Thread by @AbdulElSayed

Want to understand why we're dealing with the scepter of serious #Coronavirus #COVIDー19 outbreaks in the US?

The @realDonaldTrump admin's profound mismanagement.

A Thread:

The public health approach to stopping an infectious disease is about "contact tracing."

1/

Contact tracing is painstaking work. It involves identifying all of the known or potential contacts of someone who has the disease in question, finding them, and then isolating them--and then rinsing and repeating.

It's a serious test of your gov's abilities.

2/

It requires that:

1) Gov't is funded appropriately to do this work
2) Gov't employees trust higher-ups to give them bad news, rather than pretend that cases don't exist.
3) Ppl trust their gov't to protect them--and to share information with them

3/

None of these existed in China, where authoritarian gov't employees feared reprisal if they delivered bad news, and the citizenry had good reason to fear what their gov't would do.

BUT this isn't just a problem in China.

Under the @realDonaldTrump admin it's a problem here

4/

First, the Trump admin robbed the @cdcgov of the funding they need to do this work. Facilities PURPOSE-BUILT to protect us from these kinds of emerging infectious diseases were shuttered for "funding" reasons.

Turns out wanton gov't cuts CAN kill.

5/

wsj.com/articles/cdc-t…

Second, the culture in the admin leaves bureaucrats fearing reprisal from the admin if they report bad news.
Don't believe me?

Think @NOAA and #sharpiegate
Think the "acting" title @realdonaldtrump prefers for his secretaries
Think the revolving door at the WH

6/

That authoritarian culture has a top-down chilling effect on folks inside the bureaucracy who need to communicate transparently and advise the White House.

It's clear that it's already had an impact, like when the WH decided to ignore the CDC here:

7/
washingtonpost.com/health/coronav…

And finally, given the racism that @realDonaldTrump has deployed against immigrants and POCs in America, and the fact that this #coronavirus #COVIDー19 outbreak has already been racialized and used to discriminate, ppl have real reason to fear what government might do.

8/

In sum, the @realDonaldTrump admin has made us all less safe in the context of #COVIDー19 #coronavirus by:

Decimating our ability to respond to this BEFORE it hit our shores.

Ignoring science and expertise, putting ppl at risk

Created a climate of racism that kills trust

9/

Before purists say I'm "Politicizing" this epidemic:
I'm responding to the way that THIS ADMIN has politicized #publichealth.

And when leaders politicize science itself, scientists have to respond.

Getting this right - saving lives - requires honesty about politics.

10/10