COVID Update September 10 (Andy Slavitt)

[Nevilledog]

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COVID Update September 10: Paul Revere thought he was doing his job but that whole “redcoats are coming” thing panicked people. 1/

The White House has a very systematic model and detailed memos on states where COVID is growing but they don’t share them publicly. So we don’t panic people. 2/

Florida let go the one person in the state who tried to point out what was about to— and did— hit them. Fortunately they fired her so she didn’t panicked people. Before some of them died. 3/

We left people on the Diamond Princess so they didn’t come ashore and panic people. Same with the Navy ship. 4/

We’re not putting together safe isolation spaces. This way we don’t panic people. 5/

Trump told nursing homes in 2017 he wasn’t going to enforce nursing home standards on infection control. Why panic them? 6/

Trump let 40,000 people in from China after the supposed ban. Why mention that? It would only panic people. 7/

Trump wanted people back in church sitting elbow to elbow Easter Sunday. Why panic them with silly warnings about contagion? 8/

Trump tells people to take off their masks and won’t wear one. Why panic people about a respiratory virus. 9/

No flags at half staff. No funerals. No visits to hospitals. Avoiding panic. 10/

First of all— thank you for the great job Mr. President keeping everybody calm. 11/

The calm throughout the country as people mysteriously died in record numbers, as people with sick family members can’t go out, as working people put themselves in danger. 12/

Your strategy quickly worked. Because while you weren’t panic us, in the background you were also doing nothing. 13/

But I have a question. While you didn’t panic people, why weren’t you doing work behind the scenes— like having tests that worked and public health standards ready to go? 14/

If you thought 5% of people who got it were going to die, did you think we would never notice? 15/

If not for the NBA & the stock market, who completely blew it by making this public (and panicking people), when would we have known?

Maybe we could have avoided being panicked for a long time. 16/

So I have another question. When the hospitals started filling up, was it going to be ok to panic then? We’re scientists not going to break the story? What about foreign governments? Seeing people die in Italy at a high rate. Not cause for panic. 17/

You’ve told us you’ve saved millions of lives. How does that work? We’ve had 22% of all deaths and have 4% of the population. As it is. Were we going to have 80% of the deaths? 18/

The president must be shocked that people aren’t saying thank you left and right.

Thanks for not panicking us. Thanks for handling this.
Thanks for saving millions.

Now there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you in the ass in the way out. /end

[Nevilledog]

1. Morning kick.