Thread by @AsraNomani

1/I wrote this column for @JewishJournal after I watched teens, families, seniors freely wander DC days ago. @POTUS @VP must issue a national lockdown order. Now. Immediately. That’s the only way to get control of #COVIDー19.

jewishjournal.com/commentary/col…

2. Not all people are highly attuned to danger. In the neurobiology of threat assessment, people’s histories as well as our genetics affect our brains’ responses to a threatening event, according to clinical neuropsychologist @orlipeter

3. @orlipeter said there are 2 types of responses people can make in the face of an uncertain external threat: underreacting & overreacting. “In times of a serious threat, like the COVID19 pandemic, the response that most likely guarantees your survival is overreacting,” she said

4. I get it. Post-9/11 i defied State Department warnings to fly to Pakistan to do reporting. The trauma of my friend Danny Pearl’s murder It sensitized my amygdala, the part of the brain network that defines how we respond to threats, and pierced my sense of invincibility.

5. I had self-isolated for 2 weeks. 3/22 I emerged to do reporting from a distance. Was my work “essential”? No. Yes, hypocrite, I hear. I drove door to Constitution Ave, not touching anything, staying 6 feet away....

6. In the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, a boisterous boy named Elliott darted away from his parents as they pushed their two younger sons in a double stroller on a roadtrip from Pennsylvania. His mom yelled, “Elliott, be careful.”Elliott galloped away & I watched with dread.

7. Research shows the deadly coronavirus can stay on surfaces from three hours to three days or longer... nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NE…

8. ... a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report revealing the virus stayed on surfaces on the Diamond Princess cruise ship for up to 17 days.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…

9. Nearby, an 18-year-old enlistee sat shoulder-to-shoulder beside a 19-year-old woman he had just met, flirting. I interviewed them.
You live together? I asked.
“We just met,” he said.
He’d be returning to military barracks. “I’ve got a pretty good immune system,” he said.

10. According to a new study, as many as 79 percent of coronavirus infections are caused by people with mild or no symptoms who do not know they carry the virus.science.sciencemag.org/content/early/…

11. For days, President Trump and VP Mike Pence have thanked Americans for abiding by their “recommendations” on social distancing. I heard it on the drive after seeing people at the Lincoln not follow the guidelines. I heard it today from @VP, still refusing a national lockdown

12. As #ReopenAmerica trended, Trump first said he wanted church pews packed on Easter Sunday. That filled so many of us with dread. It was an unnecessary anxiety to put America through. We’d only spread the virus.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/d…

13. Thankfully on Sunday President Trump walked back the Easter Day “aspirational” hope on March 29, stating that social distancing practices will remain through April 30.
whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…

14. But even before this announcement, the reality on the ground revealed too many Americans were defying and continue to defy the White House’s “Slow the Spread” because they are labeled as “recommendations.” Look at Louisiana @BillyNungesser telling @BillHemmer

15. We cannot depend on public service announcements to save America. The U.S. must not reopen the country, but rather, #LockdownAmerica. That’s what Bill Gates says. Listen to him.

16. If you don’t believe Bill Gates, how about listening to @TheNotoriousMMA, who quotes @endCOVID19 @yaneerbaryam call for a national shutdown? “If you do not enter the game, you cannot win it,” says Conor McGregor, who backs lockdowns to save lives. Thank you, Conor.

17. The son of a Holocaust survivor, @yaneerbaryam understands threats. He wrote: “Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.”

usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

18. In a March 24 policy paper, he co-wrote with Chen Shen, Bar-Yam stated five weeks would allow doctors time to manage two phases of new infections and one week to gain control of treatment and testing.

drive.google.com/file/d/1Bx3qHE…

19. @yaneerbaryam penned a letter to @realDonaldTrump calling for a 5-week lockdown, signed by others inc me. I hope you’ll sign it too?

change.org/p/donald-j-tru…

20. Former options trader @nntaleb, a native of Lebanon, uses data to assess risk and has seen the cost of war. He argues an “overreaction” is the moral position to take in the face of this life-or-death threat.

21. Italy has learned the hard way what happens when you don’t curtail movement early on. Israel, Greece, India and the United Kingdom acted decisively, with federal lockdowns to protect a citizenry that may not practice hypervigilance.

22. Why did I write this column and thread? Because we have to institute a national lockdown. Commonsense tells us we have to stop movement to stop spread of a virus. And it kills me doctors, nurses & healthcare workers are wearing coffee filters and garbage bags for protection.

23. We have to make the sacrifice not only for ourselves but for the health of our country and all of her people. All countries need national lockdowns until we #smashthecurve.

24. Influencers angling for a return to business & opposed to “catastrophic” social distancing rules, turned their followers on me, protecting the right of the teens to flirt freely. Their response underscored why we need a lockdown. They are Covid Deniers and Truthers.

25. In DC, the PA family paid respects to Lincoln. Like Lincoln, Trump now has the opportunity–with a national lockdown–to save the USA in an hour of darkness. Our brain processing won’t allow all of us to take the correct action-and saving some of us just isn’t good enough.