Thread by @cfishman

The coronavirus pandemic isn't just out of control in the US — it's rampaging uncheckedacross the entire country.

Wednesday, Nov 11:

• Total cases, all-time high: 145,835
• Total hospitalizations, all-time high: 65,368
• Deaths, 2,811 — highest 2-day total since May 19 & 20

2/ So…

Where is Dr. Deborah Birx?

Where is Dr. Anthony Fauci?

Where is Dr. Robert Redfield?

• Birx, coordinator of the White House covid task force
• Fauci, director of the Nat'l Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases
• Redfield, director of the CDC

Where are they?

3/ At least in public, no one is asking the question:

How do we get the pandemic under control?

How do we even *start* to corral the spread of the virus this time — the third time?

Look at the slope of the curve — cases rising almost straight vertical.

4/ What we need — among other things — is to resume the daily briefings.

Here's how bad things are.

Here's a few places getting things back under control.

Here's how to help your city, your state, your nation.

Birx, Fauci & Redfield: They should simply do a daily briefing.

5/ The White House literally could not care less.

Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said so.

A cabinet member, Meadows himself, and at least 4 additional White House staffers have all tested positive in the last four days.

The White House itself is having a 'second wave.'

6/ But why do Birx, Fauci & Redfield need permission?

They should start talking to the nation every day.

We need them to.

During March & April when the briefings were conducted every day, cases were running 25,000 to 30,000 a day.

We are at 5 times that.

7/ Hospitalizations are crippling health care in whole states, & not just low-population ones: Utah, Missouri, Ohio.

Here comes Illinois.

Illinois reports 12,657 cases today (may rise by midnight).

That's 1,000 more cases than New York state on its worst day.

8/ No one is in charge.

There is no national leadership at all.

But Birx, Fauci & Redfield should assume they are in charge.

The White House, Pence & Trump aside — that's their job.

Sometimes you don't wait for orders.

Saving your country would be one of those times.

9/ Resumption of daily briefings would focus the nation's attention back from breathless reporting about pointless voting lawsuits to the deadly disease that is on an exponential upward curve.

The only way to slow it, then reverse it, is for all of us to behave differently.

10/ If you look at the statistics, and do the most basic amount of math, deaths could be running 2,500 a day by December 1.

Right now — today — we are at 1 death a minute.

We know how this goes: If we do nothing, the coronavirus just keeps spreading.

But we can stop it.

11/ It is going to be an austere Thanksgiving — at least in terms of the people who won't be crowded around the table (at least in this house — and I hope in yours).

If we aren't careful, it could be a black Christmas.

12/ We have been terrible at setting goals during the pandemic. That's why school isn't in session now. That's why the pandemic is out of control now.

We could have said, on May 15: We must send our kids to school, in person.

To do that, we need to squelch community spread.

13/ And to stop community spread, we need to do these 6 things.

We
did
not
do
that.

That's why we are here.

Kids at home. Coronavirus everywhere.

14/ But what about Christmas?

6 weeks away. We want to cut cases back to 75,000 a day (what a crazy goal, eh?).

By Christmas.

Here's what we need to do.

That's a good goal. And we can remind ourselves of it if we don't like the limits that are necessary.

Oh yeah: Christmas.

15/ Hey, Deborah Birx. Anthony Fauci. Robert Redfield.

Your nation needs you.

Grab the helm. Talk to us. Steer us out of this.

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