From Public to Personal: Pandemic Lessons Learned

Dec. 23, 2020 — What are one of the most vital lessons of the coronavirus dilemma?

WebMD asked  health and wellness professionals on the cutting edge of the country’s COVID-19 feedback initiative to consider in on this concern and also to assess exactly how the dilemma has actually influenced them directly.

Their responses offer understandings right into the pandemic’s influence. Almost every one of them have actually functioned lengthy hrs. Some shed enjoyed ones. Others underwent life-altering landmarks. 

Here’s what they needed to claim.

Francis Collins, MD, supervisor of the National Institutes of Health

Biggest lesson: “It has actually instructed us that we can bring researchers with each other from all markets in brand-new and also imaginative joint plans and also obtain points done a whole lot faster than individuals may have assumed feasible prior to this happened.”

Personal influences: “I have actually been most likely functioning 90 to 100 hrs a week considering that March to attempt to spearhead every one of the parts of this that NIH can offer the table, in diagnostics and also rehabs and also vaccinations. And I’ve been doing nearly all of that from my instead confined office regarding 4 miles from NIH in order to attempt the design of protecting by teleworking.

“Yeah, I’ve developed into a hermit, and also not voluntarily! And that has actually consisted of all sort of affairs I would generally delight in, skipping family members celebrations that would certainly have occurred for summertime holidays, or Thanksgiving, or quite quickly for Christmas. So, yeah, it has actually changed my life experience.

“But I’m not complaining. It is also a great opportunity to be able to bring the full power of science to bear on a crisis that we have not really seen anything like for 100 years. So I’m glad to be able to be part of that.”

Leana Wen, MD, emergency situation medication medical professional medical professional and also a seeing teacher at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health

Biggest lesson: “The pandemic unveiled many underlying issues that we’ve long known existed, specifically health disparities and the ongoing disinvestment in our public health systems. There must be urgent actions taken to address these challenges, as well as ongoing commitment to address them long-term so that the lessons learned are not forgotten.”

Personal influences: “All my work has shifted to focusing on coronavirus. It is the public health catastrophe of our generation. I also gave birth during the pandemic. My daughter is now 8 months old. She has yet to meet her grandparents, but we are hopeful this will occur in 2021!”

William Schaffner, MD, teacher of transmittable conditions at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Biggest lesson: “I think it has taught us that in response to a pandemic, you need a science- and public health-based response that needs to be communicated very clearly at the national level. And we have not had that from the beginning.”

Personal influences: “It’s taken over my professional life, and it has obviously affected me personally. My wife and I are being very, very careful. We’re sheltering at home, and we did not have our usual Thanksgiving repast with all the family. And we are planning to have an exceedingly modest Christmas. My wife, and this is a stunning statement, has told me that since the family is not gathering at our house, we may not even have a tree.”

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist with the University of Wollongong in Australia

Biggest lesson: “Perhaps the biggest one for me is that public health is all about preparedness. By the time we reacted, it was often already too late. And while many of our other biggest health challenges are very different to COVID-19 — diabetes, heart disease, etc. — the same principle holds true.”

Personal influences: “Two distant cousins of mine died in New York City and Mexico earlier this year from COVID-19. Closer to home, the lockdown in Australia caused my wife to lose much of her casual employment and a close family member to lose their job entirely. I’ve also spent pretty much all of my free time since March studying COVID-19 and its impact, which has been exhausting.”

Juanita Mora, MD, specialist and also nationwide representative on minority health and wellness problems for the American Lung Association

Biggest lesson: “2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic have magnified the health disparities that were already underlying in communities of color in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has unveiled the communities of color as the ‘Unsung Heroes of this Pandemic’ and also as the most hard-hit populations with disease burden.”

Personal influences: “This pandemic has allowed me as a physician, a first-generation Mexican American from a humble home and volunteer national spokesperson for the American Lung Association, to champion and advocate for the Latino community. The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed me to be a voice of science and knowledge to help this community navigate this pandemic through local and national media.”

