Notes from Tom Frieden – the Virus is Winning
This Friday Tom Frieden, former head of the CDC, and former NYC health commissioner, published a sobering twitter thread about the US, NYC, and the virus. Without further comment:
Covid Epi Weekly: Humanity vs Virus – the Virus is Winning Perfect storm: 1. Uncontrolled spread in most of US, 2. Slow vaccine rollout, 3. Worrisome mutations increase transmissibility and could undermine diagnostic testing, antibody treatment and vaccine efficacy. 1/thread
A misleading narrative suggests that uncontrolled spread of Covid shows that public health measures don’t work. The plain truth: most places didn’t stick with the program long enough to get cases to a manageable level and now masking and distancing aren’t being done reliably. 2/
In most places, public health measures didn’t fail, they weren’t applied. To a striking degree, this breaks down along partisan lines. Look at Staten Island. The northern part, which is poorer and more Black and Latinx, has worse health outcomes and shorter life expectancy. 8/
SECOND concerning trend: slow vaccine rollout. Some understandable–new vaccine, difficult storage. Some incompetence–run like grocery delivery not vaccination campaign, failure to support state/local microplans. Even for a competent government this would have been hard, and….13/
Grocery delivery: temperature, restocking cadence. Vaccination program: community engagement, detailed microplanning of who will vaccinate, where, when, how, and two-way communication, identification of trusted messengers and messaging in every community. 14/
Operation Warp Speed: Stop hoarding vaccines!!! No need to hold back half. Get them out fast. Although it’s possible manufacturers will miss their production targets, that’s a lesser risk than not flooding the zone ASAP with vaccines. Jeez. 17/