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A really important walk-through of possible alternative responses that could have fundamentally changed the course of the COVID pandemic, saving millions of lives. @zeynep suggests following the path of the most farsighted countries. Let me add one document to that mix… @zeynep/1502277736815120390On twitter.com
♻️ 22 Retweets ❤️ 59 Favorites Mood +2 🙂
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In 2009, the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health published "Controlling SARS: a review on China’s response compared with other SARS-affected countries." (This is about SARS-CoV-1.) It reads like a roadmap to rapid policy response to a novel virus.Permalink On twitter.com
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Its key point: With a new pathogen, only tracing, nonpharmaceutical interventions, and rapid action are in the initial toolkit.Permalink On twitter.com
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SARS-COV-1 was contained. How? "Intensive national and international efforts and the relentless use of public health interventions contained the SARS epidemic. The following seven control categories represent the major areas where containment efforts were concentrated."Permalink On twitter.com
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Those measures: "Intensive national and international efforts and the relentless use of public health interventions contained the SARS epidemic. The following seven control categories represent the major areas where containment efforts were concentrated."Permalink On twitter.com
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What's remarkable (but should be unremarkable) is that all the major measures that were rolled out rapidly in Asia and Oceania are detailed in this article.Permalink On twitter.com
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China had a delayed start due to failure to communicate among regions and levels of government, so had to come from behind. This presages problems mentioned by @zeynep in 2019-20.Permalink On twitter.com
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Even though China made structural reforms, the basic phenomenon of hierarchical institutions suppressing news of local crises, rather than risking taking the blame for them, is systemic.Permalink On twitter.com
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I would argue it goes far beyond China, and helps explain both the Trump administration downplaying COVID and the Biden admin's moves to downgrade the crisis ahead of the midterm elections.Permalink On twitter.com
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Central lesson 1: "The risk of infectious diseases recurring and spreading is high, especially in today’s interconnected world, and requires national and international public health authorities to take rapid and decisive steps towards containment."Permalink On twitter.com
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This was known a decade before COVID. Public health authorities should have been doing drills and preparing the public to know the key tools.Permalink On twitter.com
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Central lesson 2: "The 21st century science and communication systems helped in rapidly identifying the SARS virus and providing continuously updated information…Permalink On twitter.com
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"…yet it was the 19th century public health tools of case detection and isolation, contact tracing, quarantine and infection control which resulted in the successful containment"Permalink On twitter.com
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We should not have had to teach about R0, masking, or contact tracing AFTER the pandemic started. These should have been part of our safety toolkit, reviewed every time there was fear of an incoming virus.Permalink On twitter.com
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If we could have had every public health official, every mayor, every legislator read this article and go through a training (or hell, watch Contagion, flawed though it is), once a year, we would have been way more prepared than we were.Permalink On twitter.com
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One more thing: we have several hundred thousand COVID deaths incoming in 2022 (unless the virus stops mutating and immunity stops waning). Anything on this list that we haven't done isn't just a lesson for next time, it's an action item and should be a budget request.Permalink On twitter.com
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If we're going to have COVID forever, we need COVID wards (or hospitals). South Korea is still (as of Jan 2022) nimbly building separate facilities to cope with surges, most recently in the form of community clinics. abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/korea-plans-add-small-hospitals-covid-cases-surge-82527277Permalink On twitter.com
