My father dedicated his career, like @PeterHotez, to saving lives from infectious disease. Unlike Peter, he never faced ignorant rantings from leaders in highly educated nations. Worst he ever faced was in 1959, when a new virus among Okinawan pioneers in Bolivian lowlands.../1
...was discovered that was killing people. Then it was called the uruma virus (now known to be a mayaro virus.) Like today's GOP, the president of Bolivia was an ignorant conspiracy theorist who impeded their work, spinning nonsense that terrified people who had no means of.../2
...knowing any better. A lot of work got killed in the crib by stupid politicians, relying on stupid and corrupt reporters, playing to poorly educated and uninformed public. The mayaro virus still awaits us in the Bolivian lowlands. Untreatable. Because some DAMN politician.../3
...demonized the doctors who risked their lives to save strangers. Make absolutely no mistake: If the stupid nationalists like Trump., Johnson, Bolsonaro, etc had listened to the experts like Fauci and @PeterHotez, there likely **never would have been** a pandemic. The head.../4
...of the WHO was begging - literally BEGGING - Trump & Johnson to take this seriously in early February 2020, saying there had never been a pandemic of a coronavirus in history because they were easy to stop before they got started. But once they got started, they are hard.../5
...to stop. And don't think we ever will. The stupidity, laziness, "anything for ratings" disinformation, the "let's act like Bolivia's president in 1959" GOP, has made it that COVID will be with us. Forever. For-fucking-ever.
This brilliant article...
foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite…
This brilliant article...
foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite…
...written by actual experts (somehow, they left Tucker Carlson off the list) who do everything but sceam and pull their hair out about how all of this could have been stopped, how 4 million people died for virtually no reason but nationalism and stupidity, and that all...
...of this never had to happen.
So as we rage into the night at what has been lost, let us praise and thank brave people like @PeterHotez who fight the ignorance and work so hard to save lives. The stupid among us are the loudest, but the majority appreciate you dearly.
end
So as we rage into the night at what has been lost, let us praise and thank brave people like @PeterHotez who fight the ignorance and work so hard to save lives. The stupid among us are the loudest, but the majority appreciate you dearly.
end
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
