“We’ve known for months what it takes to bring Covid-19 under control. You need a period of severe lockdown to reduce the disease’s prevalence,” @paulkrugman writes. In fact, the solution might have been much simpler and easier: masks. (1/x)https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html …
-
Show this thread
-
In parts of the country, at certain stages, more would have been necessary: first guidance on social distancing and hygienic practice; where necessary, restrictions on first large gatherings; and in several places, perhaps, true lockdowns.
1 reply 12 retweets 56 likesShow this thread -
Everywhere, we should have aggressively moved to protect those we knew from the start were most vulnerable—chiefly, the elderly and especially those in nursing homes—as I wrote about here:https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/covid-targets-the-elderly-why-dont-our-prevention-efforts.html …
2 replies 16 retweets 67 likesShow this thread -
But masks are not just an enormously powerful tool in the fight against covid, they are also extraordinarily cheap, compared to lockdowns. How effective are they? According to one study, in mask-wearing countries, the disease grew, this spring, 8% per week. In others, it was 54%.
2 replies 60 retweets 145 likesShow this thread -
1 reply 15 retweets 46 likesShow this thread
-
Extrapolate those numbers over several weeks and they sketch disease trajectories so different they may as well be in different universes.
1 reply 9 retweets 45 likesShow this thread -
The science on these questions is not perfectly settled, of course, and other studies have found modest effects. On top of which, it can be hard to isolate the effect of masks when other cultural and policy factors contribute, as well.
2 replies 7 retweets 39 likesShow this thread -
But that masks have some meaningful positive effect was obvious from the start of the pandemic, because we knew at the outset that COVID-19 was a respiratory infection, and knew that masks were very useful and protective in fighting related diseases.
1 reply 22 retweets 95 likesShow this thread -
The brilliant
@zeynep has been especially clear-eyed about this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html …4 replies 35 retweets 127 likesShow this thread
What a complicated story this has turned out to be. At a minimum, I hope for a NTSB type no-blame analysis, to help us not repeat such things for the future.
-
-
Replying to @zeynep @dwallacewells
Eugene Zaikonnikov 💛 ✊ ✌️ Retweeted Eugene Zaikonnikov 💛 ✊ ✌️
i feel vindicated but not in any good wayhttps://twitter.com/varjag/status/1241736090526060544 …
Eugene Zaikonnikov 💛 ✊ ✌️ added,
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.