Any reductio ad absurdum analogies you can pick for denying the effectiveness of masks, distancing and social isolation will just remind you of the contrarian nature of big segments of the population.

Seatbelts
Helmets
Vaccines

There are/were movements against all of them.
In the late 1960's/early 70's when seatbelt laws spread across the country, there were protesters who would photograph themselves cutting out the seatbelts from new cars.
wpr.org/surprisingly-c…
In the battle for adoption, the more urgent the pressure, the more this small group will resist. It takes time, it takes concerted educational efforts, and persistence, not pressure, tend to be effective.

At least, if you have the luxury of decades. Which we don't.
Even the child-resistant lid, invented 1967 by Ontario physician, Dr. Charles Breault, has serious detractors with a framework of opposition.

"It's not 100% safe!"
"I don't have kids, why should I have to use these stupid lids!?"
"Is there even any evidence they work?"
Public health has been threading the needle between our collective rights to stop uncontrolled spread of disease and our individual right to act in our private lives however we like.

It's not always easy to agree on that balance, and therein lies the conflict.
A young Ralph Nader in 1965 wrote "Unsafe at Any Speed" that laid why carmakers resisted investing in automotive safety. Seatbelts were optional extras in some models, or could be deleted for a small refund in others.

They wanted it to be a luxury upsell: "fully loaded"
As a result of his advocacy, in 1966 Pres. LBJ signed National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act which created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which set minimum standards of safety, taking the features from "luxury upsells" to basic expectations.

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More from @c0nc0rdance

17 Nov
Psssst. Can I interest you in a thread of red pandas?

Disclaimer: Cannot be held liable for cryo damage caused by your cold, cold heart melting.
Red pandas are not actually closely related to Giant Pandas. The name may be the result of a mistranslation of the Nepali word "Ponya" which means 'bamboo eater'.

I have to assume this is a bamboo sandwich.
Red pandas have bushy tails for warmth during the winter cold (they don't hibernate) & balance when climbing... although this one's tail isn't doing it any favors.
Read 7 tweets
16 Nov
Texas has 254 counties.
185 of them have no psychiatrist (unserved pop 3M)
158 have no general surgeon (1.9M)
147 have no OB/GYN (1.8M)
80 have <5 physicians
35 have 0 physicians

Texas ranks 41st in physicians/100,000 residents,
#1 in % uninsured residents. Image
Part of the problem is the nature of the state: 85% of the state's residents live in the sprawling metroplexes, the 15% live across the vast spaces of rural farming communities too small to support specialists.

Emergencies mean long drives when seconds count. Image
The other obvious issue is that Texas doesn't provide state run insurance programs for those living at or near the poverty line.

As this 2016 map shows, the impact is that poor Texans, many of them in rural areas, are largely uninsured. Image
Read 7 tweets
14 Nov
Let's talk about the All-Black towns of Oklahoma & how it could have been a majority Black state.

Oklahoma Territory formed in 1890, at a time when Blacks living in Jim Crow South were persecuted. Many relocated to urban centers in the North where they were minority population.
The idea of a "homeland" within the US that would be Black majority was popular; locations without existing white majority populations.

One champion for Majority Black Oklahoma was Edward P. McCabe, a prominent Black lawyer, politician, clerk from Kansas.
He organized a plan (~1881) involving 25 All-Black cities to be settled in Oklahoma territory. He hoped to swing political power to allow himself to be voted Governor of the newly created Majority Black state & government.
Read 8 tweets
13 Nov
Elon Musk is the Jon Snow of molecular biology.
In case you don't know molecular biology, PCR detects DNA or cDNA (made from RNA).

It can't detect proteins, and imagining that *every biomarker* is *always detectable* in *every sample* is a fundamental misunderstanding demonstrating lack of understanding in this field.
We're careful to say we detected viral *RNA*in a nasopharyngeal sample, which correlates to infectious virus most, but not all of the time.

Same with protein antigen or antibody: you never get a full picture, just strong clues.
Read 5 tweets
13 Nov
My MAGA family members are posting pictures of their gun collections, draped in Trump flags, so how about a nice relaxing thread of Mini Highland Cows? Image
!!SO FLUFFY I'M SCREAMING IN TEXT!!!
Hello fellow dog. I am grass dog.
Read 10 tweets
13 Nov
In 1993, a new hantavirus was discovered with a focal point near 'Canyon de Muerto' on the Navajo reservation adjacent to the Four Corners region, where UT, NM, AZ, CO touch at a single point.

It had a case fatality rate of 67%.
I'll skip some detective work, though it's a fascinating story. The disease resulted from exposure to infected deer mouse droppings.

Once the outbreak was under control, the question of naming became a sticking point.
Prior convention would have been to call it "Hantavirus Muerto Canyon", classing it with Hantaviruses 'Puumala' (Finland) and 'Hantaan' (Korea) and 'Dobrava' (Slovenia)

The Navajo people of Muerto Canyon objected to being associated with a deadly cardiopulmonary disease.
Read 6 tweets

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