Epidemiologist Dr. MarkAlain Dery is candid about the fact that SARS-CoV-2 has taken a toll on him. He talks about it regularly on his podcast, The NoiseFilter Podcast, with his co-host, Doc Griggs. Both doctors speak openly about emotional stress and long work days. In the opening months of the outbreak, both Dr. Dery and Doc Griggs were pulling 14-16 hour shifts.
Also, in the early months of the pandemic, Dr. Dery noticed other countries were quicker to respond than the U.S. Dr. Dery praised South Korea for its decisive testing regimen, while lamenting that the U.S. did not have a similar, centralized response.
“And this occurred to me somewhere in June,” said Dr. Dery. “I feel like I was slow-I should have recognized it in April. But the day I realized that, ‘Oh, there is no plan,’ you know like…it was kind of the first of some emotional breakdowns that I had when I realized that um, there is no national plan to fight COVID-19.”
As a co-founder of a radio station (WHIV), Dr. Dery is encouraging other community radio stations to help the country beat the pandemic by dispelling misinformation. In mid-October, Dr. Dery gave a thorough presentation on COVID-19, including ways the government has failed to respond to this health crisis. Here are some takeaways: