This is great, but we need more people. It might be worth gently reminding people that it only takes a few minutes to set up a Twitter account.
We have some big Twitter influencers who have signaled they are on our side but haven’t yet used our hashtags. They should be our primary targets to get involved:
The key is that everyone tweet out unique content and commentary. So, post your own, original tweets and then comment on other people’s tweets. Twitter’s algorithms are pretty smart. Simply copy/pasting or retweeting stuff isn’t going to work. Everyone should seek to provide their own angle / frame on the issue. We can almost consider it like an evolutionary experiment to see which frames go the most viral. Here are some ideas, building off the list the OP provided:
Britain has already distributed N AstraZeneca vaccines with x affect. (ie show the very clear graphs and stats on drops in deaths and cases)
People should be free to take medicines to protect themselves (ie provide a libertarian and/or utilitarian argument for Free to Choose medicine / bodily autonomy, etc).
A rapidly evolving crisis requires ability to take decisive actions. FDA is not equipped to make such actions—so we need Biden to step in and longer term reforms so the FDA can take swift action in emergencies .
FDA doesn’t allow companies to pre-distribute before EUA. So it’s not surprising distribution has been painfully slow even though millions of Pfizer and Moderna doses were manufactured prior to EUA!
Data shows fractional Moderna doses are just as effective (see a number of MR posts on this such as https://marginalrevolution.com/.../how-to-double-the...) But FDA won’t allow it and needs a lengthly process to be undertaken to get it approved.
#InvisibleGraveyard frame—picture of a graveyard and estimated stats about lives loss due to FDA delay.
Emphasize AZ likely to prevent death and hospitalization for the SA strain (provide quotes / limited data from trial).
Emphasize lower cost and no need for “deep freeze” ultra-low temp refrigeration for AZ.
Talk about the Novavax vaccine, which looks really great against the SA variant (see data table here: https://twitter.com/MonicaGandhi9/status/1360002608891527171/photo/1 ). We need more discussion / analysis of Novavax. The interim Phase III data looks really good and if it was approved for emergency use right now many lives could be saved. It’s a small company though so we need to investigate the manufacturing side (seems to be scant info on that), which might be the larger bottleneck.
The “one day sooner” frame.
Compelling personal stories about how people have been affected by FDA delay. For instance:
My loved one died waiting to get a vaccine.
My grandfather/ grandmother has been struggling for weeks to obtain a vaccine. AZ would be a literal life saver.
Stories about job loss… the sooner pandemic ends the sooner I can get back to work and pay my bills etc etc.
Finally, we will have about 4 high quality graphics done by a professional graphic designer and 4 lower quality graphics prepared (photos of experts with quotes). So far we have released 2, which you may have see floating around. We’re still figuring out the best way to release these graphics for maximal impact. We have a coordination discord here although it’s not really being used much : https://discord.gg/xHutNv8e
Hashtags we will focus on are #UnclogTheFDA and #ApproveAstraZeneca. I like #InvisibleGraveyard also and of course we are open to other ideas. Based on what I read, the simpler the hashtag, the better. It appears one word / singular noun type things trend the most. We might all want to mention keyword “FDA” in all our tweets also so maybe “FDA” will go trending.
Here’s some updates on this:
We have two Facebook event pages created for this:
https://www.facebook.com/events/208338324360886 (35 RSVPs)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1028113637697900 (18 RSVPs)
This is great, but we need more people. It might be worth gently reminding people that it only takes a few minutes to set up a Twitter account.
