1/ I've been feeling more and more disengaged from COVID work, disillusioned with the growing realization that all the smart research and policy doesn't make a damn bit of difference

Not for the 1st time, I've seen that what I thought was an information problem is something else
2/ I so admire those public health Cassandras who've been unrelenting, continuing to beat the drum of science and policy for the past 9 months

repeating over and over again what must be done, as the cases and deaths mount, with no strategy in sight

tweets, interviews, articles
3/ It's perhaps no accident that they (and I) are "formers"

People who ran the agencies, who know the pain of the experts and scientists working inside, and are free to speak

CDC @DrTomFrieden
FDA @ScottGottliebMD
CMS @ASlavitt
FDA/CMS @DukeMargolis McClellan
WH @ZekeEmanuel
4/ We have known since March what we have to do.

***We need a laboratory testing and public health surveillance system that actually gives us eyes on the outbreak, as @ScottGottliebMD @ZekeEmanuel and I laid out

(+ @cmyeaton and other @DukeMargolis colleagues)
5/ We need to get PPE to the frontlines

@ASlavitt first priority was healthcare workers, who have been put in harm's way (and the supply chain is again at risk of snapping)

He called for us to protect the elderly in nursing homes

And by now ALL OF US should have and wear masks
6/ We need to enforce reduced crowding

We know that the outbreak is driven by super-spreader events that are most likely to happen when lots of people are in crowded, noisy indoor spaces without masks

When the outbreak is rising, we have to limit indoor gatherings, close bars
7/ And when the outbreak fires are put out, we need to stamp out the embers through timely testing, isolation of those infected, finding their contacts, and enabling quarantine- the #BoxItIn strategy laid out by @DrTomFrieden @ResolveTSL

https://preventepidemics.org/covid19/science/insights/box-it-in/
8/ These strategies can work in the US, just as they have worked in other countries.

these steps can save us from having ANOTHER quarter million avoidable deaths before a vaccine is widely distributed.

We can regain our economy, and our lives

It's not knowing, its doing
9/ I'm going to end with hope.

I have hope that a new administration can empower the experts that exist inside those agencies.

That we can move with the speed and urgency we are capable of

That we can defuse the extreme politicization of science-based actions

I believe we can
Link to article here https://twitter.com/farzad_md/status/1326521224521019394
You can follow @Farzad_MD.
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