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Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

13 Jan, 17 tweets, 2 min read

COVID Update January 12: We can’t save lives when we’re too busy with the circus. 1/

For the last several days, in the midst of a month with more American deaths than any other, you can’t find mention of COVID on cable TV. 2/

Nary a chiron with a death toll counter. Despite the sincere shock & sadness that many feel, after 10 months, it’s the least shocking news. 3/

Who has time to put a mask on when you’re huddling in Congress, hyperventilating on your opponents who are wearing masks and offering you theirs? 4/

Forget about public health when called to overturn an election that Trump tells you to use any means to send a message. 5/

Who has time to bother with a sneaky little pathogen evolving and creating new strains when we’re busy fighting each other. 6/

The virus has come across the thing most easily defeated: our attention span. 7/

Life has its own way of going on— pandemic or not. And it should. Sometimes a society needs an elections, an inauguration, an impeachment. 8/

And a president who sews chaos in one place sews it everywhere.

Not caring about the public health & not caring about the public are of a piece. 9/

If you’re willing to let thousands a day, what are a few windows in the Capitol building. That is not what America needs. 10/

Armed state Capitol protests will overshadow full hospitals. 11/

We can’t put the bug down easily without working together. But, some people will be going to jail.

America in 2021 needs the CDC and the FBI equally. 12/

And while it won’t change everything, culture starts at the top. A president who believes in justice. Who believes in equality. Who believes in science. 13/

Who will set hard goals and be accountable. Who won’t sleep at night keeping a massive secret from the public that a virus is coming without acting on it. 14/

A week from today, Trump will board a plane and leave DC. The next day at this time he will be a bad memory and we will have a chance to begin again. 15/

America is not a country where everybody gets on board with anything— even saving lives, let alone politics.

But I for one am tired of all the attention on the biggest clowns in the circus. And am ready to focus on the things that matter. 16/

Nothing says we need to keep amping up the drama every year.

Some day soon I look forward to looking back and saying “that was a boring year.” 🙏 /end

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More from @ASlavitt

Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

@ASlavitt

15 Jan

COVID Update January 14: My last nightly thread for a while.

What I want to say is it’s not time for despair. It’s time to fix things and move our country forward. 1/

There was a point in time in this pandemic when we didn’t know up from down.

There was a time when people in charge were describing up as down. 2/

We’ve seen the worst of the worst. We’ve been through hell and we’re not done. We’ve lost things that can’t be regained. We alternate between fear, anger, loss of hope, and occasional real glimpses of life.

But we are surviving and we are remembering. 3/

Read 19 tweets

Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

@ASlavitt

14 Jan

COVID Update January 13: I have been asked one question over and over by the press, states, hospitals & others: what’s the first thing you expect to be different with Biden as president?

My answer: getting the truth. 1/

We are a week from the results of what happens when the country is stoked with lies. Those lies cause people to behave irresponsibly as they did attacking a false election claim. 2/

The same exact thing is true with the pandemic. We are dealing with the effects of lies.

Why not enough tests? Why caught flat footed? Why are people under-reacting?

Because they are living in a world full of lies. 3/

Read 20 tweets

Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

@ASlavitt

12 Jan

On a plane with a passenger confrontation. Man not wearing a mask.

Bandana around the neck. He’s been asked to pull it up but pulled it down right away when flight attendant left.

Flight attendant came over to tell me the mask will be up or he will be out.

The flight lead’s mom just died.

Read 7 tweets

Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

@ASlavitt

9 Jan

COVID Update January 8: Words I have learned to never say again: "It can never happen in this country."

It can if we let it. 1/

A devastating public health emergency-- never.
An racist, nationalist, fascist president-- not us.
A coup attempt-- not in the US.
Indifference at the death of hundreds of thousands-- not here. 2/

Viruses are for Africa and Asia; nationalist candidates are in France; Coup attempts South America. You know, only the shithole countries. 3/

Read 21 tweets

Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

@ASlavitt

8 Jan

COVID Update January 7: We have become the virus country. Of hate, of racism, of denial, of enablers.
They didn’t show up yesterday.

The odds we face in COVID & in our country are often long, but only because we make them long. 1/

Yesterday was despite what I heard from many not a particularly special day in the legacy of the Trump Administration. It was just televised and wearing a t-shirt. 2/

If you’re telling the country that people aren’t dying when they are— or that they are but there’s nothing you can do about it, or separating small children from their parents...breaking windows in the US Capitol isn’t your worst day. 3/

Read 20 tweets

Andy Slavitt @ 🏡🇺🇸

@ASlavitt

5 Jan

@larrybrilliant

COVID Update January 4: I talkedvto 15 scientists, including Anthony Fauci, @larrybrilliant, @EricTopol, @ashishkjha, @T_Inglesby & @DrLeanaWen & asked them to spell out how 2021 will play out.

I will release their answer Wednesday. But the answer depends heavily on Tuesday.1/

The Senate elections in Georgia have a lot to say about whether we will successfully combat COVID-19.

I'm not talking about my own personal or political feelings. I'm talking about a cut & dry analysis of our ability to fight off a life threatening menace.2/

Trump's assault on our response to the pandemic is gratefully, almost over. Last embarrassing, corrupt efforts aside, the Trump/Meadows/Atlas deniers & liars are soon gone.

But his enablers remain at large. Now would be a good time to make a change. 3/

Read 16 tweets

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