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🚨I wrote about the mental and emotional toll that the pandemic is taking on public health experts, who’ve been running on fumes for months, and who are deeply frustrated with shouting empirical advice into a political void. 1/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
These folks are used by now to sharing expertise w/ journalists; less so to talking about themselves. I wanted to find out what they’re going through. Many told me they’re honored to be able to help. But many are also close to burning out. 2/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
There’s the physical toll of relentless work & little sleep. There’s also the psych burden of working in preparedness—constantly staring at society’s vulnerabilities, imagining the worst futures, and worst of all, seeing those futures come to pass. 3/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
That’s made worse by online trolls, social-distancing culture wars, the new predictable surge in cases, & America’s cavalier fatalism. “It feels like writing ‘Bad things are about to happen’ on a napkin and then setting the napkin on fire.” - @wormmaps 4/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
No one wants to be right. “One of the big misconceptions is that we enjoy being right. We’d be very happy to be wrong, because it would mean lives are being saved.” - @DrNLouissaint 5/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
I’ve seen public-health folks caricatured as finger-wagging ivory-tower alarmists, distinct from the everyday ppl affected by their advice. False. Dichotomy. The experts I spoke to going through it all, feeling trapped at home, missing their families. 6/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Public-health—and especially the folks who specialize in pandemic threats—is not a big field. There’s only so much expertise to go around, and it’s not infinite. This will all be much worse if the people trying to make it better can’t cope. 7/ theatlantic.com/health/archive…
This is also a tangentially personal piece. A lot of what the sources have. voiced—frustration about shouting into the void; wanting to not be right; “I always feel like I’m never doing enough”—let’s just say it’s not unfamiliar.

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
(To clarify, this burnout piece is not the 6th big piece that I promised in this earlier thread: . Burnout is actually #7. The 6th is an 8500-word monster for the upcoming mag issue; it'll be out (in print and online) next month.)
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Ed Yong
@edyong209
Three months ago, I paused book leave to return to the Atlantic for fulltime pandemic reporting. Here's a thread of 5 big pieces I've written since.

1) A sweeping look at how we got here, what must happen next, & the possible aftermath.

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
2) On the difficult summer ahead, why reopening must be (should have been?) careful, and the need for psychological resilience in the face of a persistent crisis that *won't be over in a few months*:

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
3) On the many reasons why the pandemic is mired in confusion, inc. the novelty of the virus, the muddled messaging, the easily misinterpreted stats, & the nature of modern expertise. (This doubles as a guide to how science actually works.)

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
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Ed Yong
@edyong209
Thanks to everyone who read and shared this story. I learned so much while reporting it and I want to share some other relevant writing for folks who want to read more about the issues in my piece.

This piece by @brianvastag and @rndNumGen goes deeper into the overlap between covid long-haulers and ME/CFS, and on research into that overlap.

washingtonpost.com/health/could-c…
This essay by @felicitycallard, one of the long-haulers in my piece, on what “mild” means and how it’s used, is just a fantastic piece of scholarship. Highly recommended.

somatosphere.net/2020/mild-covi…
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Ed Yong
@edyong209
🚨I wrote about COVID-19 long-haulers—the thousands of people who’ve been struggling with *months* of debilitating symptoms. Many have faced disbelief from friends and medical professionals because they don’t fit the typical profile of the disease. 1/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Most of them haven’t been hospitalized so their cases technically count as “mild.” But their lives have nonetheless been flattened by rolling waves of symptoms, inc. weeks of fever, delirium, crushing fatigue. Many are young & were previously healthy. 2/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
They're a crucial and largely overlooked part of the pandemic narrative. Many have doubted themselves, been gaslit and dismissed, been told it's all in their heads. 3/

theatlantic.com/health/archive…
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