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#15,108
Yesterday, after getting up at 3am and spending the next 6 hours reviewing the news and posting a couple of blogs - I did something I haven't done since we first learned of an unidentified pneumonia emerging from China in late December - I took a mental health half-day off.
Between being glued to the news every waking hour, reading as many studies on COVID-19 that I can, corresponding with others (thank you one and all), and writing roughly 500 blogs over the past 11 weeks, I needed it.I visited my best friend and Flu Buddy - an RN who lives 40 miles away - and helped her put together some shelving units for her garage. An hour or two of badly needed normalcy and human contact in a world where both are rapidly becoming scarce commodities.
Did we talk about the pandemic? Of course. We've been doing that for 14 years. But it was a break for both of us, to do something completely ordinary in these extraordinary times.Nine days ago, in COVID-19: Adjustment Reactions, Internal Resets, and Denialism, for the first time I wrote about some of my own reactions, anxieties, and yes - doubts - over the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic threat, which for those of us in Flublogia, started in the first week of January.
A 2005 essay by my two favorite risk communicators - Peter Sandman & Jody Lanard - called Adjustment Reactions: The Teachable Moment in Crisis Communication, had reminded me that a little bit of `over-reaction' was not only understandable, it was a natural, healthy, and useful survival skill.I'm glad to report that this dynamic duo of common sense are back with a new essay, one which can not only help us understand the way we are feeling, but give us a better appreciation of what others - many of whom may still be behind the acceptance curve - are going through as well.
Today will undoubtedly bring a fresh barrage of disturbing news, alarming predictions, and conflicting opinions about this pandemic threat. Do yourself a favor. Turn off the news for a few minutes.
Take a deep breath, and then read Strange COVID-19 Bedfellows: Gnawing Anxiety and Under-Reaction by Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard.
You can read the original essay on the Peter Sandman Website
Or this slightly edited version published last night by CIDRAP.
Either way, it will probably be the most important thing you read (and possibly do) all day.
