Vivek Murthy

We feel a tremendous amount of guilt and not being on the front lines with a lot of our colleagues.

There are times when we look at each other and we're like, should we just go to the hospital?

Should we just like help?

And then we remember that there are other issues that we have to deal with.

We have a grandmother who's 90.

We've got parents who are

We have these other needs that we've got to fill at home.

But I'll tell you that it's really painful to see what is happening on the front lines because we have seen so many nurses and doctors who are going to work each day and who don't often have enough protection that they need.

And things are getting better, but there's so many pockets of the country where people don't have what they need.

One of the things I learned in government about pandemic response is there are a few core principles that you absolutely have to adhere to.

One of them is to communicate transparently and truthfully, even when it's hard, especially when you mess up.

The second is you have to lead with science and with scientists, letting science guide your decision-making, even when it's not popular.

And the third is you have to get their resources to people on their front lines, the resources that they need.

And in this case, that's nurses and doctors, it's grocery store workers, it's postal delivery people, it's people who are having to put themselves in the line of fire, so to speak, because they're serving us and making our lives possible.

And for healthcare workers, PPE is one piece of it.

But the other thing to recognize is that many of them

are going through a traumatic experience.

Like frankly, all of us are, but they are on the front lines of it.

So the mental health impact on healthcare workers is already profound, but it's going to grow.

Like what we know from the experience of studying hurricanes and tornadoes and other natural disasters,