So, I've been relatively hopeful about the pandemic over the past few weeks. Yes, vaccination is slow, new variants are worrisome, but we are headed in the right direction. BUT...1/

There are some people in this country who fail to recognize the once-in-a-lifetime nature of this crisis. 2/

Yes, there are the Republicans who are 100% obstructionists, but then there is the @GOP Gang of 10 who tried to scuttle the pandemic relief bill, staging themselves as some sort of reasonable alternative to the bat-shit MTG caucus. Problem is they are not. 3/

They see this as pre-pandemic deficit theater, pre-pandemic make-me-relevant-in-the-minority hoohaa. But their proposals were simply laughable on epidemiological and economic terms--just not credible. They are the wolves in sheep's clothing of their party. 4/

They are never going to evolve as working partners in the current state of the Republican Party. 5/

But the @TheDemocrats have @Sen_JoeManchin to worry about who plays these same games. However, I was pleased to see him on board with the relief bill. It didn't hurt that @JimJusticeWV weighed in and the Governor should be given full credit for his support of this bill. 6/

Then you have @LHSummers who decides no one is listening to him, he's so important, that he can just send a big fuck you to every colleague working in the Administration as this bill heads towards passage. 7/

This is my-ego-is-more-dangerous-than-a-virus crowd. He knows that his @washingtonpost was just fodder for the @GOP, but he didn't care. It's irresponsible, puerile egomania. Sorry but everyone know it is and I don't care who the hell he is or was. 8/

We have a chance to stem the tide of infections & deaths in the US, start to solve the global crisis we have thus far ignored, but it means all of us rowing in the same direction. We're never gonna have the @GOP in DC as partners, though some @GOP governors have been terrific. 9/

We've gotta keep it together folks, keep the pressure on as much as we did during the Trump Administration because we're on a knife's edge. 10/

Scale up of vaccination is getting better, but we're still not moving fast enough, making sure we don't leave the riskiest behind as we do this. 11/

I've heard more than one local public health department say they are moving people from testing to vaccination now--this isn't the answer--we have a workforce crisis on our hands and its been there all along. 12/

We need massive support to local and state health departments in the short term but need to figure out real sustainable ways to build back public health better. We've lost 55,000 public health workers since 2008. No wonder we're in a mess. 13/

We've got to keep our collective resolve; if we can, keep staying home, masked up in public. And this relief bill finally has to give those who have never been able to stay home resources to keep them, their families safe. This is why the nickel & diming has been so enraging. 14/

Gotta deal with places we've ignored, prisons, jails, meatpacking plants, other places where we've had clusters but been slow to address the risks for these populations because we treat them as disposable. 15/

And @michaelmina_lab has been screaming about this for months--where is full-scale active surveillance for #SARSCOV2 out in the community? We are still flying blind in many places. 16/

Where is our genomic surveillance as @NathanGrubaugh has called for? Why do we screen far fewer viral genomes than some other peer countries? 17/

I think you can see where I am going. We need far more than $1.9T to stop this. You can have #COVID19 everlasting playing politics of the pre-pandemic world on a loop uninterrupted. Or we can mobilize as a nation to treat this as the singular challenge of all our lives. end/