Thread by @Gurdur

1/n I was asked my thoughts on the video below (sound on! Watch in full), not sure why. But here are some of my thoughts, in a thread. It's about Los Angeles, where Eric Garcetti is mayor, in CA, where Gavin Newsom (D) is governor.
cc.@CathyYoung63

2/n This is not a simple matter, & I will be very rude to anyone trying to be simplistic about it all. My very first reaction is, of course she's right to protest. I myself would under those circumstances. Confronted with both loss of livelihood AND with gross inconsistency.

3/n The abhorrent way the USA as a whole (many US states in particular) simply left a great deal of its own citizens in the lurch, that's well-known. As too that this will mean a further widening of the abyss between the well-off & the poor, cue @Chris_arnade. But that's not all.

4/ The woman was quite right to point out the inconsistency of having a filming-crew set up a cafeteria next to her food business, while she suffers from loss of livelihood from the newest lockdown. I completely agree with her.
But that's not all.

5/ This is what #COVID19 is doing right at the moment in #California. You know what this means. Swamped ICU's, deaths. Right now, this is happening in much of the USA. That means no docs & no nurses flying in to help, they're needed at home.

6/ This is what #COVID19 is doing right NOW in Los Angeles Metro Area. You know what this means. Wait 22 days, the deaths will go high, high. The epidemic will spread and kill more. And docs & nurses can't fly in like they did for NYC, because so much of the USA is like this.

7/ I noticed most other people stopped tweeting about #COVID19 from July till late October, because initial measures worked to bring down the case numbers. Only a few, including me, kept shouting, "DEAL with the virus". Here, Don Winslow is fully right:

https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1334359599420297219

8/ Then you have the usual suspects doing their best to cash in on others' anguish. This woman, who not only is a grown-ass adult, but also a medical doctor, will be one cause (among others) of actual deaths, unnecessary deaths.

https://twitter.com/drsimonegold/status/1333129091139194881

9/ But fiiiiine, cue the other usual suspects to self-righteously say, "My protest is fine! It will save lives! But your protest is very bad!"

All along in this, including in May onwards, I've been very consistent that the need for public compliance trumps everything else.

10/ It doesn't matter how self-righteous and *allegedly* safe your own protest is, all it does is encourage others to protest their own causes. Don't bore me with your condemnation of NYC synagogues if you were fine with *packed* crowds shouting or chanting their spittle around.

11/ But in the USA, you have a grown-ass man who is a Florida House member. And he makes your average sociopath Joker look a nice adult. @AnthonySabatini might as well go on camera and laugh over the morgue trucks, it amounts to the same thing.

https://twitter.com/AnthonySabatini/status/1334688960484929536

12/ Cue the *other* usual suspects to say, "oh it's only 1% chance". I was brought up to think that 1 out of every 100 pregnant women dying of an avoidable virus was a bad thing, sue me if you don't like that I despise sociopaths.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1334575253020938240

13/ Cue all the selfish idiots who whine, "Only less than 1% chance!" Well that wasn't true in NYC, was it, it was more, and it will be even more soon. Sarcastic congrats on turning an IFR of 0.36% into worse than 1%.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1334844855906947074

14/ June, here July, August, September, October, many and I kept shouting, "DEAL with the virus", I got a million people telling me I was wrong, well, how's El Paso now, eh? How's Los Angeles? Oh and second wave in New York City, undeniable.

https://twitter.com/master_patron/status/1281277537390415877

15/ I'm shocked at how callous Americans are towards their own. Yes, Governor Newsom is a hypocrite, & should've immediately resigned after disclosure of his breaking his own quarantine regs. Doesn't mean you should applaud the deaths of many Californians.

https://twitter.com/FenkelSchaefer/status/1335192944144486400

16/ You cannot let people simply starve, in effect, since that will break quarantines. You must provide for your people. You MUST be consistent about it. But meanwhile, #COVID19 is out there & killing people, & making others quite ill for 4 months.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1335191128472215556

17/ In the USA, you must have your federal Congress, & your state legislatures, actually provide for people during the quarantines & pandemic. Failure to do so has meant failure of epidemic suppression. Failure to suppress the epidemic means say goodbye to your ICU's a while

18/ These were *some*, not all, of my thoughts, diplomatically put (my real thoughts are far ruder). There're medical, economic AND psychological aspects to suppressing the virus, & the USA, Dems, GOP, libertarians, & many public health figures, have really buggered that all up.

19/ I was sitting here worrying about the high rate of daily #COVID19 infections in Germany. Los Angeles County has over 4 times the rate per million of daily infections at the moment. It's going to go up. So when does the healthcare system there buckle?

latimes.com/california/sto…

20/ "Last week, L.A. County also saw the largest-ever increase in healthcare worker infections, with over 1,700 new cases"
“I think we have moved from characterizing this as a surge, in my mind, to being basically a viral tsunami in terms of its size,”