The more I read about the literal violence that is erupting around the use of masks, the more I am realizing that this is the symptom of a failure of leadership to unite us against a common enemy. Instead, people are re-framing this as a battle for their personal rights. #covid19
3/ A security guard, today in Los Angeles, gets assaulted (they literally broke his arm, all caught on tape) for telling customers to wear a mask.
I really do not want to be sensationalist, but this is what is happening in our country.
I really do not want to be sensationalist, but this is what is happening in our country.
4/ This @washingtonpost article talks about a man *killing* a security guard in Michigan who tried to tell a woman to wear her mask before going into a Dollar Store.
washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05…
washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05…
5/ We cannot let this be how the American response will be remembered:
That we literally fought against *each other* over our "right to not wear a mask", in the process allowing a deadly virus to spread through our country.
You can't make this stuff up.
That we literally fought against *each other* over our "right to not wear a mask", in the process allowing a deadly virus to spread through our country.
You can't make this stuff up.
6/ A few colleagues & I had worked for *weeks* to write a proposal (link below) for how scaling up high-filtrate masks could possibly drive transmission of #covid19 down significantly.
Guess what-- it won't work if people literally don't wear masks...
hbr.org/2020/05/a-plan…
Guess what-- it won't work if people literally don't wear masks...
hbr.org/2020/05/a-plan…
7/ This tweet from a State Rep in Ohio honestly made me realize that the battle we are facing is so much more complicated than testing, tracing, isolating, masking-- the way that diff people even view #covid19 and the epidemic is *drastically* different.
8/ These battles over masks are happening as the CDC releases a case investigation from a choir practice in which 87% of people in the span of a couple of hours got infected or likely infected with #covid19. Think about that.
9/ We are having people scream and protest in large crowds with no masks on all around the country-- these are literally all possible set-ups for super-spreading events like the choir practice above
The great irony of protesting during an epidemic, only to create more epidemics.
The great irony of protesting during an epidemic, only to create more epidemics.
10/ It is so clear what we need before anything else: we need to accept that no matter how much we disagree on so many issues in our day to day lives, if we cannot even agree that we need to be united against a common enemy that is killing us, we are in really big trouble.
11/ To close this thread out, I have to say that putting human faces to the deaths that will result from people fighting each other over masks and protesting- spreading more disease- makes this so much tougher. A short story- next tweet:
12/ Just this past weekend on #MothersDay, I took care of a woman dying of #covid19- I was going to see her when her daughter had called, hoping to speak w/ her mom.
13/ We worked together to figure out a plan to get her to FaceTime and tell her mom whatever she could since they couldn’t be together at that time.
You can imagine the words and messages that were shared- love and family are some of life’s strongest forces.
You can imagine the words and messages that were shared- love and family are some of life’s strongest forces.
14/ I literally held back tears.
We know that it didn’t have to be this way- that if we had gotten this right (or at least more right than we have), that many people may still be with their families. In that moment though, all you see is the patient in front of you.
We know that it didn’t have to be this way- that if we had gotten this right (or at least more right than we have), that many people may still be with their families. In that moment though, all you see is the patient in front of you.
15/
This is medicine. This is what we do at the bedside. And we are watching policies fail our patients. We are watching needless deaths happen before our eyes. And we are watching people fight each other when we need to band together to stop this pandemic.
This is tough.
This is medicine. This is what we do at the bedside. And we are watching policies fail our patients. We are watching needless deaths happen before our eyes. And we are watching people fight each other when we need to band together to stop this pandemic.
This is tough.
