Thread by @DrEricDing

📍SLOW ACTION ENDANGERS HEALTH & ECONOMY—Why does an epidemic take hold? #DeltaVariant surging—but what if the CDC had warned or acted earlier? Epidemiologists say we can likely prevent a big outbreak if just a cases, but harder if hundreds or 1000’s of cases… thread 🧵 #COVID19

2) And early fast action buys us precious time for vaccinations if we acted fast. Even if spread was inevitable, we could prevent the worst of it if we bought ourselves more time to fully vaccinate and prepare for the #delt

3) In terms of travel restrictions, we all acted much too late— epidemiologists and experts were warning about India in early April already. Yet govts didn’t act until mostly late April. One major country’s CDC didn’t act until May. 👀

4) Also let this sink in— the @WHO declared #DeltaVariant a “VARIANT OF CONCERN” on **May 11th 2021**. @PHE_uk declared it a VOC as well on May 7th.

But when did US @CDCgov declare it a VOC? **June 15th 2021***. Come on, there is little to no excuse for being that late.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1404847230205505550

5) many people complained about it days earlier. But we shouldn’t need to — the risks of the #DeltaVariant were clear as night and day. Hence why even the WHO acted on it over a month before the CDC (let that sink in).

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1404469114928828419

6) Many experts warned #DeltaVariant was highly transmissible in April and May. Now it’s further confirmed by a WHO study of 64 countries that #B16172 is the fastest transmission variant known to date. 2x faster than ~original. Much much faster than #B177 Alpha that once reigned.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1405633531695489027

7) Also, declaring a VOC status doesn’t = fast action. UK 🇬🇧 declared #DeltaVariant a VOC early but it was incredibly late with other mitigation measures.

@BBCRosAtkins explains - always love his videos.

https://twitter.com/bbcrosatkins/status/1405615466844983298