Full Disclosure (slightly personal and hopeful thread):

When all of this started about 13 months ago I was scared. I heard all of the stories coming out of China and then I heard and saw what was happening Italy. Thought no way it could come here like that.

1/x

In fact I was out on U street in DC the last Saturday night it was open. One of my undergrad degrees is history so I immediately thought this is the black plague of our time or spanish flu. I was hearing CFRs of 5-10%. The world went from light to dark almost overnight.

2/x

After hearing that I hated myself for endangering my family by even going out that night. I was staying with relatives close by as my place was getting finished. I volunteered to be the one that went out, that wore the mask, that wore gloves (yes i did! ha)

3/x

and that basically was going to be the one that got sick in the household instead of anyone else. There were kids in the house and i wanted to do my best to protect them. NYC was lighting up at this time. Then the Mid Atlantic started lighting up. Again fear consumed me.

4/x

I engrossed myself in reading about virology, CFRs, IFRs, etc. I started reading about the methodology of these doomsday models (ive done predictive modeling for 12 years so I was more educated than most on them) then the end of April rolled around....

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Yes Covid is/was real but the models didnt make any sense. Marrying the textbooks I bought with the data science I knew, something just didnt add up. Slowly I started looking at the data myself. I started doing my own research which is what i always told my....

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grad students to do when i was a professor. I started pulling my own data, following every account I could, reading everything i could to make my own decision. The data was not telling me what the media was telling me. The data had patterns. The media had fear.

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At that point I personally was past fear. I started seeing the lack of efficacy for masking, the age segmentation of covid, ineffectiveness of lockdowns as Covid just traveled a natural path around the country.

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The data does not lie and we have spent a year ignoring it. I get that people do not want to believe the data that tells them it isnt as bad as you thought. It took me a month or so to believe it and i do this for a living plus im getting my MPH in epi.

9/x

If it isnt as bad as you thought then your actions didnt mean what you thought they meant. That is a massive blow to some people and i get that but it is time to let go. No one is mad at you but it is time to look at the data objectively and see we are winning....

10/x

We are getting past this. Do not be stuck in April 2020, come into April 2021 because May 2021 will be triumphant. The water is warm and you are welcome. It is time. Shake a hand, smile at someone, give someone a hug. Time to live.

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