Facing the Invisible Foe Head On: Protecting Tennesseans Throughout The COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

For many of us with children at home during this pandemic, it can be tough to explain COVID-19.

I wanted to share how I’ve explained it to my children on Sunday morning.

Imagine that you are on a boat in the middle of the ocean and a huge surprise storm suddenly hits. You were not prepared for a storm, so the boat quickly capsizes, and you find yourself floating in the ocean.

This all happened so fast. So fast in fact that you hardly had time to really panic. Fortunately, you swim over to a life raft that just happens to still be above water. You catch your breath, look around, and try to think about what to do next. It can be difficult to use your head during times like this because emotions like fear and anxiety can cause you to overreact.

Finally, you do realize two things;

• The raft is the only thing saving your life right now, so you better stay in it until you have a better plan
• The raft is not a viable long-term option and you need to get to dry land.

The storm mentioned above is the COVID-19 pandemic, the life raft is the combination of intense measures we are using to slow the spread of the virus and dry land is the end to the pandemic.

I created a white paper “Facing the Invisible Foe Head On: Protecting Tennesseans Throughout The COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond”. Please take a moment to read it here.

Dry land is ahead. We can see it form our lifeboat—our home. Don’t lose hope.

Shane Reeves, PharmD
CEO, TwelveStone Health

^{Blog concept derived from S. Abbas Raza article “ Navigating The Covid-19 Pandemic: We’re Just Clambering Into A Life Raft And Dry Land Is Far Away” published April 2, 2020 3 Quarks Daily}