'I have to share the truth': White House #COVID19 Briefing
Channel: indianz
Date: 2021-03-29

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks of "impending doom" during a COVID-19 media briefing on March 29, 2021.

"When I first started at CDC about two months ago, I made a promise to you: I would tell you the truth, even if it was not the news we wanted to hear.  Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and I have to hope and trust you all listen," said Walensky.
 
"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.  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," said Walensky. "I know what it’s like as a physician to stand in that patient room -- gowned, gloved, masked, shielded -- and to be the last person to touch someone else’s loved one because their loved one couldn’t be there."
 
"I know what it's like when you're the physician, when you're the healthcare provider and you're worried that you don't have the resources to take care of the patients in front of you.  I know that feeling of nausea when you read the crisis standards of care and you wonder whether there are going to be enough ventilators to go around and who's going to make that choice," Walensky continued. "And I know what it's like to pull up to your hospital every day and see the extra morgue sitting outside."
 
"I didn't know at the time when it was -- when it would stop; we didn't have the science to tell us," she said. "We were just scared.  We have come such a long way.  Three historic scientific breakthrough vaccines, and we are rolling them out so very fast."
 
"So I'm speaking today not necessarily as your CDC director -- 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," Walensky added. "I so badly want to be done.  I know you all so badly want to be done.  We are 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."

Later in the day, President Joe Biden was asked if he agreed with the sentiments about COVID-19. He said he would continue to push for more Americans to be vaccinated against the deadly disease.

"Until this country is vaccinated, each of us has to do our part.  We have an obligation -- a patriotic obligation: Wash your hands, stay socially distanced, wear a mask as recommended by the CDC, and get vaccinated," Biden said. "Get your friends and family vaccinated when you can help."

"Now is not the time to let down," he continued. "Now is not the time to celebrate.  It is time to do what we do best as a country: our duty, our jobs; take care of one another; and fight this to the finish."

Video Source: White House

Thumbnail Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Sarah Villegas / U.S. Navy

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