Andy Slavitt 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 31, 2020 25 tweets 6 min read Read on X
COVID Update Year End, 2020: 2020 is what happens when a society reaps what it has sown for many years.

2021 we have the opportunity to begin a painfully slow build back.

WARNING: Last 2020 thread: not all fun & games. But neither was 2020. 1/
Look around. If you see much at all, you might see closed store fronts, it’s angry people, it’s worried & lonely and frustrated friends & neighbors. And it’s millions in a deeper kind of lonely mourning. 2/
Look around. If you look, you might see a soaring stock market, the lowest taxes in memory, billions in new wealth, excessive gifts & advantages to those who don’t need them. 3/
We are a country of suffering, addiction, eviction, hard farm labor; illnesses rampaging the incarcerated, the unhoused, the retiree. The Black, the Brown, the recently arrived, those with 2 jobs, those who take public transportation. 4/
We have doctors & nurses begging for people to listen, completely spent. Public health officials with death threats. Full hospitals. Full mortuaries. Inadequate testing & public health resources. Bad faith misinformation compounding a bad faith Congress. 5/
We have 10s of millions willing to throw out democracy to prop up someone who would tell you these are not the things we are seeing. That their reality is different. That there is a conspiracy here somewhere. 6/
Don’t like reading this?

Then change something.

We didn’t get to 2020 in 2020 alone. We didn’t even get there in the last 4 years. 7/
We got here by deciding we could live with people suffering. We got here by being ok with people being unequal. We got here in 1783 & 1860 & 1920 & 1955 & 1968 & 1981 & 1994. 8/
We got here by allowing ourselves to believe that freedom meant freedom from responsibility. We got here by believing the earth’s resources were our gift to exploit not our gift to the future. We got here by believing the pursuit of wealth made us better at everything. 9/
We got here by allowing a man to get away with Birtherism and forgetting it is part of a package of bigotry, hate, division, lies, ableism, corruption, selfishness, and indifference. 10/
To some degree these things have been our truths for long enough that a man like that could get elected. True in 2018. True In 2019. But 2020 was different. In 2020 the pandemic broke & what we built was what we were stuck with. 11/
350,000 deaths. 1 in every 1000 of us gone. 3500 more every day. Millions more sick. This has been faced with a mix of horror, silence, indifference & disbelief. But it has seldom been met with appropriate national mourning. 12/
2020 sucked. But it sucked for all the reasons we have sucked for many years. 13/
2021 will not be a “magical” year. We won’t turn on a dime. We won’t right all our wrongs. We won’t pass universal health care & paid family leave & invest in public health & our safety net. But 2021 will begin an opportunity once again for a new story. 14/
2021 will have its share of negative surprises from this pandemic. But it will be met by science, by goodwill, by leadership & by competence. 15/
I don’t suspect Biden will turn things around ASAP. He’s moving into a house that the prior owners neglected & in the last weeks decided to destroy. But he will bring the tools & the heart & the fight. 16/
To heal we need to end the pandemic. And get back to school, work & life. We can do that in 2020.

But we wouldn’t be done. Not without remembering what got us here & could get us back. 17/
That kids who didn’t have school luck or the Internet during COVID, didn’t before COVID. And they won’t after COVID unless things change.

People in homelessness, unsafe settings, on the verge of mental illness, wout insurance, with 2 months rent in the bank. All still there. 18/
If we want a better country we can’t just prevent the next pandemic, but we have to change what has been broken many days of our lives before there was a pandemic. 19/
But don’t leave 2020 without remembering what we also are: love, strength, courage, diversity, heroism, hope. And these images occur every year including 2020. Especially 2020. 20/ ImageImageImageImage
Perseverance, resilience, fight, humanity, discovery, invention. My words are inadequate to what these pictures of ourselves tell us. 21/ ImageImageImageImage
Every day I found examples in 2020 where I could be doing better. Every day if I looked I could see real bravery. Incredible decency. Light & inspiration.

It’s always been there & it was there when we needed it. 22/ Image
Hate and indifference can be overpowered. But not if we avoid our truths. Painful, playful, hopeful, angry, this year I always tried to tweet the most honest things I could. 23/
I made mistakes I tried to correct. I didn’t always get it right. But I tried not to hold back anything because I believe it’s only if we get past the lies, the distortions & the avoidance that we will be a great country. I think there’s a beautiful path there.24/
And long. My tweet threads were far too long.

