Thread by @AbraarKaran

Thread
1/ There is a great irony, yet intentional design to the following: why, when a global infectious disease pandemic struck, did we assume USA/Europe would be the exemplars when African/Asian countries have more recent experience managing epidemics?

npr.org/sections/goats…

2/ As two researchers hoping to understand more, @DrMishalK and I went back to think more about the response.

From the start, there was a marked arrogance toward the Asian responses.

The avoidance of universal masking was probably the most notable manifestation of that.

3/ Early on, England's deputy chief medical officer, Dr. Jenny Harries, stated that the @WHO guidelines did not apply to the UK's "extremely well-developed public health system.'"

irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/…

4/ The American response was more heavily focused on blaming China-- calling it the "Chinese virus" and criticizing draconian measures, such as lockdowns.

We now know that early lockdowns likely save thousands of lives.

nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/…

5/ Former colonies have been systematically oppressed even after "colonialism" ended-- structural adjustment grants from the @WorldBank are one such cited example for how more debt has been created & used to maintain poverty.

globalissues.org/article/3/stru…

6/ Furthermore, the "one size fits all" approach can do harm in economies that are more dependent on the informal sector than the US or European ones.

So, the example of wealthy countries, while already problematic, certainly isn't universal either.

cgdev.org/blog/are-stric…

7/ Ultimately, colonialism and neocolonialism have created a situation in which the expertise is really focused outside of wealthy countries, yet the staff/supply/space is retained by those countries.

This is a bad combination for everyone.

time.com/5816299/corona…

8/ Working together is key. The US has so much to learn from the experience and expertise of its counterparts in some of the more impoverished areas of our world.

The @PIH contact tracing initiative in Massachusetts is one example of how this might look.
wbur.org/commonhealth/2…

9/ Just as we fail to listen to vulnerable communities in the United States, so too do we as a country fail to learn from our global neighbors.

@JeremyKonyndyk speaks about this in his new piece about the failure of American exceptionalism.

foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite…

10/ As we move forward, we have another chance to do better. #covid19 is not going away. Multiple waves await us.

We need to approach these ones very differently. Namely, with a lot of humility & with global cooperation and collaboration.

Part of this is engaging w/ @WHO

11/ If we do not, we will enter a terrible spiral of recurrent lockdowns, economic collapse, & a cumulative weight of both #covid19 and non-covid19 deaths from our healthcare system being too overwhelmed

We cannot let that happen. This starts w/ changing our neocolonial mindset.

cc @richardhorton1 @zeynep @rajpanjabi @PeterDrobac @AaronLBerkowitz @JoiaMukherjee @RanuDhillon @IngridKatzMD @gregggonsalves @s_keshavjee @seyeabimbola @paimadhu @MartenRobert @VBKerry @NPRGoatsandSoda @marciacastrorj @RifatAtun @BHedtGauthier @LawrenceGostin @klgthomas