Here it fu*kin' is. P 283 in Woodward's book, "Rage"

[mnhtnbb]

Mid March regarding the coronavirus

In private he told others of his deepest fears. "It's not to stop the spread," Redfield said, "We were now in a race. I think we all understood now we were in a race. We're in a marathon. We're in a two-year, three-year race. Not a one-year, not a six month race. The race is to slow and contain this virus as much as humanly possible, with all our efforts, till we can get a highly efficacious vaccine deployed for all the American people and then beyond that to the rest of the world."

All the talk about the virus going away or disappearing was medically false.

Redfield is Robert R. Redfield, MD, a virologist who is Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)



My professional background is in hospital administration. I have an MPH from UCLA (1975). Epidemiology was a required course in graduate school. It was natural for me to start following this thing pretty closely in March and very quickly realize that we were in this for the long haul. This section from Woodward's book that I outlined above is the first I've seen in print an admission that people in the know, in charge, understood in March that we were facing a long haul with this thing.

In April I made the decision to buy a house specifically because of my concern that for the next two or three years (funny how that matches Redfield's fear) living in a high rise apartment was not going to be the optimal place for my health and that all the reasons for being in a walkable downtown environment with proximity to entertainment, restaurants, services, wasn't going to mean anything because in order to protect my health I was not going to want to expose myself to large groups of people indoors. That is just basic public health practice to reduce the spread of communicable diseases. So, even though I had just moved last November--telling myself I intended to stay put for at least several years--I decided it would put me at less risk to be in a house. I would trade my downtown benefits for a house with a small courtyard and garden of plants, flowers, a fountain, and proximity to a walking trail. The house is under construction and I hope to move in before the end of the year. I hope I stay well until then. (I couldn't move right away without incurring a big penalty on my lease, so waiting for the house to be built seemed financially prudent, if not ideal in terms of health risk.)

I would encourage people--if you haven't already--to think about the long term for yourself and take steps to minimize your risk of contracting COVID-19.

[spanone]

1. K&R

[KewlKat]

2. When this first started I thought the only way we could get back to normal was thru a vaccine

I told my spouse we need to find a way to survive the next few years until one comes along.

Glad my thoughts are confirmed thru your excerpt.

[mnhtnbb]

3. Yes and it takes time not only to develop a vaccine

but also to run it through a large enough population in clinical trials to see whether it works and whether it has serious side effects.

It takes time.

[rzemanfl]

4. Good find. Thanks for posting. n/t

[dixiechiken1]

5. K&R

Good post. Thx!

[moondust]

6. Yeah.

I'm not optimistic about returning to "normal" very soon if ever given the global pervasiveness of the concurrent health, economic, educational, and leadership disasters. May be time to start looking at those tiny houses.