Thread by @AbraarKaran

1/ Re-reading this article was actually haunting.

It was the interview Donald McNeil Jr did w/ Bruce Aylward (led WHO team to examine China’s #covid19 response) in March.

We knew what we needed to do. We didn’t do it. Over 160,000 Americans died.

nytimes.com/2020/03/04/hea…

2/ I remember in March I had tweeted a thread about this article. I think a number of my followers read it then as it had been widely shared.

It was a few weeks before New York City got absolutely destroyed by this epidemic; Massachusetts followed soon after.

2.5/ I distinctly remember the feeling of despair in March knowing that we weren’t going to be able to mount the response that Wuhan did, partly bc we actually didn’t have the capability to do so, but even more bc our leadership was largely in denial that we would need to.

3/ As a global health doctor, I’m used to the USA’s exceptionalism when it comes to everything, and health especially.

We hesitate to learn from others. We believe that the rules don’t apply here.

And when we were rudely awakened, parts of the country still didn’t care.

4/ There are parts that still don’t.

Some of the bikers in #Sturgis were quite vocal about this viewpoint this week.

A recent @pewresearch poll found that 25% of Americans believed that #covid19 could be a planned, intentional epidemic.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020…

5/ Ultimately, we have so much to reflect on. Our country’s fault lines are so deep. That we were uniquely designed to fail at managing this epidemic should force us to look deep into the mirror because epidemics are not going away any time soon & we are especially vulnerable.