Jay Bhattacharya and Jeffrey Tucker were some of the first people I reached out to when I when I felt completely alone, helpless, and despondent. This feels like a turning point.
Jay was the keynote speaker at our first Free Speech in Medicine conference in 2022. We offered to pay him for his services, but he refused to take one red cent. I've never met such a principled human being. The fact that he is also a brilliant scientist--and just a really, really nice guy--makes it even more amazing that he has come out on top. What happened during the pandemic--to the elderly, to the poor, to children and teens, to small business people--to all of us in one way or another, can only be described as evil.....and Jay is one of the few public health "experts" who stood his ground, kept his head, and never gave in to that evil. A true American hero.
As Medical Director of 4 nursing homes in South Carolina for several years, there has been nothing in my experience as frustrating and senseless as what we put up with during the COVID lockdown. You are absolutely correct regarding the isolation experienced by residents - unable to see our faces, unable to hear what we were saying, unable to have meals and socialize with the other residents.
I found ways around this, as did most of the nurses and CNAs, pulling down our masks so the residents could hear and see what we were saying, letting them come into the hallways so they could see and interact a little bit with others. These were subversive actions to some who were taking all their cues from "above" - from CMS, CDC, corporate administrators, etc who had no idea of what was happening on the ground. So it was heartening to hear doctors like Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad and others advocating for more common sense and evidence-based approaches
They have continued to advocate for needing corrections to our healthcare system. Glad to see they will be getting a chance to affect positive change, and maybe bring back more trust of the medical & public health professions again.
It was stacks like this and team reality on Twitter that saved my sanity during Covid. I'm a geriatric nurse practitioner in nursing homes and I've seen such sadism as I did during Covid. I'll never forgive 'them' and am so thrilled for Dr. Jay.
Reading your essay reawakened many emotions I felt while working in LTC during the pandemic. I didn’t realize how extensively I’d compartmentalized the memories. I really think a lot of us have PTSD from what we lived through.
But enough of thinking personally about this. I too signed the Great Barrington Declaration. At the time I thought yes-yes-yes there is hope that someday people might realize what was happening and rise up against it.
The nomination of Dr Bhattacharya to lead NIH gives me great hope for policy change so that the inhumanity demonstrated during Covid will never be repeated. I’m so happy for him and feel all of us are truly blessed he agreed to accept the nomination.
Oh what a great column Gerodoc! So sad and preventable the harms inflicted on nursing home patients. Some of the perps should pay ... but they won't. Nevertheless I share your optimism about Jay and the other Trump cabinet picks.
Jay was the keynote speaker at our first Free Speech in Medicine conference in 2022. We offered to pay him for his services, but he refused to take one red cent. I've never met such a principled human being. The fact that he is also a brilliant scientist--and just a really, really nice guy--makes it even more amazing that he has come out on top. What happened during the pandemic--to the elderly, to the poor, to children and teens, to small business people--to all of us in one way or another, can only be described as evil.....and Jay is one of the few public health "experts" who stood his ground, kept his head, and never gave in to that evil. A true American hero.
As Medical Director of 4 nursing homes in South Carolina for several years, there has been nothing in my experience as frustrating and senseless as what we put up with during the COVID lockdown. You are absolutely correct regarding the isolation experienced by residents - unable to see our faces, unable to hear what we were saying, unable to have meals and socialize with the other residents.
I found ways around this, as did most of the nurses and CNAs, pulling down our masks so the residents could hear and see what we were saying, letting them come into the hallways so they could see and interact a little bit with others. These were subversive actions to some who were taking all their cues from "above" - from CMS, CDC, corporate administrators, etc who had no idea of what was happening on the ground. So it was heartening to hear doctors like Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Makary, Vinay Prasad and others advocating for more common sense and evidence-based approaches
They have continued to advocate for needing corrections to our healthcare system. Glad to see they will be getting a chance to affect positive change, and maybe bring back more trust of the medical & public health professions again.
🥹
It was stacks like this and team reality on Twitter that saved my sanity during Covid. I'm a geriatric nurse practitioner in nursing homes and I've seen such sadism as I did during Covid. I'll never forgive 'them' and am so thrilled for Dr. Jay.
Reading your essay reawakened many emotions I felt while working in LTC during the pandemic. I didn’t realize how extensively I’d compartmentalized the memories. I really think a lot of us have PTSD from what we lived through.
But enough of thinking personally about this. I too signed the Great Barrington Declaration. At the time I thought yes-yes-yes there is hope that someday people might realize what was happening and rise up against it.
The nomination of Dr Bhattacharya to lead NIH gives me great hope for policy change so that the inhumanity demonstrated during Covid will never be repeated. I’m so happy for him and feel all of us are truly blessed he agreed to accept the nomination.
Oh what a great column Gerodoc! So sad and preventable the harms inflicted on nursing home patients. Some of the perps should pay ... but they won't. Nevertheless I share your optimism about Jay and the other Trump cabinet picks.
I hope so, Doc. Dr. Jay really is a very nice human being. Kind, resolute, principled, with just the right soupçon of snark.