Q&A: NIAID’s Jeanne Marrazzo speaks on bird flu, mpox, and succeeding Anthony Fauci
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An interview with the director of the NIAID, Jeanne Marrazzo, on bird flu, mpox, the post-Fauci era and more.

Jeanne Marrazzo, new leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, everyone:

Can I make a quick digression? We recently had a long Covid [research] meeting where we had about 200 people, in person. And we can’t mandate mask-wearing, because it’s federal property. But there was a fair amount of disturbance that we couldn’t, and people weren’t wearing masks, and one person accused us of committing a microaggression by not wearing masks.

And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.

So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.

Edit - thanks for the help in bypassing the paywall.

  • iridaniotter [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I'm pretty sure it's not that wearing masks is traumatic per se. It's that experiencing the pandemic - a deadly years long event where the government did nothing to help people - was traumatic, and the response these people are having to their trauma is to try to ignore it as best as possible. Which means not masking, and freaking out when people mask. We're so cooked.

      • iridaniotter [she/her]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Ok I know that & basically said it anyway. Unfortunately all the people outside the CDC freaking out about masks are not the government