There is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic we haven’t talked about nearly enough. The people who witnessed its worst moments, day after day, often with little time to process what they were experiencing. Nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, paramedics, nursing home staff, and countless others who cared for people struggling to breathe, watched patients deteriorate despite their best efforts, and sometimes stood beside people as they died without their families present. While much of the world experienced the pandemic through news reports, restrictions, statistics, and political arguments, these workers experienced it at the bedside. For some, those years left memories that have proved difficult to put behind them. And for some, the suffering they witnessed was only part of what made the experience so painful. This thread is about those people, what they endured, and what we might learn by listening to them.

Most people know Dr. Peter Hotez from his television appearances during COVID, his defense of vaccination, and the relentless attacks directed at him on social media. I know Peter as a friend. And I want to tell you about another part of his life that rarely enters those arguments. For more than four decades, Peter has devoted much of his scientific career to diseases that afflict some of the poorest people on Earth. Diseases that cause enormous suffering but attract relatively little commercial investment because the people who need treatment often cannot afford to pay for it. Hookworm. Schistosomiasis. Chagas disease. Leishmaniasis. These are hardly household names. Their victims rarely make headlines, and the scientists working on them seldom become celebrities. Peter chose this field long before COVID, long before the cable news appearances, and long before strangers began calling him a pharmaceutical industry shill. His career deserves a closer look. Because the work tells a story that is almost entirely absent from the accusations made against him.