{"id":13700,"date":"2020-07-01T00:46:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T06:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13700"},"modified":"2020-07-01T00:46:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T06:46:12","slug":"more-than-masks-and-memes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/01\/more-than-masks-and-memes\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than Masks And Memes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Retired medical doctor Scott McLean. Photo credit: Scott McLean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the data shows daily that COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon, you may find yourself frustrated that beyond wearing a mask while social distancing and sharing a meme while social media-ing, there\u2019s not much you can do. In my case, I even feel silly complaining about it: I never contracted it, no one in my immediate circle of love died from it, and the only real loss I suffered was the experience of taking the trips I had planned to Paris, New York and Germany.<\/p>\n

Now imagine being a retired doctor like Valley resident Scott McLean who spent 40 years specializing in internal medicine, 30 of them here in the Wood River Valley\u2014a one-time epicenter of the coronavirus inside the nation that is the all-time epicenter of coronavirus misinformation. You can multiply the frustration by 100.<\/p>\n

McLean\u2019s diagnosis: Too many people providing misinformation or misinterpreting accurate information. His prescription: Provide the information and interpret himself, on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to use Facebook somewhat, to keep track of old friends, before the pandemic,\u201d said McLean, who described himself as \u201cnot a daily user.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI initially started posting to give accurate info to my old patients, friends and family in light of the amount of disinformation that was being put out. Today (Tuesday) will be post 105,\u201d McLean said.<\/p>\n

McLean\u2019s posts are not shared memes or pithy one-liners reminding people to wear a mask. Post 104, for example, was a 1,000-word analysis on a recent study suggesting there are far more carriers of the virus walking around than we had previously imagined.<\/p>\n

I learned about McLean\u2019s page (a private group page on Facebook called \u201cDr. McLean\u2019s COVID-19 updates\u201d) while interviewing healthcare professionals in the Valley who are on the front lines here. They said the page has been extremely helpful in digesting the latest COVID-19 information quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to frame the post for non-science people to read. I try to decode medical articles and put them into English,\u201d McLean said. \u201cI also try to debunk disinformation as it becomes popular.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the question had to be asked: If he had to chose a \u201cpopular\u201d idea to debunk, what would it be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two messages I\u2019d like people to get: wear a mask in public, no matter what; isolate yourself as much as possible if you are at risk,\u201d was McLean\u2019s reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a good day. Back to work. Fauci et al. are testifying before the Senate in 30 minutes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine As the data shows daily that COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon, you may find yourself frustrated that beyond wearing a mask while social distancing and sharing a meme while social media-ing, there\u2019s not much you can do. In my case, I even feel silly complaining about it: I never contracted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15,49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-commentary","7":"category-lifestyle-commentary","8":"category-top-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}