Thread by @CovidCaution

🧵 1/ For me, Joe Biden's legacy will forever be his capitulation to corporate interests on COVID-19, and the dismantling of protections and precautions against it.

His admin did everything in its power to feign normalcy, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives (and counting)

2/ Operation Warp Speed began under Trump in May of 2020. Despite right-wing rhetoric, we got vaccines in Dec 2020.

When Biden took office in late Jan, most people had gotten their second shot.

But the first thing they did was take credit for it to further align C-19 with Trump

3/ That isn't to credit Trump, who worsened the pandemic at every turn, but the strategy to paint COVID-19 a "Republican problem" was well underway.

By January 2021 we had hit 400k deaths in the United States, which was still headline news at the time (when people still cared.)

4/ But despite all the ongoing death, COVID was already being celebrated as being "over" - Everyone ripped off their mask, hopped on a plane, went to the bar - and got COVID anyway.

Between Jan 2021 and May 2022 deaths rose by over 50%. 399k deaths under Trump, 600k under Biden.

5/ Biden campaigned on getting COVID under control, but deaths worsened. So what happened?

Cases dropping to low levels in Summer 2021 (and never again since) prompted media outlets to begin speaking of COVID in the past-tense. Public health was starting to get quiet.

6/ In July-August 2021 we saw the second largest surge of the pandemic at the time, largely due to preventative measures being dropped.

WHO and doctors warned of rapid mutations, but the conversation continued to be painted that these were all just unvaccinated right-wingers.

7/ Political expedience took the forefront as Americans lost their lives to COVID-19 while restrictions continued to drop. Normalizing death and disease was the priority, in order to gloat about economic gains.

By November 2021, the Omicron variant was discovered and on its way.

8/ Did they rethink the failing strategy? No. The wheels of the economy needed to turn.

In December 2021, as Omicron began to take hold, Delta Airlines CEO demanded isolation times be cut in half.

The CDC capitulated, which directly contradicted the science of COVID-19.

9/ In December 2021 The Biden admin doubled-down on walking face-first into the Omicron surge, sending out a grim message of a winter of "severe illness and death" for the unvaccinated and further painting C-19 as someone else's problem. Not yours, not his. "Vax and relax!"

10/ Winter 2021 saw the largest surge of the entire pandemic. It was indeed a winter of illness and death.

11/ But an ugly truth bomb was lying underneath that wave - that over 40% of the Omicron deaths were among the vaccinated.

The vax-only strategy was proving to be an utter failure, and calling them "breakthrough infections" was no longer holding any water. But the PR continued.

12/ As deaths continued to pile up, and wave after wave continued through the year with no pattern or mythical herd immunity, and no solutions, the messaging being sent to the public was that "nothing is happening, Joe saved us!" and a traumatized public ate it up with a shovel.

13/ In February 2022 it was revealed that a PR firm, Impact Research, had been encouraging "taking the win over COVID" in order to achieve political gain in the upcoming elections.

"People are feeling worn out" / "Take their side" / "Declare the crisis phase of COVID over"

14/ The WHO and public health had been yelling from the rooftops that COVID was not over, and by April-May of 2022, news organizations were starting to smell the smoke and actually report on the fact that many vaccinated were dying in the same ways as the unvaccinated.

15/ In May 2022 the NYT published a flashy site when we passed one million deaths in the U.S.

And despite most of those deaths happening under Biden, the criticism was still levied mainly at the right, which by then hadn't been in office for 16 months.

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

16/ Other news outlets continued to report on how COVID deaths were continuing to rise, as well as post-acute symptoms known as "long-COVID."

It was projected that in the winter of 2022, more than 30% of all Americans could be infected with the virus.

17/ After yet another summer wave of illness, death, and disability, we arrive at September 2022, when Joe Biden declared that the pandemic was "over" - despite 400 Americans still dying every single day.

COVID did not change, but the PR messaging was consistent around normalcy.

18/ Despite everything that transpired in 2022 and crossing a million deaths, the public still ate up the propaganda and started to eschew any and every form of precaution, aligning with the right-wing worldview of the early pandemic (when there were actually fewer deaths.)

19/ So in 2022 Biden fulfilled the promise that Trump offered in early 2020 -- that the virus will "just disappear" or that cases would go down, if we only "stopped testing."

Since then, COVID has continued to run rampant, kill, and mutate, unchecked.

For me, that's his legacy.

20/ You can read more about the normalization of COVID in this wonderful 2-part article from the Death Panel podcast.

Part 1
thenewinquiry.com/the-year-the-p…

Part 2
thenewinquiry.com/the-year-the-p…

21/ And before any of this gets twisted I just wanted to make a few things clear:

- I am pro-vaccine. Just not "vax-only." Layered precautions are necessary to get COVID under control.

- I voted for Biden/Harris.

- Criticizing your team is not an endorsement of the opposition.

22/ Last last thing. I understand Joe Biden isn't solely to blame for this. The White House and gov't apparatus is massive.

But the entire political sphere is to blame; They all had the same end goal in mind - protect the economy at all costs. Everyone else? - "by the wayside."