Folks are growing weary of dealing with the pandemic, and trying to separate information from misinformation. As we enter into year three of COVID, I thought I would be more comfortable in what I thought I knew about COVID, as opposed to those caught up in the confusion, mixed messaging, and ideological battles. I have repeatedly said that you have to make the vaccine decision for yourself and I still hold true to that, but I have to admit I'm more confused and a bit cynical of what I’m hearing from our nation’s governmental and health leaders.
A bright line for me is the Director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. A lot of people don’t like her, but one thing I find kind of refreshing is that, yes, she is the cause of some of this COVID confusion - but I think that is only because she’s willing to be more transparent. Now, why she would stay quiet when it came to fact-checking Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is factually wrong about COVID, is beyond me. Why not just set the record straight when somebody is wrong? Justice Sotomayor said there are 100,000 kids in hospitals as a result of COVID, and a significant number of ventilators. She’s just wrong! Why would we not just set the record straight, whether you're right leaning, left leaning or otherwise? People will tend to believe Sotomayor because people don't want to believe that a Supreme Court justice would make things up. Why couldn’t Dr. Walensky set the record straight for us? Keep politics out of it and help us focus on the science!
I've spent so much time educating myself about COVID-19, spending time with Louisiana State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter and other health experts talking about what’s fact and what’s fiction. And even Dr. Kanter has said for some time now that the messaging from the CDC and FDA has been lacking and causing confusion amongst the public. When the public is confused, they’re not going to be receptive to listening to the real medical experts.
Unfortunately, as it relates to this pandemic, the public has no confidence in a lot of the folks in the public health arena because they can’t take their political blinders off. If you're going to serve one master, the master has to be the science - not politics!
