Ed Yong Profile picture
5 Dec, 19 tweets, 6 min read
Well, rewatching Lord of the Rings this year was... different.

Consider BILBO: just wants to finish his damn book; “butter spread over too much bread”; ages dramatically Bilbo Baggins
GANDALF: would rather be doing pretty fireworks; instead has to ride around shouting policy advice at inexplicably reluctant leaders; can’t get a day off even when dead Gandalf the Annoyed
THEODEN: “What can men do against such reckless hate? A THREAD 1/“ Theoden
MERRY: normally happy guy who fully loses his shit over the incredibly powerful beings who take months to agree on the most basic stuff Merry
DENETHOR: wields power over an entire city and *could* save everyone but instead decides to set himself and his loved ones on fire; also eating indoors, come on man. Denethor. This fucking guy
BALROG: angry; on fire; probably doing yet another podcast interview; cooped up too long and skin is in an absolute state Roaring balrog
FRODO & SAM: tired; can’t remember taste of strawberries; just going to have a little nap; everything around them is on fire; this is fine. Frodo and Sam surrounded by lava; this is fine.
SAURON: does not sleep; ever watchful; Doomscrolling

(This one's good too: ) Eye of Sauron
LEGOLAS: why is everyone so down?; using this time to learn new hobbies; birdwatching, surfing, riding, kayaking; keen on scoring points
GALADRIEL: chilling out in fancy country house; sending you thoughts and prayers; gift-giving is her love language Galadriel
WORMTONGUE: this &£@?ing guy; witless yet somehow in a position of political power; gives terrible advice; sliding into your DMs Wormtongue
SARUMAN: once wise but increasingly deranged with every zoom call; bad at gardening; good at quarantine puppies Saruman
ARAGORN: reluctantly getting involved because everyone else is rubbish; co-founder of Orc Tracking Project; grungy but it works for him; prefers athleisure to office clothes Aragorn
GOLLUM: too used to quarantine; can’t be bothered to get dressed; social skills have deteriorated; needs to hydrate; ill-advisedly going out in public despite terrible cough Gollum
NEW ZEALAND: the real hero of the story; doing very well for itself; you want to be there
BEACON-OPERATORS OF MINAS TIRITH: sitting on top of a cold, lonely mountain for years, waiting to sound the alarm when a long-predicted calamity occurs and hoping that everyone reacts appropriat... wait they did WHAT?
BOROMIR: armchair human who has read three scrolls about Mordor but thinks he understands it better than the 6000-year-old elf general who actually fought there
ENTS: nature is healing
(People have requested EOWYN but I can’t top this one: )

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More from @edyong209

4 Dec
At the Atlantic, the peerless @sarahzhang has been leading our coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. Here's a thread of her amazing work.

1) A great big-picture look at the Moderna & Pfizer vaccines, which also explains mRNA vaccines are. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
2) Here, Sarah looks at the results from the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine trial and why they're a little weirder and more confusing than those from the other two.
theatlantic.com/health/archive…
3) Here, Sarah looks at the challenges posed by the transition between two administrations, and the problems that Biden may face as a result.

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 7 tweets
22 Nov
It has been too long since I’ve done this, but here are some great pandemic-related pieces from the last month or so, from people whose work I respect.

If you’ve liked my work, perhaps you’ll also like the work that I like.
.@rkhamsi, who's consistently been one of the best pandemic reporters, wrote about the absurd policies that are doing the rounds: wired.com/story/a-lack-o…

and about whey we need to SEE what COVID-19 is doing to people. wired.com/story/this-pan…
.@CarolineYLChen wrote this searing piece about how frustrated health-care workers are. They "don’t need patronizing praise. They need resources, federal support, and for us to stay healthy and out of their hospitals."

propublica.org/article/the-en…
Read 16 tweets
20 Nov
🚨I wrote about UNMC--the hospital that, perhaps more than any other in the US, had prepared for a pandemic. It has amazing facilities. Its staff anticipated, planned, drilled.

And now?

“I don’t see how we avoid becoming overwhelmed,” one doc said. 1/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Here’s what the current surge is doing to the best-prepared hospital:
➡️One building is now a COVID tower.
➡️10 COVID units; 1 solely for patients to die.
➡️Some days, they’re short 45-60 nurses.
➡️“We’re watching a system breaking in front of us." 2/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Hospital staff are *exhausted*. A nurse who normally works in oncology told me she can barely comprehend the amount of death she has seen in recent weeks.

Work "follows me everywhere I go. It’s all I see when I come home, when I look at my kids.” 3/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 10 tweets
17 Nov
The coronavirus bursts into a bar at 10.01pm but it's empty. It sulks off, thwarted.

The coronavirus enters a room to find only 14 people. "Curses," it says, "foiled again."

The coronavirus finds *15* people but they leave after 14 minutes. "DAMMIT."

iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/2020-…
This is a good time to read the latest piece from stellar reporter @rkhamsi on absurd pandemic polices. wired.com/story/a-lack-o…
And then read @rachgutman on how to think about safety. theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 5 tweets
15 Nov
Here's a thing I want everyone to understand.

There is a roughly 12-day lag between rising cases rising hospitalizations.

So the 1.5 million (!!!) confirmed cases from the last 2 weeks have not yet factored into stories about packed emergency rooms.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…
In this story, I noted Iowa is already out of staffed beds. ICUs are at capacity. theatlantic.com/health/archive…

Here are Iowa's cases. The 12-day lag between cases & hospitalizations means people in the blue portion will be trying to enter those full ICUs over the next 2 weeks.

HOW?
I say Iowa, but you could do this same analysis for any number of states, especially in the Midwest. The near-term future is already baked in, which is why you have to act *ahead* of the virus. (See Problem #8 in this story about 9 intuitive fallacies.)

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Read 5 tweets
13 Nov
🚨I wrote about what health-care workers are going through, how exhausted & scared they are, and what this 3rd pandemic surge is doing to them.

It’s not like the first 2. It’s worse. How much slack is left in the system? Iowa nurse: “There is none” 1/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
You’ve seen the huge numbers. Here’s what they can mean.

➡️36-hour shifts
➡️Docs on standby in case a colleague and their substitute AND their substitute’s substitute get sick
➡️“We’re all running on fear”
➡️“There’s only so many bags you can zip” 2/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
The issue isn’t beds or ventilators. It’s people.

In many states, there already aren’t enough nurses/docs to care for the incoming COVID-19 patients.

Here’s what it takes to care for one in an ICU. (Non-COVID patients are coming in sicker too.) 3/

theatlantic.com/health/archive… Image
Read 12 tweets

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