Thread by @Helenreflects

Little thread on the "We'll be fine, it will be my turn soon" narrative. When I express frustration and the snail pace of vaccine rollout, people will often say "I am fine, I'll be happy to let HCW, the vulnerable etc go first". Some reasons why I resist this narrative 1/

First, it is not at all clear that we are fine. We, as a society, are not fine. We have tried to make the best of it, but it's clear that the roll in human lives, economy, happiness and flourishing, mental health etc is huge and this will only stop when the pandemic ends 2/

So why have we grown all complacent so close to the finish line? Why should we accept that although states and countries have had *months and months* to plan this fall so behind their own targets? I mean, the fact that vaccines are coming wasn't exactly a surprise! 3/

Also, if you vaccinate at a snail's pace you are not helping the vulnerable because the risk becomes bigger that mutations arise that make vaccinations less effective. The more the virus goes rampant, the more mutations. We are as Macron put it indeed at war 4/

I dislike war metaphors. But this is apt. We're in an arms race with the virus, which will evade our attempts to squash it through social distancing (by becoming more contagious cf UK) and by vaccines (variants that make vaccines ineffective). To win we must control the virus 5/

Why aren't we pulling out all the stops? Literally anything that kills >3000 Americans a day, say, a terrorist cell, a war by a hostile enemy, would be met by strong and decisive force, would be met with a thoughtful plan. Not so this virus. 6/

As I'm writing the state I live in is still determining the order of priorities of who will be vaccinated. At the point I'm writing the UK would need 6 years or so to get everyone vaccinated. This is a complete joke, an utter failure. 7/

Also, will people low on the priority list be fine? Since numbers have become numbing anecdotes. A friend's ex-husband, a coach in his early 40s very fit and healthy, no co-morbidities died of the virus back in April 8/

A friend of mine, a woman in her early forties with no comorbidities, got ill back in April and is still in bed most of the day with long Covid. A husband of another friend, early fifties, he did have some comorbidities but would be low on list still, also died recently. 9/

So, many of us are basically doing our own lockdown and pausing our lives. I know, the odds of actually dying or developing long covid are small. But even with vaccines there (3 effective ones as we speak!!) we either have to lock down or risk becoming ill 10/

Ok, I know. People will tell you "Don't live in fear", "Don't let the virus control your life", and many just don't (cf. uncontrolled spread of virus). Even so, we have an alternative to playing viral Russian roulette, and that's these effective vaccines 11/

A couple of more things (sorry for interruption...toilet upstairs overflowed and amateur plumbing not going well).
The best we can do for everyone, including the vulnerable, is to roll out these vaccines ASAP, to do all in our power to do it quickly 12/

For one thing, if you're going to determine a vaccine line then you'll miss things, e.g., how communities of color are disproportionately affected (lots of the vaccine line discussion now centers on age and who counts as an essential worker) 13/

Also the "I'll be fine, I'm happy at the back of the line" is individually noble but it hides a certain assumption about being invulnerable. A friend who has long Covid since April told me it took her a long time to realize that she is now disabled 14/

Also, the fact that we're not even seriously considering a serious rollout of vaccinations for children speaks volumes. Why don't we do this? Covid-19 has been a scour upon humanity, we must step up our game to eradicate it 15/

Just think. As of September 2020 airlines received US $ 58 billion from the US March CARES act. More is coming.

Compare: as of December 14, Operation Warp speed spend US $12.4 Billion on Vaccines. 16/
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

I'm letting it sink in that airlines received several times more money in bailouts (58 billion USD in March) compared to vaccine development (12.4 billion USD in Dec).
Newsflash: those airlines will only become self-sufficient when people will fly again! 17/

We had this hope, always a few months ahead that life would return back to normal. Problem is, without vaccines, it's really unsure how far normal lies. See this pic showing what a big impact vaccines can make science.sciencemag.org/content/356/63… 18/

Anyway, I'm hoping we can step up our game real soon, and globally. You can keep on arguing about the minutiae of who should come first, but at the rate of >3000 people dying, it overall needs to go faster. That should absolutely top priority. /end

PS: to see it in perspective, here's a handy bar chart of select federal initiatives. You can see this and you know that governments are not pulling out all the stops to end the pandemic. I mean, it's less than 3x than what was spent on the US/Mexico wall!