Thread on taking the Trump Train to Jonestown.

I can see what's going to happen over the next seven months, between now and the election. I'll actually be surprised if this doesn't happen. 1/x

By now, Trump must realize that things aren't going well, either covid19 or economy-wise. He's starting to see bad poll results even from outlets like Rasmussen that are heavily tilted towards his approval. 2/x

But he needs to win election in the fall. There are two things that could make that happen in a legitimate election. He's going to try the first next month - he's going to try to re-open the economy the best he can. But that's going to cause a second wave of infection. 3/x

That second wave may come as soon as June, or it may not come until the weather turns, in October. Which will be bad for him. Either way, he becomes aware that now, the only thing that will save the election for him is if he can deliver a vaccine. 4/x

Of course, vaccines have a fairly strict timeline of development. Some work can be done in parallel to speed it up, but the testing of the vaccine takes some time that just can't be abbreviated. Because the testing of the vaccine has to show that (a) the vaccine works... 5/x

to address the disease, and (b) that the vaccine isn't "worse than the disease", to quote the president. Here are two incidents from the last century as examples of (b) going wrong. 6/x

"The Cutter Incident" was a version of the polio vaccine that actually gave 40,000 children polio. That's not good. 7/x https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/

Thalidomide was a drug developed to alleviate the symptoms of morning sickness. It also caused severe birth defects. If you're on the younger side of things, you may have no idea what this is but it's kind of startling. 8/x

https://helix.northwestern.edu/article/thalidomide-tragedy-lessons-drug-safety-and-regulation

So you can see that in the past, we've learned the value of an effective testing cycle for medicines in general, and vaccines in specific. Though some people remain skeptical that our testing isn't even adequate enough as it is. 9/x https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/449525268529815552?lang=en

And experts continue to believe that it will take 12 to 18 months to get an effective vaccine for coronavirus. You'll see and hear stories about "breakthroughs" and "vaccine being tested!" but there aren't really shortcuts. 10/x https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-quest-18-months-fauci-experts-flag-dangers-testing-2020-4

So back to Trump - he will desperately want to have a vaccine available by the election. Desperately. If he can point to that, he'll believe he can legitimately win. However, to get a vaccine out in that timeframe means corners will be cut and testing will be inadequate. 11/x

I mean, this is a guy that still thinks that a virus is resistant to an antibiotic is worth mentioning. 12/x https://twitter.com/familyunequal/status/1248756503546400769

And he knows better than anyone else what to do. Because of his uncle from MIT or whatever. 13/x https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1248699773751685120

So he will continue to fire the high level staff at the CDC and the FDA until, say, Laura Ingraham is in charge of all of it, and she approves it. Vaccine shots are made available in the order of (1) Swing states (2) Red states (3) Blue states. 14/x

And his supporters will jump at the chance to take a vaccine that their leader says is safe. This is where they're riding that Trump Train all the way to Jonestown. 15/x

Trump will treat vaccine availability as another emolument that can help him win the election. And of course, fairly soon after people start receiving the vaccine, the cut corners will be revealed. In terms of people catching the virus or suffering horrific side effects. 16/x

And those side effects and new cases may be covered up to help him with the election. FoxNews will continue to attack the lies from the "fake news media" that reports the deaths and side effects. So, the TL/DR version of this is: 17/x

Vaccine development can't be accelerated to the point where it won't be dangerous to deploy before the election, but that won't stop Trump from doing so, because he cares only about winning, not about other Americans. You should listen to the scientists and doctors. 18/18