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At first I thought this wasn’t well thought out—a hasty decision—because it just doesn’t make sense. We really think it’s OK to go work out in an indoor gym, but it’s not OK to take a masked walk outdoors with a single friend? 1/ https://twitter.com/JaneLindholm/status/1327302816419995651
A blanket ban on any inter-household “gathering,” even outdoors, while restaurants serve people indoors, defies science and logic. 2/ https://twitter.com/Shane_Rogers922/status/1327309607568543746
But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s incredibly telling. It shows something about us, and it isn’t pretty. It shows what we value.
Or really, it shows what @GovPhilScott and his administration value. Spoiler: it isn’t people. 3/ https://twitter.com/ekkornheiser/status/1327293390799704065
Or really, it shows what @GovPhilScott and his administration value. Spoiler: it isn’t people. 3/ https://twitter.com/ekkornheiser/status/1327293390799704065
When we ban gathering, even outdoors, to help each other—comfort each other, take care of each other’s children, feed each other—but we allow gathering indoors for buying and selling non-essentials, the message is very clear: businesses are more important than people. 4/
If we valued people, we could show it. We could pay people to stay home to keep us all safe. We could give masks to everyone and invest in strategies to get people to wear them. We could close the businesses we don’t need, but still allow people to help each other, safely. 5/
Instead, we are sacrificing people—people who are already stressed to the breaking point—to attempt to preserve businesses without investing public money. This is dangerous and cowardly. Step up, #vtpoli — Vermonters need you. 6/
Adding to this thread because I’m seeing a lot of folks citing this statistic to justify the blanket ban on all inter-household gatherings. 7/ https://twitter.com/JaneLindholm/status/1327286255294574593
First, yes, it absolutely means we need to address private gatherings. But to understand how, we need to know the characteristics of the private gatherings that are driving transmission: were they outside? Inside? Masked? Unmasked? 8/
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that very few (or even none) of the “gatherings” driving COVID transmission in Vermont are one-one-one (or even two household) masked outdoor walks. 9/
Commissioner Levine probably knows that one-on-one masked outdoor walks aren’t driving transmission. So why do we have this blanket ban on all gatherings, including two-person walks? 10/
It’s common in public health to try to keep things simple and categorical, not to trust people with the complexity of a situation. And it can lead to some dangerous unintended consequences. 11/
First, Vermonters need each other, and this order shows that the state doesn’t value the support we give each other. The order could damage our social fabric by devaluing—and disallowing—mutual aid and support. 12/
And Vermonters who follow this order to the letter could risk damaged relationships, increased isolation, worse mental health. (Remember, this isn’t March. We’re all a bit fragile at this point.) 13/
The other risk of an over-broad public health order like this is that people will ignore it altogether, either because it doesn’t make sense to them or because they find it unworkable. 14/
Clearly, because private gatherings are driving our outbreaks, we need people to listen and change their behavior. To get people to listen, we need to signal that we understand their concerns. This order does not do that. 15/
If anyone wants to get deeply geeky about why public health needs to consider unintended consequences, I recommend this article 16/ https://jech.bmj.com/content/69/1/95
And there are other approaches out there—Oregon, for instance, just set its gathering limit at six people from two households. 17/ https://www.opb.org/article/2020/11/13/oregon-governor-kate-brown-covid-19-restrictions/
