On the Newell Normand show this week, Newell invited back Louisiana State Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter to discuss how the messaging and views of COVID-19 are saddle with controversy.
There’s been discussion that COVID cases may rise in the colder months to come, and Newell asked Kanter, who also serves as the Louisiana Department of Health Medical Director, if the mixed messages from public health officials and political leaders have caused a sizeable chunk of the public to tune all of it out.
“In part because how contentious COVID has become or certain mitigation measures have become, in one sense the well is a little bit poisoned. It’s difficult to talk about COVID without people making a linkage to mitigation orders, lockdowns, mask mandates those sorts of things. And I think that is unfortunate because that’s not part of the conversation now. The conversation now is understanding what’s going on, where investment has to be going forward,” Kanter told Newell.
Despite the polarized nature of COVID, Kanter says the availability of COVID vaccines and other therapeutics can help the many more people who will likely be infected with the virus in the future.
Kanter believes a conversation about COVID does not have to be political when there are practical matters at hand, such as trying to maintain low COVID cases so workplaces can avoid mass amounts of people out sick.
“On one hand, we’re in a different place. On the other, it’s very much still affecting the world that we live in, and the path forward is somewhat uncertain. There are other health issues worth talking about,” Kanter told Newell Normand this week.
Dr. Kanter says he’s increasingly comparing COVID-19 to the seasonal flu.
Kanter says flu is commonly viewed as a virus that does not disrupt life in the sweeping way COVID-19 did at the peak of its impact. Kanter notes that in some years, 500 to more than 1,000 Louisianians die from the flu. He believes COVID-19 will likely be framed in the same public light as the flu.
That said, Kanter strongly believes complacency towards COVID or even the flu should be accepted. If there are possible ways to prevent loss of life, then they deserve to be discussed.
Click the link above to listen to Newell’s entire conversation with Kanter, including how the response to COVID exposed the weaknesses to the country’s ability to respond to large scale health dangers.
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