Mike Tarselli
“I’m anxious, tired, and hoping to soon ‘turn the corner.’ But through it all, I’m also resilient and believe in science to get us through.”
Screaming stats into the ether.
I first heard about the pandemic as my organization prepared for a global meeting on the West Coast in January. I took my last flight of 2020 in February; masks were still uncommon and hand sanitizer was scarce. By March, cases were mounting in NYC and my home city of Boston. My mother and sister-in-law are both front-line healthcare providers - they were already re-using PPE and disrobing in the garage by early April, to avoid bringing the virus home.
Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, I’ve been checking public case counts, fatality rates, hospital capacities, and scouring public infographics to test accuracy. I post daily across my social networks about comparisons to past casualties (WWI, for example), projections based on current behaviors, and trying - TRYING - to communicate clearly and objectively how masks and hand washing can help. I haven’t been in a group larger than 8 since March 13, 2020. I haven’t been to gyms, museums, libraries, or schools since February. And I miss it all. I’m anxious, tired, and hope we can “turn the corner.” But through it all, I’m also resilient - I believe in our public health officials and other countries’ success at fighting this virus. So I continue to press on - masked and distanced - to tell everyone I can about how to remain steadfast and trust in scientists to get us out of this.