Thread by @AbraarKaran

We have to stop for a second & realize how crazy all of this is.

We have multi billion $ corporations (@NBA) forming literal bubbles through immense power & wealth to cont their business amidst disaster while the rest of us are stuck complaining about an incompetent government.

2/ We are talking abt how to send kids to school— indoors, crowded together—amidst a pandemic w/ 50,000 new cases per day; maybe 10x more undetected?

Instead of putting 100% of that energy toward stopping this epidemic, we are assessing how to gamble w/ our kids’ health?

3/ For the amount of resources we have, we have had *the worst* epidemic response in the entire world.

That is literally insane

We have some of the world’s best scientists; epidemiologists; doctors; nurses etc— yet have a system that is so dysfunctional it doesn’t even matter

4/ We have multiple states that are doing worse than most other *entire countries* in terms of their #covid19 epidemics.

We have other states that are doing better but are largely watching as fires burn elsewhere.

We are *not* united in this no matter the lip service we give.

5/ We are asking the *wrong* questions.

We are asking how we continue life amidst the epidemic, rather than asking what we need to do to drastically stop this as our first, second, and third priority.

Why has our urgency waned or given way to attempts for rationalization?

6/ We found a way to be “ok” w/ more cases by arguing that we may have a lower case fatality rate.

Instead, we should have been *outraged* that we had more cases that can/will have long standing effects on our health even if we don’t die.

7/ We are sitting back waiting for a vaccine rather than leaning forward with even more vigor to test/trace/isolate/mask/lockdown, knowing that this country doesn’t have systems to even deploy a vaccine at scale quickly, if it is even affordable when it does come out at all

8/ We have been literally saying the same stuff over & over w/ little change or at a fraction of the scale we need to keep up w/ this epidemic— “test more” “better masks for all” —insert whatever hashtag you want as far back as March- chances are things are not even close to goal

9/ The wealthy largely stay home, because they have $$ to do so; the poor largely continue working on the frontline without adequate protections, still getting infected and infecting their families in crowded housing w/o options to safely isolate elsewhere or get paid leave.

10/ The picture of #covid19 in America is really a picture of America itself— a country over-run by racism, capitalism, greed, toxic politics, but still full of millions of good people who want to do the right thing but are stuck in systems that they unfortunately helped create.

11/ I worked clinically during #covid19 and also worked on our state response and what I saw was individual people putting everything on the line to protect & serve their communities, state and country. That is the strength of our nation- we have what it takes to do this.

12/ But we are way too complacent and are slowly but surely accepting a status quo that is scales— literally scales— worse than other countries. And we are doing this in the summer. What happens when we enter the winter— when we are largely going to be indoors and have flu back?

13/ We *need* to put our foot on the brakes at a county level ASAP— & go back to step 1 once we get new cases down to a trickle. We need to have the humility to do what other countries had to do. If that means mandates, mandate it. If that means you lose political pts, lose them

14/ Leaders need to realize that *all* roads lead back to the same conclusion: if you control the virus, you win.

You win the economy.

You win your re-election.

You win your health

You win for your kids, your families, your friends, yourself

Everything else is a distraction