“It seems like they’re passing off the responsibility for controlling the outbreak to individuals and individual choices,” said Ellie Murray, an epidemiologist at Boston University. “A pandemic is more a failure of the system than the failure of individual choices.”

1/x https://twitter.com/apoorva_nyc/status/1330950876450729985

“Household gatherings would be much safer if officials put stricter limits on commercial and nonresidential activities. They are choosing not to, and then saying the fault lies with individuals.”

2/x

This article says this individual responsibility message seen now during Thanksgiving is similar to messages about college students. The experts say we are focusing on individual behavior over implementing system wide changed + addressing root social causes.

3/x

An analogy to me is climate change. Recycling and being eco-friendly helps but experts say what would really help is massive systemic changes and restrictions on businesses and government.

4/x

But again, this does not fit into American culture where we value the individual more than society and are afraid of intervening in the business world and creating systemic changes.