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During more than 30 years as a physician and an officer in the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, including deployment in Iraq, I have witnessed trauma and battle fatigue up close. I have seen the immense toll that unrelenting physical and emotional stress takes on the minds and bodies of soldiers — people in peak conditioning. It worried me to see that same fear and exhaustion in young physicians recently as I completed a 100-hour, seven-day teaching rotation in a small community hospital near my home in coastal South Carolina. (Gerald E. Harmon, 9/27)

In April, when I received my second Moderna shot, America was on a roll. Adjusted for population, the United States had distributed more COVID-19 vaccines per capita than any country but Israel, Chile, the United Kingdom, and a smattering of small nations and islands. With a surge of doses, we could have been No. 1 in the world. (Derek Thompson, 9/26)

That was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in April 2015 speaking to world leaders about the Ebola crisis in West Africa. As President Biden and his team asked heads of state and leaders of industry at a COVID-19 summit this week to make new commitments to end the latest pandemic, they all seemed to forget the very issue that Ban highlighted six years ago: the last mile. (David Heymann, Ashish Jha and Edward Kelley, 9/25)

Recently, I came onto a night shift in the ER at the hospital where I work to pick up the baton after a particularly heavy COVID-19 day. The staff was tired, beleaguered, defeated. During sign-out, a physician recounted with a slight smirk a few of the recent COVID patients they had admitted, all unvaccinated (some of whom were hardened COVID deniers), who had died within days of admission. Throughout the night, comments from staff regarding unvaccinated patients struck similar tones: “Idiots.” “Serves them right.” “What did they expect?” (William J. Boroughf, 9/27)

Across the country, Republican leaders seem increasingly comfortable amplifying anti-vaccine rhetoric and conspiracies while banning mask and vaccine requirements, even though unvaccinated people are causing the virus to spread and increasing the likelihood of more coronavirus variants. And DeSantis is not the only Republican seeking to blame Biden for the latest Covid surge. This raises a cynical question: Do some Republicans think they can reap political benefits from the continued spread of Covid? And if so, how might that calculation factor into their policy decisions? (Teri Kanefield, 9/25)

Dear “Personal Choicers,” As long as unvaccinated people provide a significant breeding ground for COVID-19 virus variants, medical care for those seriously ill with coronavirus will be diminished. Rationing hospital patient admissions has become urgently necessary because of depleted staff and limitations of space and equipment. As the daughter of a doctor and the mother of one, as well as the wife of a research neurophysiologist, I well understand the reasons for this. I don’t think you do, however. Please allow me to explain. (Diana C. Schramm, 9/27)

I have seen hundreds of hundreds of people die over the last 20 months. I'm a traveling ICU nurse and I have spent the pandemic as an RN at hospitals in Colorado, New Jersey, and California. Of the millions of people who have contracted COVID-19 worldwide, I have treated thousands. And I have lost too many. It is the greatest threat to our patients that we will see in our lifetime. (Zac Shepard, 9/24)