Thread by @ASlavitt

COVID Update: One too many smart people has told me or said on TV this week that the pandemic is over.

I offer this thread as a single, uniform response to everyone. 1/

It is still here.

There are still 1200 people dying every day. That’s a rate of 440,000 deaths/year.

40,000 from accidents
70,000 from opioids

I have a work colleague in the hospital right now who got COVID last week. It’s serious & we don’t know the outcome. 2/

I don’t know the amount of vaccinations we need to have it end here, but we’re not there.

Russia has 1/3 of the country vaccinated. And it’s not pretty.

Denmark has 70% and it’s not enough. 3/

Much of the US looks like Denmark and much of it looks like Russia in vaccination rates.

Proud of Sputnik but can’t get Russians to take it. Misinformation is a bitch, isn’t it Russia? 4/

We think we see the end of the pandemic frequently. It’s like ground hog day.

Ron Densantis comes comes out of his shell, declares vaccines harmful, struts like a peacock, and we have two more months tacked on to the pandemic. 5/

The signs people look at aren’t really signs.

To be clear, when cases dip it’s not over. When boosters come, it’s not over. When kids are vaccinated, it’s not over. When therapies are approved, it’s not over.

All are reasons I’ve heard in the last week. 6/

Let me put it more directly: just because you decide the pandemic is over for you doesn’t mean it’s over for everybody. 7/

Before Delta reared up and we were on the track to vaccinating more Americans, I too thought it might be over.

But then— Delta showed it could move faster than the vaccine at spreading. And vaccines waned. And people stopped getting shots. I was wrong. 8/

If we haven’t learned this yet— we can’t know anything about what we can’t see yet.

Every April someone in Minnesota would say “it’s done snowing.” And we would all be excited & plant flowers. And then it would snow & Lana would want to kill someone. 9/

So my real question is why. Why. Why the need to declare its over when people really don’t f-ing know. Why not just sit on your thumbs for a bit? 10/

The more productive conversation is one of tools— tools to reduce infections, tools to reduce deaths, tools to live life, to attend school, to be safe.

All THAT is increasingly possible with quick tests, masks, credentials, shots & new medicines. 11/

That news is good. But it has nothing to do with the relevant question of the pandemic: are these waves & the resulting hospitalizations & the high case counts over? 12/

California has seen a tripling of cases in the last few weeks. I visited a hospital today in LA at the eye of the storm last year with empty beds & few patients.

But the leaders told me they were at an all time low of nurses of cases come back. 13/

The country is now open to Europe. Probably the right decision but one that adds to the perception that the risk has disappeared, that are tools aren’t needed, that we won’t see another wave. 14/

Here’s an alternative idea: let’s all be prepared. Let’s use the tools we have. Let’s call it over after it ends. /end