Andy Slavitt @  🏡 🇺🇸Verified account

We can be back to a reasonably normal existence: schools, travel, job growth, safer nursing homes & other settings. And we could do it in a matter of weeks. If we want to. 2/

The good news— and it is good news— is we are always 4-6 weeks from being able to do what countries around the world have done.8/

Let’s say we threw the kitchen sink at COVID-19 in the U.S. Let’s say we started now with the goal of being open for business in October— meaning schools, in person voting, sports, everything. If we did everything. What would happen? 9/

So let’s define the kitchen sink: 1. start with universal mask wearing. We didn’t do this in Mar-April and let’s chalk it up to faulty instructions. But we know better now. 2. Keep the bars & restaurants & churches & transit closed. All hot spots. 3. Prohibit interstate travel10/

4. Prohibit travel into the country (no one will let us into their country so that shouldn’t be hard). 5. Have hotels set up to allow people with symptoms to isolate from their families at no cost. 11/

6. Instead of 50% lockdown (which is what we did in March in April), let’s say it’s a 90% lockdown. Meaning most of the Americans who couldn’t stay home in April because they were picking crops or driving trucks or working in health care would stay home with us. 12/

That means the economy would take a several week hit. And we would need extended unemployment insurance. 13/

It would be a tough few weeks but we could still do things: be outside, enjoy nature, gather safely w friends. Our grandparents who lived through a decade long depression, a 6 year world war, or whatever hardship they faced in their country would tell us we would make it.14/

So what would happen? At first, absolutely nothing. Cases would still grow from the prior weeks & the incubation period. Hospitals would still be full. We would still see people die. The COVID truthers would have a field day, tweeting every day the same routine. 16/

“America has become a fascist government” “We need to liberate” “We’ve been doing this & nothing’s happening” “More people are dying from non-COVID than COVID” But if someone took Trump’s phone, it would help. 17/

(By the way, welcome to all the new people who suddenly care so much about public education, mental health & access to care. While this is the first time you may have ever uttered these concerns, your passion & commitment to funding them once & for all is appreciated.)18/

How does that work? Some of the fancy people call this “exponential decay.” I call it #Zachsmath. Explained here. Or just multiply 60,000 x .5. And then .5 again until you do it 10 times. Like Zach does. And other high schoolers. 20/https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1287161301421174786 …

So after 8 weeks, you don’t have 0 cases but you have embers. A small enough number that someone in the health department in a big city could call them on the phone in one morning. In a small city, you could feed them w 2 large pizzas. In a small town, it would be Earl. 21/

Earl was my dad’s name. He grew up in a small isolated town. He never loved the name but I like it a lot now. In this case Earl would be fine because everybody would bring him soup and check in on him. 22/

Then what? You know how we don’t have enough tests? We would have plenty. Plenty to test everyone going into work, to school, to church, to an event. And if there’s a stray case or a dozen, we would find it in a day. 23/

Becsuse we would get the tests back the same day, we could very easily let everybody who had been around Earl the last few days know they should get a test. And if anybody tests positive, they would isolate, either at home or if there’s not enough room, in a hotel. 24/

All the PPE we keep running out of? We would have way too much. Ventilators? Way too many. People who have suffered mental health crises? They could begin to deal with them. The light at the end of the tunnel would be blinding. 25/

The man who cured small pox & is the greatest expert I know, @larrybrilliant, puts it this way: 26/https://twitter.com/LemonadaMedia/status/1286000848645038080 …

Whether we do this or not, let’s not pretend this isn’t an option. This is done mostly with the things we were born with or are very low tech. The ability not to breath on people. A mask. Common sense. (Yes I’m beginning to recognize the flaw.) 28/

And while we do this, what else happens? Well our nurses & doctors can catch their breath, recover & go back to healing our other issues. We hug our parents again. Our scientists can work on vaccines they can get right & safe. They can be speedy without rushing. 29/

We still take precautions. Masks in larger settings. In elevators. Around sick people. Because we care. It will take a while for societal norms like these to develop but we can operate the way we did with tobacco control & build the norm. 30/

Communities would have green, yellow, orange & red days so we would know how to take precautions. Both before and after a vaccine. For as long as necessary. We could manage the illness by exception not with a broad brush. 31/