Public Health Heroes

HEROES from Chris Lindley on Wednesday


Today as I walked from the Department's Operations Center to my car, I couldn’t help but smile. After three full days of intense activities, decision-making and coordination with 64 counties, I still wanted more. Why, it’s the people I get to work with! If only the general public realized the dedicated work that your local, state and federal public health officials where doing right now. While the general population is somewhere between “freaked” and “who cares,” the public health workforce across the country is taking every action possible to educate the public, track the disease, and prevent the spread in every community. We all hope that the case fatality rate will be low, and that much of this work will have been an excellent exercise. However, if it is not and we are at the seeding stage of a severe pandemic, it is the actions of these unknown, under-funded, heroes that might save your life.

I wanted to highlight one of these heroes, one of MY heroes! Tomorrow we are deploying medical assets for the first time statewide. While this is something we have prepared for and practiced on multiple occasions, we have never actually moved product, nor has anyone on this scale in any state. The individual leading and coordinating this effort is 8 months pregnant, and as she likes to say “only has 7cm to go.” This is just one example of the quality of individuals currently working 12 to 15 hours a day to protect your health.