‘I’m empty.’ Pandemic scientists are burning out—and don’t see an end in sight | Science | AAAS
▻https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2021/03/i-m-empty-pandemic-scientists-are-burning-out-and-don-t-see-end-sight
From academic research centers to intensive care units (ICUs) to scientific journals to government agencies, scientists fighting the pandemic say they are hitting a wall, 15 months after the first report of a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, introduced the virus that would upend their lives. “The pace that led to the incredible generation of knowledge on #SARS-CoV-2 and #COVID-19 has put enormous demands on the people who are expected to generate that knowledge,” says David O’Connor, a viral sequencing expert at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has been tracking the spread of the virus, doing Zoom Q&A sessions with the vaccine hesitant, and helping neighborhood schools set up diagnostic testing. “This is a terrible time and we should all do what we can to help. But is it going to be sustainable?”