I wanted to share a wide-ranging interview between myself and Harry Siegel of The Daily Beast, which is about where we are today as a nation with Covid-19, and how we came to be here. In it I discuss the growing threat surrounding the Delta variant and the varying risks we face as vaccinated – or unvaccinated – individuals. I also breakdown the new CDC guidance, communication failures, and the role that Donald Trump has played in undermining public credibility in science.
See below for a quick excerpt, or check out the full interview for a deeper look at my thoughts on a range of questions surrounding the pandemic today.
“What do you say to people who see the new masking call and CDC guidance more generally as a politicized form of social control, and who fear that the government is creating precedents for expanding its reach into people’s private lives as it did after 9/11?
Get over it, and get over it fast. We have a deadly crisis on our hands that’s already killed over 610,000 Americans. You've got to get over it. Think about the rest of your life and the things that the government says you can and can’t do. You can’t run naked down the street. You can’t send your children to school if they haven’t been vaccinated. You can’t drive without a driver’s license, or insurance. You can’t drive drunk. There are thousands of things that you can't do just because you feel like it.
We are dealing with a life-and-death crisis and it’s intolerable that people are fabricating these fears. We already have control over behaviors of individuals that threaten the lives or well-being of other individuals. You want to go skydiving? Fine. That’s your risk. You want to do freestyle rock climbing? Go for it. But there are things that you are prohibited from doing in society, because your decision can harm someone else. And to me that’s the cut-off.
You can’t refute the obligation of government to be looking after the good of society. That’s why they’re here. I've thoroughly lost patience with this. I find it so politicized, so crazy, that it’s hard to know what to say other than stand down, let this country take care of this crisis. And don’t bring these spurious arguments about personal freedom and slippery slopes and government overreach. That’s not OK.”
As always, please let me know if you have any comments or questions by tweeting me at @IrwinRedlenerMD.