Have a wonderful happy new year with hope, with support, and the strength that comes from knowing at least most of us are in it together. /end

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More from @ASlavitt

Feb 8, 2023
On the latest @inthebubblepod, I talk with @SykesCharlie, founder and editor of @BulwarkOnline, about the emergence of Ron DeSantis as the presumptive leader of the far right wing of the Republican Party. Here are my takeaways in a 🧵
Listen here: link.chtbl.com/InTheBubble?si… 1/
“Ron DeSantis ​​is taking the politics of being a bully to a different level,” Sykes tells me. “He’s decided he's going to move as hard and demagogically to the right as he can. He’s learned something from Donald Trump: you don’t need to be a nice guy.” 2/
Sykes says DeSantis is exploiting the culture wars in order to tap into Republicans’ grievances, and that the GOP sees the Florida governor as a “younger, smarter” but equally combative replacement for Trump. But DeSantis stands out from other conservatives for a reason. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Nov 25, 2022
Some thoughts on using Twitter:
With Musk inviting back people who use the platform to threaten rape, to lie at scale & become whatever else his whims decide, here are some actions worth considering …
-Mute all advertisers in your feed. I’m not going to be a revenue source & don’t want those who advertise here to be encouraged.
-If you have a lot of followers or post a lot, consider moving the bulk of your content elsewhere. Post looks promising. (I’m @ASlavitt there.)
-I’m also on Mastadon to check it out & until Post is done with its waitlist & will eventually pick one.
-I continue to occasionally check the news feed here & promote things on Twitter minimally & will cross-post for a short time as people decide what they want to do.
Read 4 tweets
Oct 13, 2022
COVID Update: It’s time for one as we look ahead to the winter.

The real question is whether we will have another 2021 with a lot of disruption— on a more modest wave— or nothing at all.

There is early data to help answer this question. 1/
Currently there are lots of Omicron sub-variants co-circulating around the globe.

Household names like:
BA.4.6
BQ1.1
XBB

While it’s all a little hard to follow, there’s something interesting about the nature of these variants. 2/
Variants:
1- These are all variants of Omicron. This is good. Better than dealing with a Delta variant emerging. Makes progression more closely resemble the flu.
2- Each are growing in different parts of the world without 1 being dominant. We could have a mix this winter.3/
Read 14 tweets
Sep 6, 2022
NEW: COVID vaccines will now be recommended annually, with the flu shot.

I spoke to the White House yesterday about the plan. 1/
Rather than an ad hoc schedule which confuses many as to when to get vaccinated, the thinking is that an annual shot will result in many more people getting vaccinated.

They point to 2/3 of adults who take the flu vaccine vs 1/3 of adults over 50 who have been taking COVID. 2/
We have infrastructure, outreach, and habits that can be capitalized to get people their flu and COVID vaccines together.

This is the prime benefit.

But of course it comes with some questions they are preparing to address. 3/
Read 8 tweets
Aug 19, 2022
COVID Update: When will we have new boosters and when should we take them.

I’ve asked 5 of our top scientists & policy leaders and here are answers and other COVID news (good and bad). (1)
The new boosters are bivalent vaccines. Ancestral strain plus Omicron. The idea is broad protection from a virus that is strayed quite a lot. (2)
Pfizer’s vaccine will be ready first— the first week to 10 days of September is the best estimate.

Moderna will follow the first week in October. (3)
Read 14 tweets
Aug 15, 2022
Over time, the climate legislation which Congress passed has the potential to become one of the most popular pieces of legislation ever passed.

Rivaling Social Security and Medicare.

The reasons include __things, many of which don’t meet the eye. 1/
1- The first reason is simple. As younger generations grow older, they will mark the shift in the slowing of carbon emissions to this bill.

Floods, fires, heat waves, and rising sea levels won’t abate. We are not cooling. 2/
2- The changes to people’s lives to improve the climate will not require the sacrifice the GOP has long stated.

Heat pumps at home, a renewable grid & electric cars require no sacrifice to people’s lives.

Yes people can still eat hamburgers. 3/
Read 12 tweets

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