guidelines, which the U.S. decided to eschew.
Instead, the CDC created its own in-depth diagnostics that could identify not only COVID-19, but a host of SARS-like coronaviruses.
“No, not just a test kit to address the immediate issue; let’s make one that’s more complicated but can test for every single virus in the world, plus others that don’t even exist yet!”
And as any fule kno, when you try to make something to do one thing, but expand the mission for it to do lots of things…
Then, disaster struck: When the CDC sent tests to labs during the first week of February, those labs discovered that while the kits did detect COVID-19, they also produced false positives when checking for other viruses. As the CDC went back to the drawing board to develop yet more tests, precious time ticked away.
Government: fucking it up six ways to Sunday, each and every time.
I read maybe 2 weeks ago that Italy had a batch of WuFlu tests from China; they didn’t work, so they sent them back for replacement.
The replacements didn’t work, either.