Thread by @cfishman

Here’s how outeageously out-of-control the coronavirus is in the US:

Florida:
• Population: 21 million
• New cases Saturday: 10,360

European Union + UK:
• Population: 510 million
• New cases Saturday: 6,202

A single US state has more cases than all of Westetn Europe.

2/ That’s why the economy of Europe is coming back.

That’s why schools can open there.

That’s why tourism & travel among European countries is resuming safely.

European countries contained & tried to crush the virus.

They used the lockdown to build contact tracing ability.

3/ The White House is demanding that schools open.

Where’s the plan?

To open schools with confidence for teachers & parents, you don’t need Betsy DeVos angrily insisting it happen. You don’t need ALL-CAPS tweets.

You need very low community spread.

4/ You needed federal officials to say on May 1, here’s a plan.

Step 1: Get the virus in your school district (city, county, rural area) contained. Here’s what that means.

5/ Step 2: Here’s how to open schools — how to plan, how to reshape day-to-day operations, classrooms, cafeterias, buses, teacher safety

Step 3: Here’s advice & funding to make it happen.

It’s May 1 —we have 3.5 months, let’s do this!

Instead we get no plan, just yelling.

6/ If we were serious about managing the pandemic, we would have done that a half-dozen times:

• a goal
• a date
• a set of steps
• guidance, money, encouragement, regular benchmarks & updates

…testing
…PPE
…treatment
…contact-tracing
…vaccine
…re-open businesses

7/ We’ve never done it once.

Almost all those urgent efforts are a mess — still.

Why should people in hard-hit states be waiting days for tests, and more days for results?

That’s absurd.
That’s dangerous.
That’s ineffective.

It’s the result of incompetence.

8/ European public officials asked for sacrifice and used the time to get ready.

In the US, we asked for sacrifice, settled for half measures, did nothing with the month of time that bought us — now we’re bored, and astonished things aren’t fixed.

9/ In Europe (and Vietnam, S.Korea, Australia, New Zealand), competence breeds success and confidence. Citizens have confidence that officials know what they’re doing — and if they ask for fresh, temporary measures, people comply. They know it works.

10/ In the US, we have seen struggle & stumbling & failure.

We have no confidence that people in charge have a clear sense of how to contain & crush the outbreaks — or how to do anything else. Open businesses, open schools, keep the testing lines shorter than 4 hours.

11/ Real leaders would say, today: We need schools open. We screwed up being ready.

But that stops today.

Let’s get schools open safely for all by Oct. 1. Not perfect, but better than the rolling mess we’re headed for.

Oct. 1. Here’s what that will take.

Step 1...

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