Everyone gets an Opinion About Covid.

Since the hearings with Dr. Fauci, I’ve seen this meme a lot. Or some variation of it.

The idea being, if you weren’t in the midst of the suffering, if you weren’t at risk, if you weren’t worried about your own death in the first responder or hospital world, then your views on Covid, vaccinations, Dr. Fauci, public health, etc. are invalid.

I get it. I mean, I understand the sentiment. It was a very hard time for those of us working in healthcare. I remember people who were struggling to breathe and put on ventilators. I remember deaths. I remember struggling to find hospital beds, or ambulances, helicopters or even fixed-wing aircraft for these very sick human beings.

(I also remember worrying about my own family. And thinking about how creepy it was to be in grocery stores with lots of empty shelves)

I remember how people with severe, non-Covid illnesses couldn’t get the care they needed.

I even did a little telemedicine and I well recall patients logging in and simply asking for an inhaler, or their blood pressure medication because their primary care physicians wouldn’t see them in person and wouldn’t prescribe without seeing them.

I also remember the way hospital administrators went home at 5 pm, even as the struggles went on 24/7/365.

However, I think we have to be careful here. A lot of people could make the very same argument.

Some might say:

“If you didn’t have to watch your grandmother die from outside her nursing home window, then you don’t get to have an opinion about the public health efforts.”

“If you didn’t lose your job over your vaccination status, then you don’t get to have an opinion about the vaccine.”

“If you didn’t lose your home or car or business because the economy shut down, then you don’t get to have an opinion about the politics of Covid.”

“If your children didn’t lose years of educational development, lose social skills and then get crushing anxiety, then you don’t get to have an opinion about the wider impact of the lock-downs.”

Covid was a mess. And it was a mess for everyone. Among other things it was a vast transfer of wealth from poor to rich.

As a physician I can say that my colleagues did their best and really struggled. Many may never recover from what they saw. Some quite literally killed themselves.

But regular people, those outside of healthcare, they had struggles too. And maybe they’re suspicious of everything and everyone because they suffered in their own ways.

Maybe we could all just pause and remember that there was enough pain and loss to go around.

Saying this doesn’t make me anti-science or right wing. It doesn’t make me a ‘denier.’ It makes me a human being who can see outside my own experience.

Because as much as I’m proud of my own efforts and those of my colleagues, we weren’t the only ones kicked in the teeth by that damned virus and the well-meaning, but sometimes devastating, response to it.

Edwin, AKA, ER Dad.

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