Thread by @70sBachchan

Corona Scandals:
Bungled tests
Delayed lockdowns
Travel from hotspots (Europe,NYC) seeding outbreaks
No Corona Hotels
CDC Mask snafu
PPE shortages & black markets
Nursing home neglect
Hospital mis-mgmt
Meatpacking/Prisons clusters

Any others we are missing? ht @interfluidity 1/

CDC screwed up designing primers from virus sequence even though China/S Korea/Germany had primers & commercial tests ready by January sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/u…)
Christian Drosten group published diagnostic assay in Jan 2/ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Further testing delays through march/april as couldn't get enough medical-grade swabs or RNA extraction kits. People would queue up for tests overnight because swabs were rate-limiting step. For want of a nail… 3/

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1237956383322058754

CDC Mask snafu: despite advice for universal mask wearing from E Asia from January onwards, simple cloth face masks weren't recommended until April. Many have forgotten how difficult it was to even talk about masks back then. 4/
nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opi…

https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1262065440857169921

Delayed Lockdowns: the big one. The 1-2 weeks of delay between late February and early March cost tens of thousands of lives. It was responsible for New York's catastrophe and set the US on course to 200,000+ deaths by October 5/
nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/…

Inability to restrict travel or quarantine travellers from Europe/NYC hotspots: "In a globalized world, a deadly disease is one plane ride away" is the truest cliche about pandemics. In Feb & March came intl imports from Europe; then affluent fled NYC in March & spread nationwide

Phylogenetics papers have appeared in last couple months on weight of community transmission vs travel imports. But pandemic researchers have urged travel restrictions for decades & competent E Asian states did them in real time. More in travel thread 6/

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1239063422454595584

For UK, imports of virus from EU travellers sharply rose in March & peaked mid-March. Similarly true for US. Impossible to forget infamous March scenes of Americans returning from European hotspots without hotel qurantine amid Trump's hasty travel ban 7/
virological.org/t/preliminary-…

No Corona Hotels: Asking ppl to go back home if they test positive is just asking them to infect their own families/households. Wuhan figured out by early February that its critical to provide family members & close contacts a safe hotel room to isolate. niss.org/sites/default/…

Been clear that cities w crowded households like New York would need to adopt the Wuhan model of Corona hotels. It took NYC two full months till May to roll it out (see saga in thread). New infections dropping like a rock since then.

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1257323504677949440

Few know that NYC adopted Wuhan model of Corona Hotels: City books you a free hotel room for 2 weeks, gives you food, med checks & mental care. New cases dropped like a rock since program started. Could be rolled out in every city...www1.nyc.gov/site/helpnowny…

https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1265706921660686343

PPE Shortages:
Inability to contain pandemic, with none of the arms of #TestTraceIsolate working meant a deluge of patients at hospitals and a surging need for PPE. States were left to fend for themselves and bid against each other

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1246863906401857538

PPE black market:
Eventually by April, the US scrambled an international PPE buying response. But with inflated prices, & shakedowns of other countries PPE deliveries, it resembled more a mafia operation. Thread

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1246159038204858375

The 1st flight carrying supplies from Shanghai landed in NYC on March 29th. Since then, more than 200 flights, largely from Asia, have brought ~ 100 million N-95s, 200M masks & 20,000 vents.

Scandalously little reporting or public knowledge of largest govt airlift in US history.

We don't have to live in world of black markets. S American, Asian & African officials are currently being price gouged for masks, gowns,oxygen . The goal must be to expand production & deliver medical supplies to places with highest need. ht @jamiemartin2
nytimes.com/2020/04/15/opi…

Nursing home neglect:
we've known since Jan that virus kills elderly at 10-100X rate of young. You'd expect nursing home staff would be prioritized PPE & adopt infection control standard operating procedures to protect residents.

Instead, 1 in 3 of all Covid deaths are in them

Staggering WSJ investigative report: "more than 51,000 Covid-19-associated deaths tied to long-term-care facilities"

After outcry over neglect, MA tested all such facilities & found 42% of residents & 20% of staff were infected!
mass.gov/doc/weekly-cov…
wsj.com/articles/coron…

Hospital mis-management:
A Wall Street Journal investigative report on terrible mishaps in many New York hospitals over last couple of months.
archive.is/1Onkq#selectio…

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1271660677296525312

Meatpacking/Prisons clusters:

Top 10 Coronavirus clusters in the US?
Prisons, meat packing plants, an aircraft carrier

Next 10?
Prisons, meat packing plants, prisons...

Its like Stanford Prison Experiment met Upton Sinclair met Dr. Strangelove.
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Meatpacking workers are mostly immigrants & instead of protecting them, regulatory agencies *weakened* safety during pandemic to keep the plants open. These unsafe plants then spread the virus into rural areas.

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1254922177742331907

Instead of shutting down superspreader meatplants — where workers are next to each other, with fans blowing & have to shout — corporate & govt officials shifted focus onto workers themselves, blaming their living situations & lifestyles of immigrants.
propublica.org/article/emails…

More than 35% of federal inmates tested for coronavirus were positive, according to data from The Bureau of Prisons.

As Dostoevsky said: 'The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.'

https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1272235918158684160