Thread by @DrRobDavidson

I see @fmanjoo has decided that traveling to see distant family this Thanksgiving is “worth it.” Reading his contact tracing experiment👇 is enraging. As an ER doc in a region getting decimated by #COVID19 right now, I have a slightly different take. (1/9)

https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/1329781116169973766?s=20

The missing component of his article is where he considers how his actions & writing about them impacts those outside his bubble & family. Each time a person interacts with those not in their bubble, the odds of getting the virus goes up. It may be small, but it's additive. (2/9)

The actions of 1 person have minimal impact on the pandemic as a whole, or on the ability of a hospital to handle the onslaught of patients to find room to care for. But each time 1 person breaches public health protocols, the odds of initiating a cluster of cases goes up. (3/9)

If this happens many times across many families in a particular area, the caseload starts to go up. In some areas, just a few index cases can set off an irreversible chain of events that leads to a critical lack of resources with which to care for a lot of sick people. (4/9)

I'm living through this scenario right now. My small hospital in rural Michigan is bursting with #COVID19 patients. Every day we start or finish the day full. Nearby tertiary care hospitals are also full. We contact other hospitals to scrounge for the last bed available. (5/9)

Then we wait. We wait for an EMS crew to take our sick patient, trapped in a tin can for 60-90 minutes with an actively shedding #COVID19 patient, to the distant destination. (6/9)

Our crews are working 24 hour shifts, for $15-18/hour, sleepless, to help us manage the fallout from people making seemingly personal decisions that are impacting us all. They are cracking. They may not come through this. They’re my heroes. (7/9)

I am offended for them that Mr. Manjoo would so cavalierly put them at risk to share a meal with his parents. I am also worried that his readers will take comfort in his tracing exercise and take his decision as tacit approval that they may do the same. (8/9)

I am begging them to listen to the CDC and public health experts across the world.

And stay home this Thanksgiving so that we all can share a meal with our loved ones next year. (END.)