Thread by @DrJBhattacharya

My overall reaction to Pres. Biden's speech. It's much better than I anticipated and very good in parts! 🧵

I liked:
1) No panic. It's not March 2020. This is the best part of the speech by far. It is a stinging rebuke to some panic mongers in the public health community.
(1/15)

I liked:
2) Finally some honesty about the scientific evidence about the vaccine: it protects vs. severe disease, but does not stop infection or disease transmission. This honesty will boost vaccine uptake.
(2/n)

I liked:
3) An acknowledgment that K-12 schools should be open and an embrace of test-to-stay, which should greatly reduce gratuitous and harmful quarantining of children.
(3/n)

I liked:
4) Reassuring people that meeting together at Chrismas and during the holidays is a good thing. There is more to health than avoiding COVID, and connections with our loved ones contribute to that.
(4/n)

I liked:
5) An acknowledgment that the development and deployment of the vaccine was a bipartisan achievement. It was an enormous mistake by Biden and others to try to use the vaccine for partisan advantage, which has fueled vax hesitancy.
(5/n)

I liked:
6) An emphasis on worthwhile and effective interventions with broad support like cheaply and widely available rapid antigen tests and ventilation upgrades.
(6/n)

7) No support for stay-at-home orders, business closures, and lockdown. Hooray!
(7/n)

There were things I did not like:
1) The tone of demonization, blaming, and "othering" of the unvaccinated. Blaming people for getting sick is wrong & bad for public health. It will make many vaccine-hesitant individuals distrust the message & further social division.
(8/n)

I did not like:
2) No emphasis at all on effective early treatments. I recommend following @GovRonDeSantis's lead in making monoclonal antibodies & other advances more widely and easily available for those who get sick.
(9/n)

@GovRonDeSantis I did not like:
3) The emphasis on ventilators in the treatment of COVID patients. The shortage of ventilators in the US was -- like the shortage of toilet paper -- a March 2020 phenomenon. We knew better by April 2020.
(10/n)

statnews.com/2020/04/08/doc…

@GovRonDeSantis I did not like:
4) Blaming "misinformation" for vaccine hesitancy without an acknowledgment that the government & some media have caused great harm to trust in science & the vaccines by their propaganda and silencing of scientific dissidents.
(11/n)

brownstone.org/articles/misin…

@GovRonDeSantis I did not like:
5) No acknowledgment of the catastrophic harms caused by the lockdown-focused policies of the last two years. They were the single most destructive public health policy in living memory. A presidential apology would begin to restore trust in public health.
(12/n)

@GovRonDeSantis I did not like:
6) No acknowledgment of the importance of effective immunity possessed by the COVID recovered. This ignorant, anti-science stance destroys confidence in the administration's capacity to effectively convey public health messages.
(13/n)

@GovRonDeSantis I did not like:
7) Continued support for vaccine mandates and vaccine segregation. Coercion in support of vaccine uptake is a destructive mistake that -- even if it works to increase vax uptake -- will cement distrust in public health.
(14/n)

@GovRonDeSantis Overall, I found a lot of good in this speech. The administration has started to learn from its past mistakes on COVID policy. However, it continues to make many inexplicable errors that will lead to avoidable deaths and further distrust of public health.
(15/15)