Thread by @tomaspueyo

Who influenced you most on the #coronavirus pandemic? My list.

1. @balajis pierced my bubble when he started posting about the virus back in January, when most Silicon Valley ppl knew little & few imagined what it could become. He was prescient

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1222921758375927808?s=20

2. @trvrb quickly started appearing in my @Twitter feed. After over a year with no posts, he started posting on Jan 11th 2020 and never stopped. His work with strains opened my eyes to uncontrolled community spread.

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1230953764439252992?s=20

3. @mugecevik had the best roundups of science. Each time she posted one, it was like jumping to the cutting edge of #coronavirus knowledge

https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1226518061940912133?s=20

These early voices woke me up. After them, I started discovering others that would help me understand the pandemic.

4. One of the most interesting ones is Donald McNeill, a NYT reporter who just won an award for his reporting. He has a tendency to tell the truth even when he's not supposed to, which is something I appreciate in a journalist.

nytimes.com/2020/07/15/sun…

I ended building a friendship with him, which is one of these weird and hopeful things that have happened during the pandemic.

5. Ed Young is another one of these really great journalists that have done exceptional work during the pandemic.
theatlantic.com/health/archive…

6. @zeynep also wrote amazing pieces, especially the recent one around the K number and how to use it to beat the virus
theatlantic.com/health/archive…

7. @michaelmina_lab from Harvard broke the status quo when he explained to the world how rapid testing could change everything. It still can, but governments haven't caught up. If they had, we wouldn't be here.

8. @Bob_Wachter has written a staggering 220 chronicles. They have brought light and reason in a comforting daily ritual, especially meaningful to me since he works at my go-to hospital, UCSF, and he's an amazing human I've had the chance to zoom-host.

https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter/status/1319835452036165632?s=20

9. @ASlavitt did something similar, but on the political health arena, given his experience in the Obama admin and healthcare.gov. Crucial, because policies determine deaths.

10. @yaneerbaryam has kept screaming from the rooftops the importance and feasibility of suppressing the virus. That passion comes from his ethics, his personal loss due to the pandemic, and from the fact that he wants to do what's right, publicly and privately.

11. @jeremyphoward doesn't just sit and talk. When the pandemic exploded, he searched where he could have an impact, found that masks could be a game-changer, and spearheaded an evidence review that proved they could, changing the global conversation
preprints.org/manuscript/202…

One of the few awe-inspiring things I witnessed during the pandemic is how, when the need emerges, ppl can raise to challenge & collaborate w/ strangers to make the world a better place. I met @jeremyphoward in a group that sprung up to fight the pandemic, & met many others there

12. Some of the most active actors behind the scene include @ericries , @roybahat , @mishachellam , @peterschwartz2 and many many others. They weren't as much in the public eye, but people like them moved behind the scenes to make actual things happen.

13. But the group that means the most to me is those like me who came from nowhere and everywhere and decided to help me create the best articles we ever could. People like @Dr_Carl_Juneau , who started translating the Hammer and the Dance and with whom I ended up writing papers

Or like @thismattbell and @the1andonlyggee, who supported all our articles massively, among a group of dozens of volunteers.

Do you have stories like this one of the pandemic, where you got together with a group of strangers that suddenly felt like family?

14. In the polar opposite, there's all the people who I never met but had a huge impact in the global conversation. People like @DrAnthonyF for guiding the US, @c_drosten & Merkel for Germany, Tegnell, @LondonBreed for closing SF when everybody thought it was ridiculous,

or @GiuseppeConteIT for closing Italy down, the 1st democracy to do so; Taiwan, South Korea and Taiwan for showing us how it's done...

15. Then there are the inspiring characters like @GeoRebekah
She was in charge of reporting #coronavirus data in Florida.
She was told to tweak the data.
She said no.
She was fired.
She built what I call the "FU dashboard", publishing the true data from outside the admin

I'll continue tomorrow. I'm missing dozens.
Who influenced you the most during the pandemic?