Thread by @AbraarKaran

One thing we learn as doctors early on is that being able to place your health as your number one priority in life is a privilege afforded to very few of the patients that end up hospitalized

If we approached #covid19 policies w this in mind, we could meet people where they are

2/ Put another way— do not assume that people that got sick were being careless

For many, the need to feed themselves & their families will come above avoiding infection

Failing to help them is a failure of the system, not the individual

3/ We saw this early on in the epidemic.

The people that could work & tweet from home did so.

Many of the people that ended up in the emergency room didn’t have that luxury. #covid19

4/ Policies that don’t acknowledge this reality— that #covid19 is not the only demand on people’s lives— are bound to fail.

And bound to lose the support of more & more people as time goes on, & the cost of such policies begin to outweigh the cost of getting sick.

5/ as doctors & public health minded folks, we run the risk of viewing the epidemic solely from our own vantage point where the main goal is to stop the epidemic - & while that is a noble goal, it cannot be the only goal bc that’s not the reality for many people

6/ That wasn’t even the reality for the people who got sick first — their reality was keeping the lights on & food on the table

Some (esp early on) worked while sick bc they couldn’t get enough paid time off or proper sick leave