Thread by @WhitneyEpi

A friend works for @HHSGov (agency that houses @CDCgov, #NIH , etc): they got an email from new HHS leadership within minutes after inauguration and CDC all-hands meeting scheduled ASAP.

This is a big deal. This makes me feel hopeful.

#HitTheGroundRunning
#LetsDoThis

2/ I realized yesterday that the public genuinely don’t realize how badly the Trump administration has botched the #COVID19 response. Here’s an example re: their vaccine distribution planning cnn.com/2021/01/21/pol…

3/ I’ve seen lots of pundits criticize public health people & our response to #COVID19. And I thought it was partially trolling/partially willful ignorance...

4/...but then I talked to a community leader yesterday that I know well & who’s helping older folks in our ‘hood access vaccination. He was like, “When this is over, I’d love to talk to you about how lucking health works cause I don’t get why things are this way...”

5/ As he talked, I realized that he thought the #COVID19 response was planned, that this was within the realm of a normal public health response. Something clicked into place for me.

6/ For people who are not in this world (especially younger folks), the US #COVID19 response is their first exposure to a big publicized real-time public health effort

6/ I reassured him, Oh, this is NOT normal. The Trump administration’s response is literally a playbook of what *not* to in the face of a threat like this (with exception of vaccine development, which went surprisingly well, bc they were hands off maybe?)...

7/ It’s really hard for me to emphasize strongly enough the depth and extremity of how bad their response was. For people who work in this world, people who know the right things to do, it is staggering and heart-breaking to watch a leadership make such bad decisions

8/ I’m not on the front lines of medical or applied public health, but I am trained enough in public health to see how bad it’s been. That is a big part of what has the past year so awful:

9/ all the preventable suffering and death. When people say, “It didn’t have to be this way,” it sounds like trite second-guessing. But really and truly, it didn’t not have to be this bad. It should not have gotten this bad. It’s almost incomprehensible.

10/ The biggest lesson I’ve learned the past year is how much leadership matters. In any organization or scheme. A well-functioning system can muddle through subpar leadership for a while (but not forever). But the wring leadership at the wrong time is an existential crisis