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Leadership In The Time Of COVID19 T H E I M P O R TA N C E O F LEARNING TO WALK A N D C H E W G U M AT T H E SAME TIME Wri t t en by D r. S t el l a Imma nu el
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r. Stella Immanuel is a physician who is desperately trying to save the lives of COVID-19 infected patients at her outpatient clinic in Houston, Texas. Many of her patients are undocumented immigrants who fear deportation if they step foot in a hospital. Not only is Dr. Imanuel keeping her patients out of the hospital, she is making them better with off-label use of anti-malarial drugs, often within 24 hours of presentation to her. As a nation we do have leadership but no one listens to our leadership. If our current President encourages something, anything, the left and the media will rebel against it just “because.” Some say that they suffer from “TDS” (Trump Derangement Syndrome). I believe it. If the President says something “off” many on the right will support it blindly, just “because he said so,” or because they saw it on Facebook, even if it is dangerous. We are seeing this now with people gathering to protest 2 4 | A P RI L / M AY 2 0 2 0
their inability to go back to work. People are rebelling and not listening to the importance of social distancing to protect our most vulnerable. The media will only show the public parts of an entire speech, and solely blame our President. For leadership to work there have to be people willing to follow who understand the reasons behind statements the leader is making. So to blame leadership when we specialize as a nation in rebelling does not make sense. When the President said he had the authority to open the nation, the media went berserk. When he delegated to the governors, the states complained that the federal government is not leading. The media went bananas. When the President promoted hydroxychloroquine (a medication which many of us physicians have used for many years) the left and the media went crazy and even reputable doctors who
have used it for years went on tv saying “it can kill you.” India has 1.4 billion people and the death toll is less than 1000 because they are using hydroxychloroquine extensively. But no one wants to talk about that. Many rapid tests that were intended to be used in an in-office setting (with physician-led counseling about the significance of the test result) were denied FDA approval so that the Abbott test can be the sole source provider. Follow the money. The masses are asked to wear masks and protesters are screaming “do not make us wear masks like China.” How can you lead a population that is constantly in rebellion without much knowledge of why they are rebelling? When the leaders in South Korea speak, their people listen. Why don’t we ask why in India people are not dying, where their people are often packed like sardines in their cities? They cannot even socially distance in the slums of Calcutta. In France some doc-