We have some big Twitter influencers who have signaled they are on our side but haven’t yet used our hashtags. They should be our primary targets to get involved:
Matthew Yglesias − 498k followers - ( https://twitter.com/mattyglesias ) (see https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1360578252172128260 https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1356935647580327937 )
Nate Silver − 3.6 M followers ( https://twitter.com/NateSilver538 ) - retweeted Matt Yglesias’s tweet and agreed J&J approval is too slow
Conor Friedersdorf − 74.8k followers (https://twitter.com/conor64 ) - staff writer at The Atlantic, many tweets on approving AZ
Alex Tabarrok − 44.4k followers ( https://twitter.com/ATabarrok )
Robert Zubrin − 13k followers ( https://twitter.com/robert_zubrin ) (see https://twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/1359712941902299136?s=20 etc)
I have compiled a more complete list of Twitter accounts that are verified on our side (at least for #ApproveAstraZeneca) here:
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1356638243588956163
The key is that everyone tweet out unique content and commentary. So, post your own, original tweets and then comment on other people’s tweets. Twitter’s algorithms are pretty smart. Simply copy/pasting or retweeting stuff isn’t going to work. Everyone should seek to provide their own angle / frame on the issue. We can almost consider it like an evolutionary experiment to see which frames go the most viral. Here are some ideas, building off the list the OP provided:
Britain has already distributed N AstraZeneca vaccines with x affect. (ie show the very clear graphs and stats on drops in deaths and cases)
People should be free to take medicines to protect themselves (ie provide a libertarian and/or utilitarian argument for Free to Choose medicine / bodily autonomy, etc).
A rapidly evolving crisis requires ability to take decisive actions. FDA is not equipped to make such actions—so we need Biden to step in and longer term reforms so the FDA can take swift action in emergencies .
Oregon just legalized all hard drugs. Can the FDA legalize the AstraZeneca vaccine? (great thing to target at Libertarians. See this very popular tweet https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1357517719852232705)
FDA doesn’t allow companies to pre-distribute before EUA. So it’s not surprising distribution has been painfully slow even though millions of Pfizer and Moderna doses were manufactured prior to EUA!
FDA should “measure time in lives lost” (see this tweet : https://twitter.com/sociologyWV/status/1356602925355855873 ). Ie “—the FDA scheduled the meeting to finalize J&J approval just 66,000 deaths from now.”
The fiasco with FDA not approving at-home COVID19 tests. For latest see https://thehill.com/.../538349-biden-raises-hopes-for-new… (Innova is shipping tests overseas because FDA won’t approve them. UK has approved the Innova at-home test, it seems: https://bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4950)
Data shows fractional Moderna doses are just as effective (see a number of MR posts on this such as https://marginalrevolution.com/.../how-to-double-the...) But FDA won’t allow it and needs a lengthly process to be undertaken to get it approved.
#InvisibleGraveyard frame—picture of a graveyard and estimated stats about lives loss due to FDA delay.
Emphasize AZ likely to prevent death and hospitalization for the SA strain (provide quotes / limited data from trial).
Emphasize lower cost and no need for “deep freeze” ultra-low temp refrigeration for AZ.
Talk about the Novavax vaccine, which looks really great against the SA variant (see data table here: https://twitter.com/MonicaGandhi9/status/1360002608891527171/photo/1 ). We need more discussion / analysis of Novavax. The interim Phase III data looks really good and if it was approved for emergency use right now many lives could be saved. It’s a small company though so we need to investigate the manufacturing side (seems to be scant info on that), which might be the larger bottleneck.
The “one day sooner” frame.
Compelling personal stories about how people have been affected by FDA delay. For instance:
My loved one died waiting to get a vaccine.
My grandfather/ grandmother has been struggling for weeks to obtain a vaccine. AZ would be a literal life saver.
Stories about job loss… the sooner pandemic ends the sooner I can get back to work and pay my bills etc etc.
Finally, we will have about 4 high quality graphics done by a professional graphic designer and 4 lower quality graphics prepared (photos of experts with quotes). So far we have released 2, which you may have see floating around. We’re still figuring out the best way to release these graphics for maximal impact. We have a coordination discord here although it’s not really being used much : https://discord.gg/xHutNv8e
Hashtags we will focus on are #UnclogTheFDA and #ApproveAstraZeneca. I like #InvisibleGraveyard also and of course we are open to other ideas. Based on what I read, the simpler the hashtag, the better. It appears one word / singular noun type things trend the most. We might all want to mention keyword “FDA” in all our tweets also so maybe “FDA” will go trending.