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I wish he was more direct about how we got here, but this is powerful. Pandemic response has had a devastating impact on 100s of millions of people in poor countries. Covid death is *not* the only thing that matters. How come this isn't the focus? 1/x https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/opinion/sunday/2020-worst-year-famine.html?smid=tw-share
"Starvation is agonizing and degrading. You lose control of your bowels. Your skin peels off, your hair falls out, you hallucinate and you may go blind from lack of vitamin A. While you waste away, your body cannibalizes itself: It consumes its own muscles, even the heart." 2/x
"the U.N. warns that famine is looming in Yemen, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria, with 16 other countries slightly behind in that trajectory toward catastrophe" 3/x
"Outside of the rich world, the casualties are not octogenarians with the virus so much as children dying of hunger because of economic disruptions, or middle-aged adults dying of AIDS because they can’t get medicines." 4/x
"Lockdowns meant that casual laborers had no income, and tuberculosis patients couldn’t get medicine. Campaigns to battle malaria, polio, AIDS and vitamin A deficiency were left in disarray." 5/x
"The United Nations warns that poverty and disruptions from the pandemic may push 13 million additional girls into child marriages. Disrupted campaigns against female genital mutilation may result in two million more girls enduring genital cutting" 6/x
"Reduced access to contraception may lead to 15 million unintended pregnancies. The World Bank says an additional 72 million children may be pushed into illiteracy" 7/x
My commentary: this virus is terrible, but once a city of 10 million people got overrun with it, no interconnected country was going to stop it. I can't hear another person mention New Zealand. I am sorry, it's a beautiful place, but they are simply irrelevant to this topic. 8/x
Covid is like a war. Even the winners suffer. The fantasy that this was avoidable has caused far more damage than the virus itself. 9/x
I simply cannot fathom how caring & good people continue to lock society down over test positivity rates, while glossing over what lockdowns actually mean. There is a reason LA is overrun & no it's not the underground night clubs. Some human had to pack & transport your kale 10/x
That's why the people in hospitals today are mostly poor, black, and Latino. Trust me, none of them are doing blow at their friend's secret pool party. This is NOT to say Covid isn't a big deal. It's just not the only deal & most importantly it's not suppressible 11/x
But the worst part is they know that. They (and I) supported the June protests, and magically things were ok. Even Fauci was ok with it. But now you're closing outdoor dining & putting restaurant workers out of work during the holidays? What in the actual f***. 12/x
It's not about $600 or $2000 (& yes, we should give $2000). People need jobs. They need them for money, but they also need them for purpose. I've been lucky my whole life, but I have talked to many folks when they have no hope about work. It's real pain & it matters. 13/x
There is no free lunch, so when some joker is talking about lockdown or "hammer & dance," pls think about the *tradeoffs*: millions of kids who depend on schools, the disruption of global supply chains, the broken lives of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people. 14/14
