Thread by @michaelluo

I wish everyone in America could read @DhruvKhullar's really thoughtful, measured piece. "The balancing of individual liberty and public health may now be the most contentious issue in American life." He talks to people from his hometown in Ohio. newyorker.com/science/medica…

Meet Andrew Sigler, who works at a software company in northeastern Ohio, who is living a “relatively at-risk” life style. But then his 93-year-old grandfather got Covid. Did that change his views? Worth reading.

Meet John Emmert, a 60-yo Army veteran who runs a family-owned grocery store, who argues: "Lockdowns are going to kill more people than the virus could hope to kill on its best day."

But also meet his sister, Carol Harmon, a retired Spanish teacher, who sees his views as "hopelessly enveloped in misinformation, conspiracy thinking, and ideology... “At some point,” she said, “you just have to walk away.” They haven’t spoken since Election Day.

.@DhruvKhullar: "we know a lot about how the virus works, and that some views are beyond reasonable debate. Their persistence reflects a triumph of tribalism and the cowardice of those elected officials who have misused their influence, failing to protect the people they serve."

"As a physician, I recognize that I’m also part of a tribe—one that celebrates science, authority, expertise. It’s easy for me to empathize with the suffering I see—hospitals full, patients dying, health-care workers overwhelmed—and harder to grasp the suffering I don’t..."

"By belittling or dismissing such concerns, instead of engaging and explaining, we divide the country further and compound the challenges of bringing the pandemic to heel."

"In considering the challenge ahead, I find myself returning to Emmert and Harmon—siblings who could not see the pandemic, or their role in it, more differently. Like many Americans with opposing views, they now inhabit separate worlds."

"But rarely, if ever, have so many lives depended so directly on the project of persuasion, empathy, and understanding. Faced with the prospect of the deadliest winter in modern U.S. history, we must not give up on that project. We cannot stop talking to one another."

The @joebiden "Presidency is an opportunity to reset how we talk about the virus, not just at the federal level but also in statehouses, hospitals, and public-health departments across the country."