Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update: What we’re still doing wrong that must be fixed.

And I think people who care need to see this. And I will explain this graph. 1/

We have vaccinated 10-20% of the people we committed to vaccinating.

This is absolutely below normal error levels and nothing tells me Trump or team cares enough to fix it. #PromisesNeverKept 2/

There’s a new strain of the virus everywhere. You discover this by sequencing the virus. The UK has sequenced 78,000 samples. The US— 400.

This is dismal. It’s here & has been for a time. And we failed. 3/

The impact of the new strain could be profound. Presuming it’s as contagious as we think— here’s one model Bill Joy put together.

-the lowest line is the projected recovery assuming current vaccine rollout & compliance. 4/

Since we don’t know how many cases are from the new strain, the graphs make various assumptions about how many cases there were of the new strain in early December. The blue line is if there are a lot more than we knew. The green line is if there were just a small amount. 5/

But this makes our recovery slower & worse. But we don’t know. Trump filled the government with geniuses who tried to convince us that virus didn’t matter. 6/

Scott Atlas is the Josh Haley of Rudy Giuliani’s. #AssoftheYearStillUpForGrabs

7/

Will the vaccine work on the new strain? Yes, but probably not as well.

Scientists tell me the South African strain did something fairly astonishing. I will explain this... 8/

The shape of the spike protein evolved but still binds to the Ace-2 cell.

If someone has a clearer explanation, leave it below please. Thank you. 9/

The implication of this is that the vaccine is likely to work but not as well as they did in the trials. That has 2 implications for vaccine distribution. And if you see point 1– we are failing and this failure is now compounding. 10/

We need to vaccinate more quickly to fight this evolution.

We need to start considering covering more people with their first dose before everyone with 2 doses.

We need to get our heads out of our rears in terms of who we are vaccinating. 11/

Let me explain the third point. Almost every state I’ve spoken with has told me we are vaccinating 25 year old dental students before elderly people in nursing homes.

We need to vaccinate people at highest risk of hospitalizations. This is an operational & moral failure. 12/

Incompetence mixed with indifference is a deadly blend.

And each state is doing it differently. No one knows when they will get vaccinated. It’s slow and disorganized. 13/

If there’s a way to take a highly effective vaccine & mess it up, welcome to the Trump Administration.

And the response from them— we’re done. 14/

And what about Mr. “I stopped all travel from China.” No. You didn’t.

And you left a gaping hole for UK travel. So this strand. Which of these curves is it on? The one where we will have 300,000 or 400,000 cases/day at peak? 15/

How many more Trump deaths will spill over into Biden Harris? A lot. 16/

And because of no investment in vaccine hesitancy & communication, we will have a risk that the drop in that curve we need to see could stall. 17/

Incompetence in normal times is one thing. But incompetence during a pandemic has a longer half-life. Trump has made 2021 harder and painted a much harder scenario for Biden-Harris. 18/

You will notice on this graph that we can and will recover. The question is the cost in our lives. And there’s 22 days for them to screw more things up. #BringInTheGrownUps. /end