Is it a case of “Yes, we can’t?” The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, submitted a tweet on December 30 that read, “We cannot prevent the spread of #COVID19,” as you can see here:
He went on to say, “But pre-departure verification and the requirement to show a negative verification result on a flight from China to the U. S. “The U. S. may slow the spread as we try to identify and detect potential new variants. “His tweet then included a link to the CDC’s “Amended Order: Implementation of the Presidential Proclamation on the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During the COVID-19 Pandemic. “
This tweet didn’t exactly get a “Yes, we can’t” reaction from everyone on Twitter. For example, Lucky Tran, PhD, a March for Science organizer and science communicator at Columbia University, couldn’t hide his considerations about two of the things Walensky had said in his tweet:
Tran tweeted to Walensky: “You can seamlessly mitigate the spread of COVID and make it safer for all travelers by reinstating the mask mandate for public transportation. “He added: “Instead, it is opting for a useless policy that will only lead to more xenophobia and hate attacks against Asians in the United States. “Katie Mack, PhD, a theoretical astrophysicist who lately holds the Hawking Chair of Cosmology and Scientific Communication at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, then presented not one, not two, still 3 hundred percent in reaction to the Tran reaction.
Meanwhile, Shikha Jain MD, FACP, an associate professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Illinois Cancer Center at Chicago, wondered why this new testing requirement is limited to those arriving from China when severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is actively spreading in many parts of the world:
As you can see, Jain indicated that “as long as there is no mask order, everyone should show evidence of a negative COVID control before flying. “
Of course, a face mask isn’t the only intervention that can help you prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2. For example, Irene Tosetti, MD MBA MPH, spoke not only about the N95 mask but also about air purification:
From Twitter
Don’t forget the total style of Swiss cheese that Ian M. Mackay, PhD, scientist and adjunct associate professor at the University of Queensland, has complex in 2020?This style was not made from genuine Swiss cheese (which would have been delicious), but it was a metaphor for the fact that no intervention will be enough to combat the pandemic. Every policy and intervention has its holes. And, in this case, as in general, it is a smart concept to plug your holes. This can be done by combining or overlapping other policies and interventions over the most sensitive ones. This means greater coordination of elements such as testing, surveillance, vaccination, use of masks, air filtration and purification and treatment.
Several Twitter users felt that “We can’t prevent the spread” wasn’t exactly the right language to use, especially amid the triple Covid-19 pandemic, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections that are occurring in the U. S. U. S. at this time. For example, @DailyJLee described it as “talking about loser” in the following tweet:
From Twitter
Yes, saying “We can’t prevent our opponents” wouldn’t be smart speech in the locker room at halftime of a football game. Perhaps Walensky meant something like “Can’t we eliminate covid-19 completely?
The question, however, is why even start such a tweet with a “We can’t”?What will he achieve, assuming the plan is rarely just about giving up on seeking to save him from Covid-19?As is the case with the last mile of a marathon or the last quarter of a basketball game, what is needed are words of motivation to help everyone stay motivated. The “we can’t” type can be misinterpreted seamlessly as a matrix of “why bother?”Regardless of the original intention. The Covid-19 pandemic is not in fact over. Even so, many other people seem to have finished doing anything about it. And such approaches would likely not help triumph over the last component of the pandemic.
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