Thread by @PutrinoLab

I’ve been seeing some classic Monday morning quarterbacking as the necessity of #COVID19 lockdowns are being discussed once again. As usual, we’re seeing a lot of hyperbolic statements and attempts to create conversations around comparative suffering which is always just a 1/

garbage response to anything. The reality is that we had a once in a century pandemic. The virus was spreading like wildfire and we had limited options to keep the public safe. Not just from COVID but from #LongCOVID. In March and April of 2020, New York City was the epicenter 2/

of the global pandemic. Things were rough and we still hadn’t shut down. My whole team was pulled into the hospital and deployed to provide support to stretched inpatient services since outpatient services were closed down, Central Park was a triage tent, the refrigerated 3/

trucks were on Madison Ave storing bodies, an average inpatient unit was losing ten patients a day and sitting in our outpatient center, the Abilities Research Center, was a whiteboard where we were counting down the number of free beds we had. When we hit the double digits, 4/

the state government made the decision to lockdown and we held our breath. You have to understand that once we ran out of beds we had no plan B: we were just out of beds. That was it. After lockdown, we watched our free bed number dip into single digits…and then it held. The 5/

lockdowns had worked. In the meantime, from day 1 we were concerned about social isolation and loneliness from the lockdowns, but with the shortage of hospital beds, the death rate and the emerging threat of #LongCOVID, lockdowns were the *least worst option*. Don’t get me 6/

wrong - this doesn’t mean you stick your head in the sand about lockdown problems: with the help of our friends at @LogitechG, our team coordinated the distribution of hundreds of iPads to hospitals all over NY so that people could say goodbye to critically ill loved ones. 7/

We worked with @SamsungUS and @Take2Interact to get hundreds of workbooks and free wifi out to low income kids in NY and NJ who didn’t have devices to engage in remote schooling, and we partnered with the incredible @socialcreaturz to start building out programs to address 8/

loneliness and social isolation head-on: launching @sitgrit so that folks with disabilities could engage in free, remote exercise programming just like everyone else because the big fitness chains were NOT accommodating (and still haven’t). We launched Bonded by Baby to build 9/

social ties for new parents who were at risk of loneliness, and many other programs to educate people about the health risks of loneliness and social isolation. To this day, we have continued these programs, because the effects of loneliness and social isolation are still 10/

being seen and felt. To this day, we fight for the idea that social health should be viewed as a crucial dimension of overall health: as important as physical and mental health. To this day, we continue to fight for people with #LongCOVID and many other chronically ill folks 11/

for whom lockdown has never ended due to their heightened risk of reinfection and the consequences that such a reinfection brings to their health status. We continue to build social and peer support programming for these folks to combat loneliness. Anyway, all of this is to 12/

say: lockdowns saved lives. If we had locked down earlier, many of my colleagues would have been spared the repeated trauma of losing patient after patient, many of my colleagues would have been spared horrific #LongCOVID that has ended their career and torn their lives apart 13/

and many people in NYC might still be alive and many more still not living with #LongCOVID. This is not to say that lockdowns were not without cost, but to frame it as though it was the wrong choice in the face of what we faced in the beginning is either an uninformed or 14/

intentional misread of the situation. So to anyone lamenting the psychological effects of the lockdowns, ask them: what did they do for people suffering from loneliness and mental health issues during COVID? What are they doing now to create government sponsored programs for 15/

people who are still struggling and what do you plan to do for people with #LongCOVID and other chronic illness/disability who still face considerable risk from the ongoing pandemic? If they don’t have good answers to these questions, it’s likely that they’re criticizing 16/

these policies for political expediency rather than any real concern for public health, and tbh we need a lot less of that sort of performative chatter and a whole lot more action. We’re in this together and the people we SERVE deserve better. /end