Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update June 28: August will be another twist in the road. That comes tomorrow.

But I need to do something first. I’m reminded many people follow me for COVID info so I want to call out & atone for my mistakes. 1/

Each month at the end of the month, I do something which lacks any sort of judgment: tweet out what is likely to happen over the next month. 2/

This whole crisis has suffered from a lack of accountability so I want to start with myself & where I’ve been right & wrong. 3/

If I go back to February & March, I was one (of a number of people) who said this was going to be a disaster while the president downplayed it.

A lot of people did & many attacked those who said we were facing potential of hundreds of thousands of deaths if we didn’t act. 4/

But I got something big wrong. I said hospitals would be overrun in major cities by March 23. It wasn’t until April that happened in NY.

Why? Like Cuomo, I was assuming Italy’s hospitalization rate. Ours was lower thankfully. Happily wrong. 5/

I also saw we wouldn’t have enough gear or tests and that given these lack of tools with a number of others launched #StayHome as well as ProjectN95.

Medium has many of the things I wrote... 6/

My biggest mistake in March, though one I would probably make again, was to push that we take a bipartisan cooperative approach like post 9/11. I hoped we would & tried to model this. I continue to try, on the phone w 3 hours w the WH today.7/

From 3/14: coronavirus.medium.com/covid-19-march…

It will be the last time I make the mistake thinking Trump might care enough about people dying to take any responsibility.

The stock market & his polls dictate his interest level. 8/

As a result of this learning, I moved several million dollars in resources to support states, governors and localities. The @USofCare team has helped over 60% of states implement policies & create testing, closing, contact tracing & other programs.9/

In April before there was much data I worried about the impact on vulnerable communities & that Trump was picking the economy over the health of marginalized communities.

I am sad to feel right. And it’s actually worse than I thought it would be.10/

I wasn’t the only one. @maddow saw what was happening in nursing homes too. And we talked about it here. 11/

msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/…

In the last week in April, I said rather then waiting for science, masks could be the low tech answer.

This was an idea I had heard from Bill Joy, one of several rocks I turn to. When I get it right, it’s usually not me but someone I have access to.

12/

The truth is most times I was right, it was not me but because I have been fortunate enough to have access to amazing people and I listened. In April I decided to record & broadcast these calls on #inthebubble for you to hear directly. Here they are: smarturl.it/inthebubble 13/

Very pleased to work with @BernieSanders on a bill he introduced yesterday to do just that. That’s one of the recorded conversations.
14/

google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.…

At the beginning of May, I said we were entering “the month of bliss”— the month where we wouldn’t know how bad things were during the month as we opened up. Without tools I urged caution. I wasn’t alone. Many saw, few listened. 15/

coronavirus.medium.com/relaxing-all-s…

Dr. Birx & I disagreed here. I sent her input from a lot of scientists & risk managers in March to help her persuade the president not to open the country on Easter Sunday.

The plan was ok— a gated reopening. But it was never followed.

She thought things would be fine. 16/

And during May she thought things were going fine. DeSantis crowed like a peacock. After all cases weren’t growing as we opened up.

Others said things would be a disaster— from Georgia to BBQs to protests in June. 17/

My answer at the time was “we can’t possibly know.” It was dependent how much people would social distance. But I was worried no no had the testing/tracing tools.

I don’t know sounds like a cop out. But it’s very often the best answer. And I wish we heard it & said it more. 18/

As it turned out many went as far as the law allowed them to go. What we learned was that the trigger had nothing to do with shops or the outdoors.

It was bars. Once they opened, you could set your clock to disaster. 19/

(Thanks to the COVID-19 UW team for making this for me)

We also released an #opensafely plan (open-safely.org & COVIDexitstrategy.org) we would be in trouble.

It was bipartisan but Republican governors intent on opening the economy ignored it. 20/

In June I worried that politicians were wishing away the problem & ignoring the lessons of the virus from the NE.

But I missed the fact that the South would become the hot spots over the summer as people went indoors. 21/

My biggest fear in June was that as this became more of a disease that impacts racial minorities people would care less & our response would be lesser. I think this is still my biggest fear. 22/

I suspected & hoped the death rate would drop as drugs & procedures advanced. I was impressed by how much & how quickly.

AZ, FL and TX will be travesties with many losses to come but death rates will be a lot lower than NY. That’s clinical progress we should applaud. 23/

The sadder reality is that migrant farm workers & border towns have become the new nursing homes & jails. And leaders don’t seem to care.

It’s right in front of our faces. People like @PeterHotez scream about this but it goes into the void. 24/

It was obvious to anyone paying attention that cases were booming in July. We lacked & lack the testing we need.

Some people were minimizing & spinning full time. That deniers believed cases wouldn’t become hospitalizations & hospitalizations would become deaths. 25/

Trump abandoned command & climbed off the boat with the iceberg ahead. Governors with states in trouble reluctantly dealt with reality. And racism underlies our response at every turn. 26/

If I once knew that America’s patience would run thin, I still didn’t expect a Civil War of pseudoscience & selfish impatience to emerge.

I still call for anyone that is putting their political career over our lives to leave public life. 27/

I look back at the last few months & see I was pretty good at figuring a month or so ahead, but with some big misses.

Yet if I transported “February Andy” to the end of July & was shown the scene, I would have been surprised at what I saw. 28/

150,000 dead. On some level I can’t fathom it but that’s not the surprise.

How little the country takes it in stride is more of a surprise. 29/

The unwillingness of Trump to take accountability doesn’t surprise me, although I admit I yearn for a national leader that does.

But while I saw race & income, age & health status as targets, the reckless abandonment of essential workers appalls & shocks me. 30/

I think I’m more encouraged than I thought I would be about science. The US is throwing tons of money to commercial interests. And we are learning a lot.

I am learning more & more about the greed & conflicts that will probably come to light much later.31/

My number 1 mistake was how much of our pain has been self-inflicted. How avoidable things were. The size of the gap between us & the rest of the world. Why Europe & Asia are winning and we’re clearly losing.

I would not have guessed we wouldn’t have fixed this by now.32/

I think there’s an answer and it’s in these 45 seconds with a full conversation at the link. 33/

https://twitter.com/lemonadamedia/status/1286000848645038080

I think we should have somewhere less than half the death toll, an opened up economy & safe in person voting & school by now IF WE DID AN AVERAGE JOB.

Any time we start caring we can reduce the death toll ahead. 34/

I’ve done a lot of tweeting. I regret many tweets— particularly any time I was unkind to anyone, even if I thought I had reason.

And some things I think are right may end up being wrong. 35/

Tomorrow I will lay out my thoughts on August which I have done a lot of homework on today.

Schools, vaccines, weather, new hot spots & election politics are big currents right now. 36/

If we make the right decisions, we can improve things. I think some good news will come in August even as our challenges don’t disappear.

I’m sure other mistakes I have made will be well represented in the comments. I will keep working on it. /end