heatherbeast
Songster
Hi everyone!
I am a laboratory microbiologist at the CDC with over 14 years experience in public health and halting hospital and healthcare related infections. I am willing to field questions about the virus iteself, the different vaccines that are available and how they work, and will do my best to explain the human factor(s) involved in some of the decision-making.
As for how this has affected me personally, it's been absolutely soul-crushing to see policy clash, and ultimately steamroll science's best recommendations for combating this pandemic -- I was telling friends in May 2020 that 'it lives here now'. I also told my friends to look at what CDC was doing for its employees as the best guidance -- not what was coming from agency heads. Maximum telework for those eligible, paid administrative leave for several hours a week for people with childcare needs, daily text messaging for screening and clinical guidance related to symptoms, etc. I have had several friends, locally and across state lines, land in the ER multiple times as long-haulers. Several co-workers have had relatives die. At least one school or staff member from each of our metro area counties has died from it. A local pharmacist that I get my gentian violet from was killed by it.
People who flunked high school biology and science classes have decided they know better than people with graduate degrees in the fields related to this pandemic. It has absolutely turned my stomach to see people treating food service and retail workers so terribly, too. I hate that our society values humans so little that people have no choice BUT to go into to work to keep a roof over their head and food in their kids' mouths. I worry that the nation as a whole hasn't really learned from what it has and still is going through.
I am a laboratory microbiologist at the CDC with over 14 years experience in public health and halting hospital and healthcare related infections. I am willing to field questions about the virus iteself, the different vaccines that are available and how they work, and will do my best to explain the human factor(s) involved in some of the decision-making.
As for how this has affected me personally, it's been absolutely soul-crushing to see policy clash, and ultimately steamroll science's best recommendations for combating this pandemic -- I was telling friends in May 2020 that 'it lives here now'. I also told my friends to look at what CDC was doing for its employees as the best guidance -- not what was coming from agency heads. Maximum telework for those eligible, paid administrative leave for several hours a week for people with childcare needs, daily text messaging for screening and clinical guidance related to symptoms, etc. I have had several friends, locally and across state lines, land in the ER multiple times as long-haulers. Several co-workers have had relatives die. At least one school or staff member from each of our metro area counties has died from it. A local pharmacist that I get my gentian violet from was killed by it.
People who flunked high school biology and science classes have decided they know better than people with graduate degrees in the fields related to this pandemic. It has absolutely turned my stomach to see people treating food service and retail workers so terribly, too. I hate that our society values humans so little that people have no choice BUT to go into to work to keep a roof over their head and food in their kids' mouths. I worry that the nation as a whole hasn't really learned from what it has and still is going through.
