CDC director: Watch your doomsday talk; we’re all teetering on a cliff!
Memo to the nation’s new CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Please carefully
consider your words; they have deep impact and can depress millions if you’re
not careful.
Although I completely understand your frustration with governors in states like Florida and Texas, who overnight eliminated all COVID limits, leading to skyrocketing cases in those states, you have to be careful of what you say and how you say it, because your comments on Monday depressed millions of us.
It wasn’t at all constructive to describe a “recurring feeling . . . of impending doom” due to a rise in COVID cases across the nation. That comment was way too negative given how many of us are either partially or fully vaccinated.
And, such comments give credence to those of us who believe that far too many health experts --- no matter how well-meaning --- fail to understand just how deeply millions of Americans who never had to battle mental health or isolation/depression issues, have been vulnerable to them since the start of the pandemic.
Telling them that we’re near “impending doom” does only one thing: It puts even those of us who like your scientific approach to this pandemic over the edge!
Your doomsday talk also reminded me of the kids’ show of several years ago on PBS, in which a feature included a guy “hanging on to a cliff” and he never makes it off that cliff, no matter how often he tries. "Cliff hanger, he's hanging on to a cliff," went the show's jingle. (For the record, I believe it was a segment of the show that featured the reading Lions in the New York City Library.)
You must have realized how awful those Monday comments sounded to a people beaten down by this damned pandemic for more than 13 months now, because on Tuesday you told reporters while touring the new mass vaccination site at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston that there is “reason for hope,” even while you again rightfully cautioned Americans to take steps to protect themselves against the virus until we’re all out of the woods.
That approach was much more constructive and pulled many of us off the edge of the metaphorical cliff that we’re all far too near of jumping off of.
Better that you tell us to concentrate on getting vaccinated ---- I had finally had my first shot at a CVS on March 13 and will be getting my second shot this Saturday, April 3.
And today (Tuesday, March 30), I helped a friend who needed assistance get his first shot at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro and will be returning with him at the end of April for his second shot.
Those are the kinds of positive things that we can all do to help end this damned pandemic sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, wear your masks, use your hand sanitizer, wash your hands and maintain social distancing for those people not in your “COVID orbit.”
And say a few prayers that those idiotic governors in Florida and Texas wake up and stop endangering the rest of the country’s chances of ending this pandemic one day by opening up everything way too soon.
Although I completely understand your frustration with governors in states like Florida and Texas, who overnight eliminated all COVID limits, leading to skyrocketing cases in those states, you have to be careful of what you say and how you say it, because your comments on Monday depressed millions of us.
It wasn’t at all constructive to describe a “recurring feeling . . . of impending doom” due to a rise in COVID cases across the nation. That comment was way too negative given how many of us are either partially or fully vaccinated.
And, such comments give credence to those of us who believe that far too many health experts --- no matter how well-meaning --- fail to understand just how deeply millions of Americans who never had to battle mental health or isolation/depression issues, have been vulnerable to them since the start of the pandemic.
Telling them that we’re near “impending doom” does only one thing: It puts even those of us who like your scientific approach to this pandemic over the edge!
Your doomsday talk also reminded me of the kids’ show of several years ago on PBS, in which a feature included a guy “hanging on to a cliff” and he never makes it off that cliff, no matter how often he tries. "Cliff hanger, he's hanging on to a cliff," went the show's jingle. (For the record, I believe it was a segment of the show that featured the reading Lions in the New York City Library.)
You must have realized how awful those Monday comments sounded to a people beaten down by this damned pandemic for more than 13 months now, because on Tuesday you told reporters while touring the new mass vaccination site at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston that there is “reason for hope,” even while you again rightfully cautioned Americans to take steps to protect themselves against the virus until we’re all out of the woods.
That approach was much more constructive and pulled many of us off the edge of the metaphorical cliff that we’re all far too near of jumping off of.
Better that you tell us to concentrate on getting vaccinated ---- I had finally had my first shot at a CVS on March 13 and will be getting my second shot this Saturday, April 3.
And today (Tuesday, March 30), I helped a friend who needed assistance get his first shot at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro and will be returning with him at the end of April for his second shot.
Those are the kinds of positive things that we can all do to help end this damned pandemic sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, wear your masks, use your hand sanitizer, wash your hands and maintain social distancing for those people not in your “COVID orbit.”
And say a few prayers that those idiotic governors in Florida and Texas wake up and stop endangering the rest of the country’s chances of ending this pandemic one day by opening up everything way too soon.
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