Alright everybody: listen up. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The fragility of every institution that we used to rely on is being exposed. There are heroes to celebrated and devils to be exorcised. But that is for later. For now:
1/ Media: stop spreading lies. That includes the President's press conferences. They are getting people killed. I have constituents who are convinced this is a hoax and they need to go back to work. Take away his platform.
2/ Social media: you are media companies, not platforms. Get over this "I have no control over what people post BS". You do and you know it, you just don't want the liability. Do the right thing now and save lives.
3/ Social media users: don't repost or share things that are not factual that you cannot independently verify. We have enough bad things spreading virally now. Dont contribute to the problem.
4/ @GOP: it is time for you to acknowledge that standing up FOR Americans, standing up FOR science, standing up FOR humanity requires standing up TO Trump. He has no power if you take it away. Shut him down.
5/ If this sounds partisan, it shouldn't. I don't want people to die. Republicans, Democrats, Americans, Chinese, Italians. All are at risk and the virus does not discriminate
6/ I am not trying to politicize this, but we must acknowledge that we are in this moment for political reasons and every day we continue to allow politics to trump science, we.put lives at risk.
7/ A political party that has spent 3 decades denying climate science is ill-equipped to take the advice of scientists seriously, especially when they warn of geometrically multiplying, invisible threats from collective action.
8/ A political party that has become completely dependent on the NRA and the Koch brothers has an engine designed for obedience, not leadership. It is structurally incapable of standing up to Trump, and proves as much every day.
9/ But here's the thing. COVID-19 don't give a damn. It exists to infect, multiply, find a new host and repeat. That's what viruses do.
10/ This particular virus has the deadly quality that while it kills a lot of people, it doesn't kill most people. From the virus' point of view, most of us exist solely to transmit to others. And we serve that purpose by staying in close contact with other humans.
11/ Public health experts understand this. They warned us of it. In countries that had dealt with SARS (China, S Korea, Japan, etc) they listened to those public health experts, acted on their advice and stopped the spread early.
12/ But in the Trump administration, in our country, those same experts were ignored, disbanded and marginalized. That is why we now have more cases than Italy. More cases than China. Still no slowdown in the growth rate of deaths or new cases. Because scientists were ignored.
13/ If we continue to follow Trump's advice, to focus on the economy over public health, polls over science, people will die. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Americans will be dead by the summer if we do not clamp down on the lies NOW.
14/ So if you are a media outlet, a social media titan, a politician, anyone with influence over anyone else's life and daily choices: act like what you do today determines how many people will be alive in June. Because those are the stakes. /fin
