3/18/2020
My dear Friend, DJT,
How are you coping these days? You are lucky to have Dr. Birx on your team. According to A. Parker’s piece in the WP, Dr. B has taken on the maternal role encouraging millennials to use their social networking skills to stay connected while practicing social distancing. Dr. B. is amazing. Did you know that she saved her own life back in 1983 when she was in labor and insisted that she not receive a blood transfusion which she knew could have HIV. That incident is what led her to do her ground-breaking work to lead the R-144 vaccine trial. I hope she can persuade you to pay more attention to the ventilator crisis than the airline crisis.
Speaking of the airline crisis, please do not provide United Airlines (UAL) with a bailout. The culture in that organization is so toxic that CEO Oscar Munoz had a heart attack after taking over the company in 2015. The ugliest passenger treatment I have ever seen was at O’Hare when a UAL passenger went crazy because the ticket agent was being so mean & of course, who can forget the 2017 debacle when a UAL passenger was dragged off an over-booked flight. UAL needs to be put to rest!
You can take the UAL share of that $50 billion bailout and spend it on beefing up the ventilator fabrication industry. We need lots more of those. Apparently keeping someone alive when they are intubated is a challenge. A myriad of problems, like pneumothorax, lung collapse, & oxygen toxicity, can arise when a patient is on a ventilator so we’ll need to re-train some medical professionals. According to some research veterinarians are good candidates to run the machines so you might consider recruiting some.
At your press conference today, I encourage you to set an example for us and lead the CV taskforce in a song. G Whipp, writing in today’s LAT says that when we sing together we experience a surge of hormones & endorphins that lifts our spirits and makes us feel connected. We need that right now more than ever.
HYINL,
