Many health-care workers on the front lines of the vaccine information war frequently weather vitriol and threats. “Someone called me a female version of Hitler,” one doctor said.
US doctors and nurses battle Covid-19 all day, then go online & fight misinformation stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Countless health-care workers have found themselves combating the coronavirus on two fronts during a global pandemic that is now stretching into its 12th month.
Atul Nakhasi couldn’t stop thinking about Dodger Stadium. The storied ballpark-turned-coronavirus-vaccination-site just 10 minutes from his apartment in downtown Los Angeles had been briefly shut down by anti-vaccine protesters, and Nakhasi, a doctor, was horrified. To him, the nearly hour-long delay amounted to an act of “public harm” and served as a chilling example of how far people who oppose vaccines are willing to go to make their point. He had to do something to respond, but what? The question weighed heavily on Nakhasi’s mind as he drove to a south L.A. hospital to begin his 12th straight day of caring for patients, some severely ill with COVID-19. It was still on his mind as he spoke to the family of a young man in his 20s, whose lungs were so damaged by COVID that he could no longer breathe on his own. A vaccine might have changed this young man’s life, Nakhasi thought, as he told the father that his son would probably need a permanent breathing tube.