In the show “Ted Lasso,” Ted tells his player Sam to “be a goldfish” after Sam makes a mistake on the field. Ted wants his player to brush off the mistake, forget the past, and move on to the next play. The saying comes from the myth that goldfish have 10-second memories — a fact that has been debunked. In any case, I have been reflecting on the current environment, thinking to myself, this is not the time to be a goldfish.
It seems like March 2020 was yesterday; many of us were locked in our homes, the world overcome by a global pandemic. And while we were anxious and confused, trying to cope with the endless challenges of the lockdowns, there was something quite unique in the whole world going through the same thing at the same time. We quickly realized if we wanted to get rid of the pandemic, we needed to care for people far away from us. For a moment, we understood the interconnectedness of all of us, our shared humanity no matter where or who we are. COVID-19 did not care about geopolitical borders or any kind of borders, anyway.
Today, it seems we have brushed this understanding of our interconnectedness aside, so fast, culminating with the 2024 U.S. election and the quick shutdown of federal funding for global health, the dismantling of USAID, and the most recent threat of significant cuts to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, or NIH.
About the author
Pat Garcia-Gonzalez
Pat Garcia-Gonzalez is CEO of The Max Foundation, an organization dedicated to accelerating health equity by delivering medication, technology, and services to patients facing cancer and other critical illnesses. Since 1997, Max has helped more than 100,000 patients with cancer and rare diseases access the treatment they need.
