Mary P Mercer: Beyond the marathon notes from the relay of pandemic response
December 10, 2020
“We’ve been sprinting a marathon,” the email read. I sighed after reading it. It was the tenth time in as many days this analogy was used to discuss the pace of response to the covid-19 pandemic. It was mid-March, and along with other disaster service workers, I had been called to contribute to the public health response in San Francisco. We were working hard and watching with dread as more regions around the world experienced medical surge. Would our actions be enough to stave off the worst? I was feeling as sleep-deprived and stressed as I had been during intern year or early parenthood. And I was equally snippy.