Public health is has lost its way

The rampant public moralizing & growing stigma surrounding #covid19 is shocking & ‘anti-public health’ by all pre-2020 standards.

Add failures of transparency, Comm, & equity & it’s clear there’s an even bigger global crisis unfolding..(thread)

Co-signing mandated, non-evidence-based interventions like outdoor masks & using flawed metrics (PCR w/ high Cycle threshold, for example, which does not determine infectiousness but is still used to quarantine people) erodes public health’s credibility.

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/11/13/julia-marcus-coronavirus-stigma

Not to mention that the myopic focus on C19 to the exclusion of all other public health threats, like deteriorating mental health & harm caused to children due to school closures, for example, violates the fundamental PH principle of equity.

https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/healthequity/index.htm

There’s a glaring failure to address how 2nd/3rd order effects of experimental interventions like prolonged school closures & lockdowns are counter-productive & directly impede response.

For example

closed schools —> reduced healthcare workforce —> reduced healthcare capacity

The loss of public trust, predicted by @T_Inglesby & D.A. Henderson (who eradicated smallpox) as a potential outcome of sweeping, restrictive measures like mass quarantine, has the potential for massive (current and downstream) societal impact

https://www.aier.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/10.1.1.552.1109.pdf

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2020/11/13/julia-marcus-coronavirus-stigma

And with all of this in mind, it’s not hyperbolic to say that health professionals amplifying fear and stigma of #covid19 are fundamentally violating their oath to “do no harm”.

So to the clueless politicians who think accusing people of pointing metaphorical firearms at their parents for inviting them to dinner is a really smart idea...

& to the MDs suggesting we withhold medical treatment from people who can’t or won’t comply to their satisfaction...

And to the newly famous Twitter “expert” class, some of whom misrepresent their expertise, and tweet universally unrealized panic-inducing predictions—sometimes outright lies—in the service of building their own professional clout...

You are the problem.

Your message has nothing to do with public health.

You are doing far more harm than good and a tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering is directly due to your failures.

Do better.