As we continue on our grim march to 800K COVID deaths by Xmas, we seem to be deciding to live with 1000+ extra avoidable deaths a day. That puts us on path to exceed 1M deaths in early 2022. 
The prevailing view seems to be that we must accept that our chances of living past 80 have gone down—even indefinitely, and despite the economic damage—so younger, healthy people can live without having to vaccinate or to test regularly.
This mindset predates COVID. As this @NIHDirector interview notes, we’ve had many breakthroughs for health, but failure to implement has left a decade of sinking life expectancy. Yet as we lose years to opioids & COVID, anger targets efforts to fix this. npr.org/sections/healt…
Such politics are profoundly debilitating for any nation. I think we know it. Our collective efforts are beset by opposition to collective effort itself. And we are in danger of acquiescing to those forces out of exhaustion.
But we cannot acquiesce. This is not just a matter of public health and economic rescue. We have no more important task than to defend and reward those who work toward collective effort instead of those who sabotage it.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
