Joe Biden’s former White House Senior Adviser for COVID Response Andy Slavitt would like to set the record straight about this pandemic once and for all: it’s not over. And it’ll never be over as long as experts like him have anything to say about it:
COVID Update: One too many smart people has told me or said on TV this week that the pandemic is over.
I offer this thread as a single, uniform response to everyone. 1/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
It is still here.
There are still 1200 people dying every day. That’s a rate of 440,000 deaths/year.
40,000 from accidents
70,000 from opioidsI have a work colleague in the hospital right now who got COVID last week. It’s serious & we don’t know the outcome. 2/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
I don’t know the amount of vaccinations we need to have it end here, but we’re not there.
Russia has 1/3 of the country vaccinated. And it’s not pretty.
Denmark has 70% and it’s not enough. 3/ pic.twitter.com/zDwmGs47fM
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Much of the US looks like Denmark and much of it looks like Russia in vaccination rates.
Proud of Sputnik but can’t get Russians to take it. Misinformation is a bitch, isn’t it Russia? 4/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
We think we see the end of the pandemic frequently. It’s like ground hog day.
Ron Densantis comes comes out of his shell, declares vaccines harmful, struts like a peacock, and we have two more months tacked on to the pandemic. 5/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
We were waiting for Ron DeSantis to make an appearance! That rascal …
lol, what even https://t.co/s9NUGkvJmW
— cc (@cc_fla) November 10, 2021
Recommended
More from Slavitt:
The signs people look at aren’t really signs.
To be clear, when cases dip it’s not over. When boosters come, it’s not over. When kids are vaccinated, it’s not over. When therapies are approved, it’s not over.
All are reasons I’ve heard in the last week. 6/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Let me put it more directly: just because you decide the pandemic is over for you doesn’t mean it’s over for everybody. 7/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Before Delta reared up and we were on the track to vaccinating more Americans, I too thought it might be over.
But then— Delta showed it could move faster than the vaccine at spreading. And vaccines waned. And people stopped getting shots. I was wrong. 8/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
If we haven’t learned this yet— we can’t know anything about what we can’t see yet.
Every April someone in Minnesota would say “it’s done snowing.” And we would all be excited & plant flowers. And then it would snow & Lana would want to kill someone. 9/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
So my real question is why. Why. Why the need to declare its over when people really don’t f-ing know. Why not just sit on your thumbs for a bit? 10/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Andy Slavitt likes to sit on thumbs, apparently. He thinks it’s quite comfortable.
The more productive conversation is one of tools— tools to reduce infections, tools to reduce deaths, tools to live life, to attend school, to be safe.
All THAT is increasingly possible with quick tests, masks, credentials, shots & new medicines. 11/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Andy Slavitt is also a tool.
But we digress.
That news is good. But it has nothing to do with the relevant question of the pandemic: are these waves & the resulting hospitalizations & the high case counts over? 12/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
California has seen a tripling of cases in the last few weeks. I visited a hospital today in LA at the eye of the storm last year with empty beds & few patients.
But the leaders told me they were at an all time low of nurses of cases come back. 13/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
The country is now open to Europe. Probably the right decision but one that adds to the perception that the risk has disappeared, that are tools aren’t needed, that we won’t see another wave. 14/
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Here’s an alternative idea: let’s all be prepared. Let’s use the tools we have. Let’s call it over after it ends. /end
— Andy Slavitt 🇺🇸💉 (@ASlavitt) November 10, 2021
Slavitt’s thread is allowed to end. The pandemic is another story. It won’t end. Not on his watch.
So what ARE the signs? How do we know if any of these policies are doing what they're supposed to do?
This is becoming a quagmire. https://t.co/36SuDJki2G
— Matt Cover (@MattCover) November 10, 2021
It’s becoming exactly what the Democrats hoped it would be: a reason to continue to exercise as much control as possible over our lives. If you think about it, the pandemic was the best thing that could’ve happened to them.
"Public health bureaucrats will have to control your lives forever, for your own good," the public health bureaucrat explained https://t.co/NoHRnVmF6o
— Jason Hart (@jasonahart) November 10, 2021
What he means by this is that until he declares the pandemic is over for everybody, it's not over for you. https://t.co/yFhaFKs1em
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 10, 2021
And just to be clear, there is no standard in public policy terms for when you get to go back to your normal life. None. https://t.co/5RiCmPEWTr
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 10, 2021
Unbelievable. They literally want it to go on forever. https://t.co/fuyJH8M5mX
— Timothy Andrews (@Tim_Andrews) November 10, 2021
They literally do.
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