Thread by @covidtweets

Reflections on 2020...

Whoever you ask, regardless of their views on lockdowns, masks, etc., they will say our response to COVID was a disaster.

How did we manage to get this much wrong?

My few cents: (1/x)

Reason #1: Social media/media. After (likely staged) scenes from China, misinformation resulted in the fear quickly taking over.

When fear is prevalent, most people cannot reason. Quickly, people began turning to knee-jerk reactions. (2/x)

https://twitter.com/Sharonoldskool/status/1337930836465905668?s=20

Reason #2: The risk of severe illness is not equally distributed. Same for lockdowns, which also affect people differently.

The problem is, there is not a big overlap between those with the short end of the stick from COVID vs. lockdowns. (3/x)

https://twitter.com/covidtweets/status/1312964551122485255?s=20

Reason #3: Social media/media. This unequal stratification of risk quickly resulted in two camps emerging.

Once this happened, our innate desire to tribalize made things go downhill, resulting in less and less debate and more and more blaming/name-calling/attacks. (4/x)

Reason #4: The safety/security that came with modernity made people forget what it was like to move forward with life despite the risks.

It had been decades since the last time there was such a major scare. People lost perspective. (5/x)

The thought of dying of something one cannot stop/control goes against our innate survival instincts. However, it is a normal part of living. We just don't think about it much.

Most people currently alive forgot what it was like to live this way. (6/x)

https://twitter.com/NahasNewman/status/1344459471867805702?s=20

Reason #5: Social media/media. Constant coverage/discussion of COVID made sure people never stopped fearing the possibility of death.

Even though the risk was much lower for most people, once fear took over, facts did not matter. (7/x)

https://twitter.com/Muunrain/status/1291358930568912896?s=20

Reason #6: Election. The fact that all this happened in an election year, and the US political scene being divided on the importance placed on personal liberties, amplified all of the above.

It became impossible to get people agree with each other on anything. (8/x)

Reason #7: Social media. Even in non-pandemic election years, social media is incredibly toxic and polarizing. With COVID, it became exponentially more so.

Everything that went wrong became Trump's fault. His overall attitude and language did not help either. (9/x)

Reason #8: Human psyche. Once someone picked a side and began acting accordingly, and accumulated the costs, it became increasingly unlikely that new data would change behavior.

Governors left and right fell to this trap, and then doubled down. (10/x)

https://twitter.com/covidtweets/status/1340490555642548225?s=20

Reason #9: Social media/media. Those craving dopamine amplified even rare events to get interactions.

Media needing clicks did the same.

Sensationalism ran rampant. (11/x)

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Reason #317: Social media/media.

I believe social media, despite its positives, is the biggest threat to our existence. I don't know the solution. (12/x)

Could things be different? Maybe if China did not pump propaganda in February/March, and Italy was able to stay calm...

Otherwise I don't see how we could have avoided all this.

Once it began, it was the perfect storm, with stars aligned exactly as they needed to. (13/x)

I am looking forward to calm discussions among scientists from various disciplines on how we can do better next time.

And make no mistake, there will be a next time. (14/14)