Governments successfully transitioned a public health problem that requires a large-scale collective response into a personal choice issue, at huge expense to people at disproportionate risk. And this occurred with very little resistance. I think its unclear what was/is possible. https://t.co/wX1kbUyVVR

As governments abandoned a real policy response and largely even abandoned messaging related to voluntary “social responsibility” that’s left scattered individuals to sort through complicated literature and try to advocate at a social and interpersonal rather than policy level.

And the appeals take many different forms, which can involve stretching evidence (everyone gets long covid and major organ failure) and making outsized demands (stay home forever to protect the vulnerable).

It shouldn’t be totally surprising that some people who are at high risk from (repeated) covid infections might not accept that risk and grow increasingly angry about the isolation that has been imposed upon them, and inclined to communicate accordingly.
https://twitter.com/mindyisser/status/1616804818739150850

Rather than viewing this as an interpersonal or social dispute, and taking offense and seeking ways to discredit this anger, we should try to understand the actual problem people are experiencing, what is the substantive cause, what is a real solution, how to stand in solidarity.

Covid is not going away. It will likely continue to impose huge costs. The plan now is for society to absorb those costs in the form of more frequent illness, more disability, lost wages, increased medical expenses, shorter life expectancy, and indefinite reduced social contact.

If a policy response were possible, some of that cost placed on individuals, which highly disproportionately impacts medically vulnerable people and the poor and working class, can be shifted to government and business, and also more equitably shared among individuals.

That might look like strong occupational safety standards, indoor air quality standards, ample paid leave, ample free masks and tests for everyone, investment in better treatments and vaccines, more public health education and outreach, and when needed universal mask mandates

Maybe the “ship has sailed” on a government response, but we haven’t seen what’s possible if large numbers of people made demands, and if more prominent leaders actually took up the cause. Maybe we just didn't really try.

From a former senior advisor for NYC covid response https://t.co/dZyhv7XVPf