1/ So important to acknowledge that when we tweet or share recommendations for how to stay safe or what to do at an individual level, these have drastically different implications based on our socioeconomic privileges. #covid19
2/ I’m sure everyone would love to “stay home”
I’m sure everyone would love to just order take out & have food delivered home
This isn’t the case.
And the patients we see are often the ones who can’t do either of those things #covid19
3/ So I can understand the frustration when onus is placed back on individuals over failing systems
But here too there is nuance. Our capitalism has led to stark inequities- where some portions of society do have $ protections & privilege of choice
4/ Both during April #covid19 surge & trickling of cases through summer, & resurgence now, **most** patients infected w/ the virus that I’ve treated were patients of color, living in crowded homes, working frontline jobs who didn’t have the luxury of many choices #covid19
5/ Thus- the response has many necessary parts
•It demands that we have better systems that can protect all of us, but esp those who need it most
•It also needs those of us that can use our $ & privilege to use it for good- if we can afford to make a “safer” choice, we should
6/ The dichotomizing of failing systems & individual responsibility (& agency) should be rejected
Both of these things matter- millions of individuals taking control over how they live matters
Demanding better systems from our political leaders matters
Two are also intertwined
7/ Individuals can only do so much — at a point, lack of systems & resources limits what can be done at an individual or community level
This again depends also on one’s socioeconomic privilege
I have friends running boutique #covid19 testing businesses in LA for the wealthy
8/ If you have enough $$, someone can come to your house, swab you and get you results the same day
9/ So when we communicate to the public— including myself in this— our messaging will need to be nuanced to who is reading it. For instance, I recently wrote an op ed trying to encourage people that their small decisions matter; meant to empower people wbur.org/cognoscenti/20…
10/ Some people took great offense to it; saying that it was short sighted of me to write about personal responsibility during a time when systems were failing so many people. I agree that the latter is true; I see it every day at the hospital. #covid19
11/ I also have met/spoken w/ many people— incl the two who I highlighted in the story— who began to feel like their small actions no longer mattered w/ the amount of viral spread that we have in the community. I wholeheartedly disagree w that. The moment we surrender, we lose
12/ So both things are true; for many, calling for individual responsibility is short sighted when they are struggling to do everything they can;
and for others, reading this may have empowered them to believe their actions still matter for epidemic control #covid19
13/ I say all this bc recognizing our privilege is immensely important; and writing for one audience can become an attack on a different audience;
often times writing for a privileged one becomes an unintended attack on a less privileged one, for instance #covid19
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The fact that what is likely to be a fake Tony Fauci Twitter account @Fauci gained 57k followers within minutes tells you a lot about how vulnerable we are to misinformation, abuse of trust etc
Our ability to sort out truth from lies has never been more important. #covid19
3/ And I totally hear the comments saying that this also reflects how much people are looking for a credible, trusted voice — here’s to hoping the real Dr. Fauci comes to @Twitter#covid19
1/ New paper out in @JAMAInternalMed on evaluating different types of MASKS and their filtration efficiency in indoor settings for #covid19
2/ They used a particle generator that put out sodium chloride aerosol particles “slightly smaller” than a #SARSCOV2 virion; the environment was set to mimic typical indoor settings #covid19
3/ They measured the fitted filtration efficiency (FFE)- essentially by looking at the concentration of particles that got through the mask (using a sampling probe in the mask) vs the concentration in the air - total testing time of 3 minutes #covid19
“Eating indoors at a restaurant is one of the riskiest things you can do in a pandemic,” she said. “Even if there is distancing, as this shows and other studies show, the distancing is not enough.” @linseymarr
2/ Diagram of airflow in a South Korean restaurant in which those who were sitting in the path of the air downstream from infected case got infected (incl more than 6 feet away)
3/ Thread below — just because something is open right now doesn’t mean it’s safe. High risk activities are high risk activities. Over 3,000 Americans died yesterday from this virus. #covid19
3/ Wrote about fatigue @WBUR — it’s hurting all of us. We still need to believe even our seemingly small, insignificant choices do in fact matter. We won’t know if we avoided becoming the next super spreader- but we may have & that’s a big deal #covid19
1/ Been saying this for a while, but I’m going to say it again. Do not indoor dine right now. Order takeout. Tip restaurants. Support businesses. But I would not be dining indoors. Last night, there were no ICU beds left at a hospital where I work in Boston. #COVID19
2/ Policies reflect many things— but they don’t always reflect what is safest from a health perspective. With exponentially rising cases, hospitalizations & deaths, high risk activities are high risk. Just because something is open doesn’t mean it is “safe”. #covid19
3/ Is this recommendation I am making fair to restaurants/ staff? What’s actually most unfair to them is that they are forced to remain open & send workers in high risk settings bc they aren’t receiving enough $ protections in a runaway pandemic.
1/ The year before #covid19, my academic focus was largely on Ebola & epidemic response in the global health setting. From Feb 2019 to Jan 2020, I worked as the editor of the @JournalofEthics theme issue on the ethics of pandemic response.
2/ We had the great privilege of contributions from many experts—- and we covered topics ranging from how anthropology can help us better understand how to work alongside communities during an epidemic...
3/ to the ethics of emergency vaccine distribution— both immensely relevant again. (@BhadeliaMD co-authored the latter; @Real_Ironist - you may find the former ⬆️ interesting)