--- title: "A Must-Read Warning from an NYC Doctor: “The Sky is Falling”" description: "The New York Times ran a sobering opinion piece about the coronavirus by Cornelia Griggs, a pediatric surgery doctor at a large NYC hospital." date: "2020-03-19" modified: "2020-03-19" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/doctor-warning-sky-is-falling-nyt-coronavirus" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "nyc" --- # A Must-Read Warning from an NYC Doctor: “The Sky is Falling” ![The New York Times ran a sobering opinion piece about the coronavirus by Cornelia Griggs, a pediatric surgery doctor at a large NYC hospital.]() *\Image: Paulo Barcellos Jr./Victor Tangermann\* Today, the *New York Times* ran a sobering op-ed by Cornelia Griggs, a pediatric surgery fellow at a large NYC hospital. Its provocative headline — "[A New York Doctor’s Coronavirus Warning: The Sky Is Falling]()" — gives you a sense of Griggs' grave outlook on the coronavirus pandemic. She writes: *We are living in a global public health crisis moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. The cracks in our medical and financial systems are being splayed open like a gashing wound. No matter how this plays out, life will forever look a little different for all of us.* It's worth pointing out that just days ago, the *Times* [reported that]() there do exist contrarians in the research community who argue that the public is overreacting to the threat. But Griggs wrote that the mood among her peers is gloomy as they prepare for the worst to hit, and potentially overwhelm the medical system in the coming weeks. This dark outlook, from a practicing surgeon, took the web by storm and swiftly started trending on Twitter. However, Griggs ended her piece on a note of — if not hope — determination, that medical workers and the public alike will rise to the challenge and help each other as best as they can. Here's Griggs again: *I say this not to panic anyone but to mobilize you. We need more equipment and we need it now. Specifically gloves, masks, eye protection and more ventilators. We need our technology friends to be making and testing prototypes to rig the ventilators that we do have to support more than one patient at a time. We need our labs channeling all of their efforts into combating this bug — that means vaccine research and antiviral treatment research, quickly.* ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()