New top story from Time: In a Break with Washington’s Usual Posture, the CDC Director Makes an Emotional Plea

https://ift.tt/39vQIX0

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that the leaders who guide this country through its toughest moments aren’t steely caricatures. We take comfort in the hardened hagiography of FDR responding to Pearl Harbor, Ronald Reagan’s reflection on the Challenger’s crew that “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God,” or George W. Bush’s return to the White House after a harrowing day of cat-and-mouse on Sept. 11, 2001.

So it was a bit of a jolt when Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, experienced an emotional hiccup at a press briefing yesterday when she warned the public that COVID-19 still presents a real danger. We are approaching 10 weeks of Joe Biden’s team laying out facts and science to the public about the COVID-19 pandemic and his Administration’s response. Biden will occasionally comment on the situation, but unlike his predecessor, Biden knows his training is in law and senatorial politics, not virology or public health. Biden doesn’t need the spotlight the way Donald Trump did and does, and his team’s regular updates have been crucial in spreading information.

But Walensky took about a minute of personal privilege to break from the charts and studies to offer up a warning. The former head of infectious diseases at Mass General and one of the country’s best experts on HIV/AIDS, Walensky understands both personally and professionally what everyone around her is going through more than a year into the pandemic. And she’s not exempt from the emotional toll, either. When she made her first comments after Biden appointed her, she showed a spot of emotion. When she got her vaccine, the same, as Vogue noted in its excellent profile of the former Harvard professor.

But it was her impromptu remarks yesterday that sent the warning like a rocket around Washington.

“I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” Walensky said. “We have so much to look forward to. So much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared.”

For one of the most powerful doctors in the world to say such a chilling truth should leave us all thinking twice about if that trip to the corner store can’t wait. The U.S. is seeing an uptick in new cases, up 14% over the last two weeks. We’re still in far better shape than we were right after the December holidays. But news of a raft of vaccines is giving Americans a potentially false sense that we’ve rounded the bend, according to Walensky.

It was the way she said it that made her warning especially stark. “Doom” is one of those words with clear emotional connotation. It’s a corresponding emotion to how we scroll through terrible news on our phones right now. It’s only a degree between doomed and damned. And here was one of the smartest people working on coronavirus telling us doom is at our door.

“I’m speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director, and not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer,” she said. “I so badly want to be done, I know you all so badly want to be done, we’re just almost there. But not quite yet. And so, I’m asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends.”

In a turn that few Americans can deploy with such effect, Walensky spoke of her own commute to Mass General. “I know what it’s like to pull up to your hospital every day and see the extra morgue sitting outside,” she said.

I will leave it to others to address how vulnerability is seen as strength when men find it and as weakness when women show it. Right-wing media are accusing Walensky of hyping fear and misstating science, but perhaps this is a moment when we should be celebrating the fact that at least the CDC head isn’t being subjected to the sexist attacks that have dogged female experts for decades.

The warning came as plainly as it could have. Doom is at the doorstep and it’s on us to keep it from coming inside. The fact the voice rendering the warning belonged to a woman, or carried emotion, does not change the velocity with which this pandemic could be ricocheting around our communities again. The fact temporary morgues have parking permits at hospitals alone should be sufficient.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

Comments

New top story from Time: All 53 People Aboard Indonesia Submarine Declared Dead After Vessel’s Wreckage Found

https://ift.tt/3ezrzg5 ANYUWANGI, Indonesia — Indonesia’s military on Sunday officially said all 53 crew members from a submarine that sank and broke apart last week are dead, and that search teams had located the vessel’s wreckage on the ocean floor. The grim announcement comes a day after Indonesia said the submarine was considered sunk, not merely missing , but did not explicitly say whether the crew was dead. Officials had also said the KRI Nanggala 402’s oxygen supply would have run out early Saturday, three days after vessel went missing off the resort island of Bali. “We received underwater pictures that are confirmed as the parts of the submarine, including its rear vertical rudder, anchors, outer pressure body, embossed dive rudder and other ship parts,” military chief Hadi Tjahjanto told reporters in Bali on Sunday. “With this authentic evidence, we can declare that KRI Nanggala 402 has sunk and all the crew members are dead,” Tjahjanto said. An underwater ro...

New top story from Time: R. Kelly Found Guilty in Sex Trafficking Trial

https://ift.tt/3kMSmKc (NEW YORK) — The R&B superstar R. Kelly was convicted Monday in a sex trafficking trial after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children. A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly guilty of racketeering on their second day of deliberations. The charges were based on an argument that the entourage of managers and aides who helped the singer meet girls—and keep them obedient and quiet—amounted to a criminal enterprise. Read more: A Full Timeline of Sexual Abuse Allegations Against R. Kelly [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Several accusers testified in lurid detail during the trial, alleging that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage. For years, the public and news media seemed to be more amused than horrified by allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors, starting with Kelly’s illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliya...

New top story from Time: Why It’s Crucial to Talk to Kids About Gender Pronouns

https://ift.tt/3fKr8kO It’s only been a week since Katherine Locke’s newest book was published, and they’ve already received messages from parents of trans and nonbinary children saying how much it spoke to them. The book, What Are Your Words? , tells the story of a kid named Ari, who is gender fluid and nonbinary and tries out different pronouns depending on how they feel on different days. Aimed at readers aged 4 to 8, the book follows Ari and his nonbinary uncle Lior as they try to figure out what words fit them. “I certainly didn’t grow up talking about pronouns that weren’t she/her, he/him, and I didn’t know how to have these conversations either,” says Locke, who released their first picture book last November and has previously written novels for young adults and adults. “It’s been really gratifying to see people embrace the book and its concepts.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] With colorful illustrations by Anne Passchier, the book emphasizes that pronouns are...

New top story from Time: As Myanmar’s Junta Intensifies Its Crackdown, Pro-Democracy Protesters Prepare for Civil War

https://ift.tt/3cUWeEQ Before the Feb. 1 coup, Zarni Win* worked for a United Nations-funded committee that monitored a ceasefire between Myanmar’s junta and ethnic armed groups. Today, the 27-year-old from Yangon, the country’s largest city, is getting ready to enlist in one of those groups herself. “Now is the time to start preparing to eliminate the terrorist military,” she tells TIME. “I am ready to join the armed revolution.” Myanmar is veering dangerously toward all-out civil war as the military, known as the Tatmadaw, terrorizes the public , and attacks restive ethnic territories. The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, warned on Mar. 31 that “a bloodbath is imminent.” In an online presentation cited by the Associated Press, she said civil war “at an unprecedented scale” was a possibility and spoke of Myanmar’s deterioration into a “failed state.” Protesters in Myanmar have maintained a largely peaceful resistance to dictatorship since ...

New top story from Time: RushTok Is a Mesmerizing Viral Trend. It Also Amplifies Sororities’ Problems With Racism

https://ift.tt/3iZ1hHp While what goes into the curation of every TikTok user’s For You page remains a mystery , one thing has become clear—content from University of Alabama students vying for a spot at the school’s sororities has dominated the app over the last week. This trend, dubbed “RushTok” by TikTok netizens, started when sorority hopefuls began making videos of themselves and what they were wearing for “Bama Rush,” University of Alabama’s Greek recruitment week. The formula for a RushTok video is simple yet mesmerizing: state the rush day and the activity, and then name the brand of every item of clothing and accessory you’re sporting. Typical Bama Rush TikTok videos share common characteristics, including a bevy of blondes with Southern accents, hashtags of the school’s call, “Roll Tide,” and a widespread affinity for brands like Michael Kors, Shein, Steve Madden and Kendra Scott. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the vide...

MTA Board of Directors Welcomes Lydia So

MTA Board of Directors Welcomes Lydia So By Stephen Chun Lydia So, a championed public servant, advocate for the AAPI community and an accomplished urban planner, designer and architect, has joined the SFMTA’s Board of Directors. She was appointed in June 2023 and sworn in by Mayor London Breed on Aug. 23, 2023, at Central Subway’s Chinatown Rose Pak Station, in line with her personal connection with the Chinatown community. So was born in Hong Kong and is fluent in Chinese (Cantonese). She is the founder of the architecture firm SOLYD Architecture, Management and Design. She is a former Historic Preservation Commissioner for the San Francisco Planning Department where she voted in favor of the Potrero Yard Modernization Project that is expected to bring hundreds of housing units to our city while maintaining the functions of the SFMTA. She was the first Chinese American Historic Preservation Commissioner, implemented the Planning Department’s Racial and Social Equity po...

New top story from Time: In New Zealand, ‘Hello’ Has Become ‘Kia Ora.’ Will That Save the Māori Language?

https://ift.tt/2LMKZ6a Kenny Williams began to study the Māori language during his second COVID-19 lockdown . Williams, 36, lives alone and the isolation made him yearn to feel closer to his identity as an indigenous New Zealander—an identity he had spent most of his childhood trying to hide. After he ordered some Māori language books, he found his studies helped him build a connection to his Māori history. “I didn’t know it was a gap that was missing in my life,” he says. It’s not just lockdown isolation—New Zealanders of all stripes are signing up to learn the language of the Māori people, New Zealand’s original inhabitants—“te reo Māori,” as it is widely called. But COVID-19 may have provided a boost: One university reported that 7,000 people accessed a free online Māori language and culture course in a 10-day period during lockdown. The New Zealand government has pledged to ensure 1 million residents are able to speak basic Māori by 2040—an effort to revive a langu...

New top story from Time: Hurricane Ida Winds Hit 150 MPH Ahead of Louisiana Strike

https://ift.tt/3jmdoyl NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida rapidly grew in strength early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane just hours before hitting the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. As Ida moved through some of the warmest ocean water in the world in the northern Gulf of Mexico, its top winds grew by 45 mph (72 kph) to 150 mph (230 kph) in five hours. The system was expected to make landfall Sunday afternoon, set to arrive on the exact date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The hurricane center said Ida is forecast to hit at 155 mph (250 kph), just 1 mph shy of a Category 5 hurricane. Only four Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the United States: Michael in 2018, Andrew in 1992, Camille in 1969 and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Both Michael and Andrew were u...

New top story from Time: Americans Overwhelmingly Back Funding Home Care for the Elderly. Will It Survive in Democrats’ Spending Bill?

https://ift.tt/3D9Kjxd With moderate Democrats threatening to tank the White House’s sweeping, $3.5 trillion economic package , President Joe Biden’s long-standing promise to support older and disabled Americans is in jeopardy. As a candidate during the height of the coronavirus pandemic last year, Biden promised to protect these vulnerable groups, and this spring he initially proposed spending $400 billion on “home and community-based services” (HCBS)—an umbrella term f or care that allows older and disabled Americans to live independently, outside of institutional settings. An important House committee later cut that proposed funding to $190 billion in the Democrats’ bill. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Now, key Democrats, including Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, are balking at the package’s total price tag. On Thursday, Manchin said he would not support a bill costing more than $1.5 trillion—a benchmark that would require Demo...

New top story from Time: ‘Some Seeds Are Being Planted.’ How Yasuke Paves a New Path for Black Creators in Anime

https://ift.tt/2PCZdsF It was around 13 years ago when LeSean Thomas first learned of Yasuke. At that time, Thomas came across the 1968 Japanese children’s book Kuro-suke by Kurusu Yoshio and saw illustrations of the real-life African warrior who arrived in 16th century Japan and served under Oda Nobunaga—a greatly influential feudal lord who is widely regarded as the first unifier of the country. “It kind of felt like a secret treasure,” Thomas said. He found it particularly fascinating that the story of Yasuke, largely considered to be the first foreign-born samurai, was told in a Japanese work. “I just thought it was really cool that there was someone in Japan who was validating this because a s a concept in the West at that time, it was kind of viewed as a self-insert culturally to put a Black man with someone who was one of the unifiers of Japan,” Thomas told TIME in a recent Zoom interview. “Even at the time I didn’t believe it.” That disbelief has since faded, a...

My precise view

Search This Blog