The covid public health emergency is ending: covid now joins the ordinary emergency that is American health

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Today in @bmj_latest with @heavyredaction and @choo_ek 1/ The public health emergency is ending in the US, but the ordinary emergency in public health continues. While the Biden administration has pointed to falling death rates as a sign that the emergency is over, COVID is on track to be the 9th leading cause of death in the US. 2/

We’re Still Getting Our Pandemic Preparation Horribly Wrong

Until we focus on the combustible social conditions that made Covid so devastating, we’ll never be truly ready for the next pandemic.

Today, in the @thenation with @heavyredaction 🧵1/

thenation.com/article/societ… When a single flame fell to the floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, it found the ideal conditions to spread: crowded rows of garment workers feverishly stitching flammable fabric in poorly ventilated rooms locked by managers to prevent theft. 2/

“Normal led to this.” @edyong209 said in a 2022 talk examining the US’s poor pandemic performance. Yet, the discussion of the “next pandemic” continues to center narrowly on our biological (and to a lesser extent public health) capabilities and not our social vulnerabilities. 1/ Most working-age people who died in 2020 were low-paid essential workers, and many workers carried the virus into multigenerational households w/high-risk elders. Yet, workplace protections remain conspicuously absent from “next pandemic” conversations. 2/
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War on Empathy: A growing chorus of prominent journalists and pundits have taken aim at another target—the proponents of a more vigorous public health response.

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In @PesteMagazine today, my new piece with @heavyredaction. 🧵 1/ Recent essays in legacy media outlets have depicted individuals advocating for stronger COVID policies as unsympathetic “holdouts” on the fringes of society. Our piece suggests the myriad costs of irresponsible coverage of COVID & public health advocates. 2/

A viral hurricane is making landfall on health care systems battered by three pandemic years.

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Today, in @statnews, @Lakshmi_RKG, @heavyredaction and I argue that the US needs to deploy rather than abandon public health measures to weather the storm.🧵 Across the country, hospitals are facing crushing caseloads of children sick with RSV and other viral illnesses. The CDC also recently declared a flu epidemic as hospitalizations soared to the highest point in more than a decade.
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https://twitter.com/Alexander_Tin/status/1593366415276400641

COVID Long-Haulers in Rural America Need More Support
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On the occasion of National Rural Health Day, a new @medpagetoday opinion piece in partnership @KristaCoombs3. 🧵 #powerofrural Rural regions have outpaced urban areas in deaths and lagged in vaccination. Data on long COVID in rural regions remains scant; however, many of the states with the highest percentage of residents reporting long COVID symptoms are predominantly rural. cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/p…

The new CDC guidance, both in process and content, reflects the culmination of several policymaking tendencies that have increasingly characterized the US COVID response as well as public narrative on public health. 🧵 1.Policy of no policy: US leadership issues anemic guidance and then cedes authority to local jurisdictions and institutions who in turn are constrained in their ability to enact more stringent public health measures.

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Policy inaction contributed to 63% more deaths in the US during the Omicron wave than in peer countries. The CDC’s new guidance will constrain rather than compel more effective policy action moving forward.

nytimes.com/interactive/20… Data-driven guidance should evolve in response to changing evidence and conditions, as we have argued; however, it should lead to more effective policy action and not an erosion of policy options or political will to act.
@gregggonsalves @JuliaRaifman

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