Get over your pandemic fatigue!
To the Editor,
My medical school graduation thesis was on epidemiology. So naturally I’m fascinated by the unfolding global epidemiological experiment that we’re all enrolled in — involuntarily of course. In fact, many of us have become somewhat sophisticated about epidemiological data.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has tried to advise us during the pandemic. He recently highlighted how his state (as a sample population) has gone from having the highest incidence of coronavirus cases, to having nearly the lowest. His authoritarian leadership and enforcement of preventive measures (the now familiar agenda of masks, widespread testing, contact tracing etc.) is the experimental variable.
We can now easily trace the incidence of cases and deaths by state and see cause and effect by noting where preventive measures were used — or ignored or minimized. We can also get to see how Pennsylvania (where contact tracing is spotty and inadequate, and the wearing of masks is a sometimes thing) is predictably putting on a mediocre performance. As cold weather arrives, case numbers are beginning to take off again.
A more negative example is Wisconsin, with a 95% increase in cases in the last week. However, the fact that other states are suffering more than we are is not a reason to justify our shoddy performance with the excuse of “compassion fatigue.” (Also, it is not acceptable to stop brushing your teeth or taking your insulin because of “brushing or medication fatigue”!)
I know that I may cause offense by suggesting that we need better leadership. But science and data are not our enemies! Reading the following take-aways from our current national leader’s October 15 town hall failed to inspire. For example: He said that thousands of mail-in ballots were found in a garbage can; that the pandemic would have killed more than two million Americans without his intervention; and that 85% of mask wearers catch the coronavirus.
Please get over so-called “pandemic fatigue” (a.k.a. laziness and moral dysfunction). Do some jumping jacks and stop reading toxic news!
Rob Dreyfus, MD
Swarthmore
The author is a psychiatrist and advocate of a new DSM V diagnostic category: “Pandemic Ignorance Disorder.”
