Thread by @FLAHAULT

1/15 - “Biden officials in recent months privately discussed how many daily #COVID19 deaths it would take to declare the virus tamed, three people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO.”
politico.com/news/2022/06/0…

2/15 - “The discussions, which took place across the administration, and have not been previously disclosed, involved a scenario in which 200 or fewer Americans die per day, a target kicked around before officials ultimately decided not to incorporate it into pandemic planning.”

3/15 - “One U.S. health official told POLITICO the number was “aspirational ... a general metric people have bounced around a lot” that would signal that “the pandemic would be under control.” But, this person added, the figure “never passed the hurdles to be a formal metric.”

4/15 - “The sensitive nature of the conversations and the decision not to bring any hard number to the most senior members of the coronavirus task force or top Biden officials demonstrates the longstanding struggle to articulate when the country has controlled a pandemic.”

5/15 - “Fewer than 200 people dead a day would translate to about 73,000 deaths per year, slightly more than what the U.S. experiences during a bad flu season.”

6/15 - “Because the virus continues to evolve, officials have largely shied away from promoting any metric, especially after the administration appeared to herald Covid’s end last summer, just ahead of the #Delta and #Omicron waves, which led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.”

7/15 - “Five hundred a day is a lot. You still have 9/11 numbers in a week. People generally felt like 100 [a day] or less, or maybe 200, would be OK.”

8/15 - “With fewer than 200 people dead per day, the person added, hospitals wouldn’t be overrun and infection rates would be comparatively low, allowing Americans to live closer to pre-pandemic times with less threat of infection.”

9/15 - “When you spread 100 to 200 [deaths] around the country, then it’s minimal around your geographic area. But the idea never became official.”

10/15 - “Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s pandemic data director, said that pinpointing a number doesn’t make sense from a public health perspective because it’s also about how long you’re able to maintain low numbers or low severity of illness, and the virus can evolve quickly.”

11/15 - “Because these things are all changing, I think most experts would tell you it’s hard to have any kind of durable number … because the overarching goal for us is to drive down deaths,” he said. “There’s no point at which you give up trying to drive down deaths.”

12/15 - “We’re not satisfied with the number of deaths we have now,” [Cyrus Shahpar] added. “I don’t really know why 200 would be a number that would be magically OK.”

13/15 - “At no point since the pandemic’s first weeks have <200 Americans died/day at a sustained rate. During the country’s best stretch, last summer, an average of 230 Americans died daily. A few months later, #Omicron killed >2,600 Americans/day, many of whom were vaccinated.”

14/15 - “Using daily deaths as a metric of success is not a new idea. The administration’s external advisers proposed a similar figure in recent months and public health experts have debated what death toll policymakers should target throughout the pandemic.”

15/15 - “Communication around the pandemic end has long presented a challenge for the White House, which has nudged vaccinated Americans toward pre-pandemic life while also extending a pub health emergency declar that grants state and federal gov a host of special powers.”