Dr. Irwin Redlener has served as a critical voice about disaster preparedness amid the coronavirus pandemic this year, but on Thursday his grandson provided some much-needed motivation and adorability to the discussion.
"You know, New York City and New York state actually do a tremendous job of getting this under control and that was the case for many, many weeks as you well know," Dr. Redlener explained as his grandson ran around behind him. "Now we're starting to see an uptick as you pointed out and unfortunately I think most of us in the business, my business, would say that it was inevitable that we'll start to see resurgences in places that had been under control and now are not. That is really a difficult situation, as is my grandson here knows."
His grandson grabbed at his shoulders, and smiled in the corner of the screen, for which MSNBC removed their chyron so the audience could see momentarily.
"Oh, boy," Dr. Redlener lamented, desperately begging his wife Karen for some help.
"The issue is that we're going to see a big uptick all over the place in the United States and elsewhere in the world," he continued. "This is not going away. We're not doing to be free of the COVID-19 pandemic for the next couple of years and we need to get used to that fact. Even if we get a vaccine. It's going to be a long time before we get this under control. So I'm not the least bit surprised about what we're seeing in New York. And we have to -- you know, gear up and be adults about this and do what needs to get done to protect ourselves by doing the things that have been recommended. I am very worried though, I must say as a last point --"
He was then cut off by his grandson jumping on the back of his chair to pop up as a big and excited smile above his grandpa's head.
"Oh, boy," Dr. Redlener said again.
"This is the best thing that I've seen," MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace chuckled. "You can talk about whatever you want.
"Oh, boy," Dr. Redlener said. "All right. Anyway, boy, oh, boy."
He closed by saying that undermining our senior scientists and public health agencies is the last thing that should be happening and said that the only real solution at this point is to vote Trump out of office.
See the amazing video below:
