BLOG: A year like no other
It is 2021. 2020 is over!
Can we take a sigh of relief? Time will tell.
The title of this post was borrowed from the title of an article in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine by Brian Mandell, MD, PhD, the journal’s editor-in-chief. In his “From the Editor” opening remark, Mandell eloquently described the challenges that the journal’s editorial board members faced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, in the review of the numerous papers submitted about the novel coronavirus. Mandell has thus called the year 2020 “a year like no other.”
Mandel’s comment was accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a mask. That is quite a sober gesture; it is the first time in our recent history where a mask has become an integral part of our daily life. It goes without saying that when it comes to reviewing scientific papers, there has traditionally been a relaxed timetable, with journals taking their time in reviewing the submitted papers. There has not been a universal sense of rush to publish scientific papers, except for landmark or breakthrough scientific studies or discoveries.
However, it is no secret that the vast magnitude of the pandemic, the endless fluidity of the pandemic status around the world, and the fast pace of the knowledge emanating from various investigators around the world, has made it challenging for journals to critically review papers. Mandell then delved into the issue of misinformation about the pandemic:
"Never has this happened in an environment when so much unfiltered information is available, while at the same time people are questioning the honesty of the organs responsible for the information transfer. Understandably, the various media outlets have defensively and aggressively responded to these challenges, but in doing so have morphed their perspective away from true objectivism and have added to the polarized environment in a way that has actually magnified the skepticism about what is factual and what is almost factual. Reflecting my age and the idealized and somewhat naive American world I grew up in, I ask, “Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him?”
I can imagine Mandell thinking that we are in a deja vu state with the COVID-19 pandemic, akin to the Spanish flu. Fast forward, as a nation, we have now been battling not only with the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu a century ago, but also with misinformation about it, and with people’s attitudes: believers vs. non-believers. The mess created by the misinformation has led to some concerning degree of disinterest and disbelief among the public resulting in letting down the guards, and lax adherence to preventive measures, particularly social distancing and wearing masks. We have read that a similar state of lax preventive measures occurred during the Spanish flu, which, sadly, resulted in more deaths in the second wave of that pandemic.
Apart from the concern about misinformation and the publishing of scientific papers, Mandell’s article has resonated with me, in particular with regard to how dramatic the year 2020 has been. Indeed, 2020 has been quite overwhelming for me: at work, at home and, most recently, back home in Amman, Jordan.
Work has been quite stressful, providing satisfactory medical care to our patients from the summer onward, after several weeks of lockdown that limited the access of patients to our clinics. We struggled rescheduling hundreds and hundreds of patients. This was compounded by short staffing resulting from some staff having to work from home as well as some staff who would go into quarantine due to virus exposure or symptoms, in addition to our inability to fill a prior vacant faculty position due to the pandemic.
At home, and like all other households, social activities had to be scaled down at all levels. One thing that was hard on me was the inability to see my two new grandchildren as often as one would desire!
And back home: Like many people who have family members or relatives back home, the pandemic has been devastating. Many relatives were afflicted by the virus, but the most dramatic was the loss of my mother-in-law due to COVID-19 without my being able to see her.
Despite all the calamities we have endured in 2020 due to the pandemic, the year has finally ended, and we have seen great examples of heroism, sacrifice and humanity. Mandell summarized his goodbye to the year 2020 with the following beautiful statement:
“It has been a year like no other in our memory. There have been demons and heroes. I feel proud to be part of our medical community. Despite fear and impediments, we have stood strong in the face of many adversities. I do not think that we have lost our way.”
It is saddening that on one day, Jan. 6, early in this new year, the nation witnessed two sad crises: one in the nation’s capital, and the other the highest, single-day death toll for COVID-19 in the U.S.
Let us all pray that these will be the last bad news for the new year.
Reference:
Mandell BF. Clevel Clin J Med. 2020; doi:10.3949/ccjm.87b.12020.
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