A call for Compassion, Coordination, and Forgiveness

Good morning. I hope you slept well. Now, let's get to work. The phrase "Houston, we have a problem" could never be more apt. We are six months into the pandemic. It is raging in the US like we have never seen. The bad news is that the numbers in the curve we now see are spread throughout our country rather than centered in NY behind strong leadership. The good news is that we had a reluctant US leader finally put on a mask yesterday. We must take this ray of hope and seize the moment to get to work.  

This is a call for Compassion, Coordination, and Forgiveness.

We need to be Compassionate for those that we do not see that are ill or struggling, whether it be from the disease or the isolation. Both elements are real and a result of COVID. Both will persist for some time. 

We need to Coordinate our efforts at a national level. We must call on medical organizations to lead and unify the messaging, with consensus and wisdom. In this case, the medical and humanitarian organizations must lead the government. Period. No more questions. The CDC has been so crippled that they cannot do it alone. They are handcuffed by the very fact that the current administration controls their strings. We need to understand that, but still realize that there is leadership potential there in those like Faucci that we must lean on. Every single health and medical organization needs to unify with the CDC, to give them the power they need. Cut out the disparate messages. Get ourselves together. Divide up the work. And let’s get going.

And yes, we are going to have to Forgive the ones that did not head the messages and warnings from around the world. We must forgive the ones that called and continue to call this a hoax. We must forgive each Karen, not only for themselves, but for their children and grandchildren. We can dissect why there was such a need for conspiracy theories later, why it was so hard for simple and complex science to resonate, why our stamina was so short and we could not buckle down longer. 

Today, we need to start over. We can step out and feel the sunshine or feel the raindrops, feel your liberty, and yet still wear our masks and protect our families and fellow beings. We can figure out how to stem this tide.

Please use your liberty to reach out, to think, to speak, and to care for each other and get COVID-19 under control.