Thread by Rachel Thomas

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“Covid zero is impossible with omicron, so what’s the point in even trying to reduce/slow transmission?”

My answer: 🧵 1/
False binaries are harmful, and don’t lead to good reasoning 2/


Not everyone is going to get omicron. And the difference between 80% vs 60% (both still very big) of a population catching it would be a huge difference in absolute numbers of people that wind up permanently disabled. 3/
(your regular reminder: "mild" covid can still involve damage to the vascular, immune, & central nervous systems) 4/
Many seem to be assuming that covid provides lasting immunity, even though we already know it does not. Each covid infection raises the risk of creating a new "pre-existing condition" that will make subsequent infections more dangerous 5/


Not everyone's immune systems will be able to take the repeated hits. In a population, getting covid 1x (on average) over the next 2 years vs. 3x (on average) over next 2 years is likely to result in significant differences in how many end up permanently disabled. 6/
Even if EVERYONE does get covid, delaying WHEN we do so has benefits. The longer we can wait, the greater the chance of new treatments being developed, more effective vaccines, better anti-virals, scaling production of paxlovid, etc. 7/
Adults deserve to be told the truth. Too much public health messaging about covid has been infantilizing, patronizing, & flat-out inaccurate. 8/


Due to bad messaging, many people misunderstand:
- Severity & prevalence of LongCOVID
- Airborne spread
Many may voluntarily choose to change their behavior if they better understood (particularly if given options: free N95s, work-from-home when possible, etc) 9/
The intervention (vaccines) changed our goal. Vaccines are great at reducing hospitalization & death, but not at reducing transmission. But "mild" cases can still result in long-permanent disability, so reducing transmission remains crucial 10/

It is ableist to ignore the many people (including some children) who are high health risk and more likely to die or experience extreme illness if they get covid. Again, any reduction in transmission can save lives. 11/


Here are some ideas about additional things we could be doing to slow the spread of omicron 12/


Related: 🧵 on why vaccines alone are not enough & need for a multipronged approach


Related: 🧵 & essay about efforts to downplay the devastating impact of #LongCovid


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