Thread by @70sBachchan

Neither the first case on West Coast or Germany in mid-January snowballed. It was chain of transmission from China to Italy to NYC in early Feb that sparked transatlantic explosion.

Francis Collins on latest research integrating phylogenetics & travel directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/09/22/how…

1st mea culpa of WHO's line that precautionary travel restrictions are ineffective @adam_tooze. Tellingly, comes about in "wealth before health" lawsuit in Austrian ski resort.
nytimes.com/2020/09/30/wor…
E Asian govts did restrictions/screening passngrs/hotel quarantine in realtime

WHO anti-travel restrictions line was classic science & politics contest. This is @HelenBranswell Jan 26th report after vote to declare intl emergency went 50-50.
"Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global Spread of New Coronavirus" statnews.com/2020/01/26/con…

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1310941646079524867

More and more people are saying this /s. Long after virus has bolted and all the horsemen are upon us. academia.edu/41743064/Syste…

https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status/1314563296389816325

This story has the drama, pacing, characters and dialogue of a fine play. Nobody's going to remember this thread of post hoc scientific evidence of travel & pandemic, but you will remember this story.

Its even funnier if read aloud doing the accents. nytimes.com/2020/09/30/wor…

30/ The coronavirus is airborne. A lesson that should have been learned in January when it mattered the most. But a bad situation can always be made worse...

Or better - some Thanksgiving harm reduction tips ht @zeynep zeynep.substack.com/p/thanksgiving…

https://twitter.com/globalnews/status/1331018094534389760

31/ Did Covid write this? "Ppl drive or fly in from all over Europe to crowded mountain villages. Queues for lifts are packed.Changing rooms are explosions of sweat...Bars are bacchanalian. Yodelling, an efficient way to spread the virus,is not unheard of" economist.com/europe/2020/12…

32/ Biogen conference was responsible for triggering mother of all super-spreader events. Virus imported by European executives & then travel out of Boston took aggressive virus mutation out to 29 states & dozens of countries.
paper:science.sciencemag.org/content/early/… nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/…

33/Countries refusal to restrict travel - sins of omission - especially by rich accelerated virus but India's sin of commission was unique. It put millions of workers on trains & scattered virus deep into countryside. Result? World's 2nd largest epidemic. nytimes.com/2020/12/15/wor…

34/ Dutch, German, Italian etc govts ban travel from UK over new virus variant.
Precautionary restriction arguments that govts make now are maddening. Any competent govt could have been doing it from January. No travel,no pandemic! dw.com/en/coronavirus…

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1221800409892782083

"Travel restrictions are not xenophobic or inwards-looking. Quite the opposite. Deal w your domestic problem first then richer govts have bandwidth to help poorer countries. NZ able to help its Pacific neighbours bc they handled their domstc problem first"

https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1343606001518391296

36/ These are countries to which ppl flew out from London in October when more infectious UK variant of virus explosively spread. It's R increased by ~0.4 *during* lockdown. Do these countries have a plan to act early & act hard? imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-inf…

https://twitter.com/AineToole/status/1344238410458935296

37/ "U.S. to require negative COVID-19 tests for intl air passengers" reuters.com/article/us-hea…

1 year into a pandemic spread by intl travellers. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

https://twitter.com/VincentRK/status/1349116221782949889