Thread by @scottyd121

🧵PUBLIC HEALTH CREDIBILITY 🧵

Yesterday the CA Senate held a hearing on “Lessons Learned From Covid,” with politicians screaming about misinformation and public health officials lamenting their credibility issues.

But they made a mistake. They invited Michael Osterholm.

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Osterholm made several points that public health officials don’t like to hear:

“The 3 most important words I own today are ‘I don’t know.’”

“We have far too often felt the need to have all the answers.”

Remember the last time a PH official said THAT? Yeah, me neither.

2/6

When he expressed concern in Jan 2021 that new variants might evade immunity and prolong the pandemic, he was “taken to the woodshed” by colleagues and canceled by the media who didn’t like his message (remember this is when Biden promised to “defeat” covid in 100 days).

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Another example? Masks:

“Frankly some of the information that we gave to the public was not scientifically correct.” 😬

“…bc people wanted to hone in on an answer without having all the facts about what that answer meant.”

Oops.

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How does “I don’t know” resonate in this room?

Ask @DrPanMD, who knows everything with such certainty he’s pushing #AB2098 to punish doctors for spreading “misinformation,”

…or CDPH’s @DrTomasAragon, who still pushes bogus studies and recc’s cloth masks on kids in 2022.

5/6

So Osterholm’s comments likely fell on deaf ears, like with masks.

It’s hard to adopt “I don’t know” when you’ve been lying about what you DO know for over 2 years…and are now trying to silence those who always knew.

They still have *all* the answers. And 0 credibility.

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