A statement from the CDC

By BEN R. WILLIAMS

Hello, it’s me, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As you may have heard, the CDC has recently changed its recommended protocols regarding COVID-19. If you test positive for COVID-19, we now recommend that you stay home for five days. If you have no symptoms or your symptoms are resolving after five days, you may leave your home. We ask that you also continue to wear a mask around others for five additional days.

I realize that to many, these new guidelines may seem unusual. Not long ago, wasn’t the recommendation to stay at home for at least ten days and then another three after your symptoms subsided? Wasn’t the recommendation also to wear a mask whether you had COVID or not? Doesn’t it seem like these new protocols are surprisingly lax?

You’re absolutely right, so please allow me to explain how we arrived at these new protocols:

Frankly, we’ve had it with you people.

Now, I know that may seem harsh, but put yourself in my shoes. Imagine working your entire life to not only become a respected doctor, but to become the Director of the CDC. Now imagine that a deadly pandemic has swept the planet, and it’s your job to guide the people to safety. And now imagine that after working hard to provide the American people with sober, level-headed guidance on how to best avoid contracting and spreading this disease, a quarter of the people argue with you about basic germ theory that’s been accepted for more than 150 years while another quarter insist the disease isn’t even real.

What are you supposed to do with that? Tell me.

Meanwhile, you’ve got all these industries raging about how we’re cutting into their workforce by advocating for basic medical science, and you’ve got businesses forcing employees to come in and make sure the trains run on time whether they’re connected to a ventilator or not. 

And THEN, you’ve got people complaining about how they’re so sick of all this COVID nonsense and they’re ready for things to return to normal despite the fact that they NEVER stopped acting like things were normal and spent every weekend going to massive super-spreader events like Sturgis so they could have the once-in-a-lifetime experience of a guy named Catfish sneezing directly into their open mouth.

So yeah, if you catch COVID, stay home for five days. What the heck, make it three days. If you want, just walk directly into an old folks’ home and cough right in an old man’s eyeballs. What do I care? It doesn’t matter what I recommend, you people are going to do whatever you want anyway. 

“bUt I dOn’T wAnT tO gEt JaBbed!” Good Lord, it’s three shots. They barely hurt. You ever seen the size of the needles on an ECMO machine? You could drive a Buick through them! Of course, you need big needles for a machine that pumps all the blood out of your body, adds oxygen to it, and then pumps it back in. But I guess that’s preferable to having a sweet little old lady at the drug store give you a tiny pinprick while calling you “sugar.” 

“bUt YoU cAn StIlL gEt CoViD iF yOu’Re VaXxEd!” Yeah, and me and Mike Tyson can both throw a punch, but his will knock your head clean off. Why am I even still arguing? It doesn’t matter. No one cares. Logic and reason are dead. I need a drink.

Anyway, stay home for five days or whatever if you catch COVID. I give up. Here’s one last CDC recommendation: cross the street if you see me coming, you filthy plague rats.

Love,

The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention