The Short Coat

Hot Takes: Dr. Marty Makary dissects the US COVID Response, and he isn’t happy

06.03.2021 - By Dave Etler and the Students of the University of Iowa Carver College of MedicinePlay

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We were too slow, too cautious, and too “old-guard” in our responses to COVID

TL;DR

* Guest Marty Makary condemns the old way that healthcare responds to current events. * Sticking to the clinical trials process and a reluctance to use the knowledge already available from Chinese doctors slowed US responses and killed people. * “We had terrible medical leadership throughout the pandemic, and I think it’s good for our leaders to show some degree of humility to say, look, we consistently got it wrong.”

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New York Times bestselling author and Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary returns to the show to just blast US healthcare and medicine’s response to COVID. The flip-flopping on mask effectiveness, the distribution of vaccines, ignoring the role of natural immunity of people who were infected and survived, insisting on a two-dose vaccine rollout instead of first getting everyone vaccinated once. All of these decisions were slow, ill-considered, and in some cases theatrical rather than scientific. Even Fauci got it wrong! *gasp*

Join MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, and M1s AJ Chowdhury and Rick Gardner as we dissect the chaos. The paperback edition of Dr. Makary’s book, The Price We Pay, includes an update that discusses COVID’s implications for the business of healthcare.

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