Reed Tuckson, MD, previous commissioner of public health and wellness for Washington, DC, and also founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID

Biggest lesson: “I believe that we have actually discovered a really unfortunate lesson … regarding the partnership in between private

legal rights and also flexibilities versus the capacity of a specific to damage or eliminate an additional individual as a result of careless activity and also wrongdoing. It is no more a considered that in America, we are done in it with each other. There’s no more the presumption that people will certainly care a lot more regarding the well-being of aside from they respect their very own…This is an amazingly excruciating lesson to have actually discovered.”

Personal influences: “It has actually advised me in a really remarkable method of the vow that I took when I ended up being a doctor. … I have actually totally changed my life right into an overall fascination with operating in every manner in which I directly can, utilizing my abilities and also my proficiency as a doctor to attempt to eliminate this pandemic.”

Shelly Miller, PhD, ecological designer at the University of Colorado-Boulder and also a specialist on air-borne illness transmission

Biggest lesson: “A big lesson of 2020 is that indoor air quality matters and that we should pay more attention to what pollutes our shared indoor air to improve our health and well-being.”

Personal influences: “As one of the few experts on engineering controls for airborne infectious disease transmission indoors, I have felt a personal responsibility to understand how transmission happens and how can we reduce exposure to the virus using engineering principles and control strategies, and as a result I have been spending most of my time on research related to the pandemic and on service to the community through science communication.”

Kelly Goebel, DNP, intense treatment registered nurse expert in the vital treatment system, and also supervisor of Florida Gulf Coast University’s Nursing Program

Biggest lesson: “We require to be much better planned for the future. We have actually discovered exactly how to resolve the social seclusion that our people and also households are experiencing, locating unique means to interact through making use of iPads, FaceTime, etc. The use telemedicine has actually substantially enhanced our capacity to proceed a company partnership with our people.

“We have actually discovered exactly how to welcome settings that are constantly transforming and also to end up being versatile in feedback to an ever-changing body of proof.

“Finally, I think that we have actually attached in a different way considering that the pandemic; possibly our concerns have actually moved and also we value points we didn’t before COVID.”

Personal influences: “The amount of isolation that we’ve had as a society has been difficult to experience. It’s been a culture shock; however, things like wearing a mask and social distancing are for the greater good. I think as a nurse practitioner working with COVID patients in the critical care unit, it has been difficult to hear that people in the community do not support expert recommendations.”

Linsey Marr, PhD, Virginia Tech aerosol researcher focusing on the air-borne transmission of infections

Biggest lesson: “COVID-19 has clarified our understanding of transmission of viruses by aerosols. Because of the significance of asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic transmission with COVID-19, it became clear that breathing and talking, not just coughing, generate aerosols and that these can transmit the virus. We realized that aerosols are important at short range in close-contact situations, not just at long distance. There were a few of us who knew this before, but COVID-19 drastically accelerated the permeation of this knowledge into the broader scientific and medical communities.”

Personal influences: “Prior to the pandemic, I was one of a small number of scientists who studied viruses in the air, a topic that somehow fell through the cracks because it didn’t fit neatly into medicine, virology, aerosol science, or engineering. It was an abrupt change when my research shot from obscurity into the limelight. I have given over 300 interviews since March. At the same time my workload was increasing, I was struggling to manage school-age kids at home all hours of the day.”

Arthur H. Brand, PhD, accredited psycho therapist, Brand & Kelton-Brand, Boca Raton, FL

Biggest lesson: “I think it has taught us how quickly we are capable of adapting to changes. Within months of the pandemic, many people adjusted to living their lives differently — how they worked, how they educated, how they interacted with others, how they spent their time, and how they lived their lives.”

Personal influences: “The world — people, places, activities — with which I interact has become much smaller, but I have been much more grateful and appreciative about things and have become more charitable.”

Tom Frieden, MD, previous CDC supervisor, and also head of state and also Chief Executive Officer of Resolve to Save Lives

Biggest lesson: “How unprepared we are for a global pandemic at local, federal, and global levels. And how vitally important clear, timely, and transparent communication is when fighting a pandemic.”

Personal influences: “I’ve been working from home and doing much of my work remotely, and I’m unable to travel for work to work with our global programs and work in our office with our staff!”