Thread by @drajm

Are we really unable as a community to process these concepts? 🧵

- covid infection should be avoided by everyone, whenever possible
- herd immunity only works with effective vaccination, never by infection
- vaccines can rarely cause damage & affected people must receive help

- saying vaccines can rarely cause damage & we must look after those people does not mean we are antivaxx or that the vaccines are not the BEST tool we have to prevent severe acute covid
- #covid is airborne so clean air is essential
- masks are easy, useful & suitable for all

- the sick, disabled & elderly do not deserve to die ONE DAY earlier than they want to just so that the rest of us can avoid minor inconveniences to protect them
- the gap between healthcare outcomes for rich whites & everyone else will grow the more we ignore covid transmission

- being very young makes severe acute disease unlikely, though not impossible, but also means the number of years to live at risk of #ChronicCovid sequelae is greater
- the effort we expend on managing much lower risks than covid, eg road toll, smoking & drownings, contrasts ..

with the approach to #SARS2 - which now gets the public health equivalent of a shrug from most people.
- being young & or healthy is not permanent. We are all at risk.
- #covid makes the rest of healthcare much harder & directly contributes to many other diseases.

The main thing we are missing in our pandemic response at present is good leadership that inspires everyone to protect people by controlling covid transmission with up to date vaccines, masks, clean air & antivirals.

We must invest now to maintain a healthy economy & society.