Coronavirus briefing anxiety disorder - It's a thing

As we all adjust to our new daily norm, I'm wondering if I'm the only one suffering from 'coronavirus daily briefing anxiety disorder'.

What's that, you ask?

I'll gladly explain.

In short, it's that overwhelming feeling you get following a coronavirus briefing that leaves you 'scratching your head'.

Each day we wake up to the hope that there's some glimmer of good news to hang on to.  We look for some piece of news to clutch that will get us through another day of coronavirus quarantine.

But three times a day, our lives are disrupted with the daily stream of information, perspective, guidance and even predictions in the form of daily briefings.

Governor Andrew Cuomo kicks things off with his midday New York State briefing that has quickly become the national standard in briefings.  Bolstered by the unfortunate fact that his state is 'ground zero' for the coronavirus pandemic, Cuomo has turned the daily briefings he hosts into not only an informational update, but an inspirational and sometime emotional message as well.

"What we are doing is actually working", he said Wednesday in talking about social distancing and an indication that we may be 'flattening the curve'.  That hopeful message was quickly dampened by the troubling fact that we just experienced the biggest single-day death toll from the virus.

It's like taking one step forward and two steps back.

The state briefing is followed in the afternoon by the much more stern Erie County briefing in which Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz updates the rising number of cases and deaths in the county.  The daily information also comes with a daily dose of direct warnings to the public to comply with social distancing or face potential fines.  Warnings to businesses to not try to sneak around the rules and put the community at risk.

Are you stressed out enough yet?

But wait, there's more.

We round out the day with the daily White House Task Force briefing, led by President Donald Trump and backed-up by Vice President Mike Pence and the medical team of Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

President Trump speaks as a 'cheerleader' and teases us with promises to reopen the economy.  The doctors usually follow with more realistic numbers and cautions to not end social distancing or reopen businesses too soon.  It could backfire, they say, and make a recurrence even worse.

The White House briefing is disjointed and often times interrupted by thanking various businesses and even bringing the CEO's to the podium to say a few words.

That White House briefing, by the way, generally lasts between two and three hours.

Too much information for the public to digest, in my opinion, and I think it's the source of a great deal of anxiety.

We're all anxious enough.  We're all on edge.  And my free advice and request to the 'briefers in chief' is to stick to the facts, keep the public's attention span in mind and offer guidance, not reprimand.

'Coronavirus briefing anxiety'.

It's a thing.

#POLL - Which #coronavirus briefings are you following most closely?