MADISON, Wis.– There’s not a guidebook on how to survive a global pandemic, but a career in public health comes kind of close.
“You learn a lot (about it) in a little bit,” Public Health Madison and Dane County Director Janel Heinrich said about training for a pandemic.
No amount of education can prepare someone for the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus. Nearly 6,000 people have died in Wisconsin alone.
There is hope on the horizon as the pandemic nears the familiar territory of vaccinations.
“We can utilize the skills that we practice on a yearly basis, on a monthly basis,” Heinrich said. “Then, see what the impact could look like on a larger scale.”
The state has administered more than 540,000 vaccines into the arms of healthcare workers, nursing home residents and first responders who want it.
UW Health’s Medical Director of Infection Control Dr. Nasia Safdar said that’s a good start, but there’s still concern the pandemic may have caused more illness than a vaccine can fix.
“I think the effects of the pandemic will be with us for many decades,” Safdar said. “Especially growing children, people who will have mental health concerns as a consequence of having to deal with it, and all of the other illnesses that didn’t stop while the pandemic was raging.”
Shutting down non-essential businesses in the beginning saved lives. It also turned some upside down.
“I remember driving to work and coming down Atwood Ave., and driving past restaurants and businesses that I frequent. Everything was closed and there was no traffic on the street. ” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said. “I was watching my community empty out.”
Since then, Parisi dedicated more than $15 million of county funds to saving small businesses, $10 million to eviction prevention and $5 million to feeding people. Still, that’s only a fraction of the need.
“It’s been a multi-level trauma that’s inflicted on our community,” Parisi said. “There was not waiting a year or until things got better to address it.”
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway agrees the road to recovery won’t be easy and it might be longer than the actual pandemic itself.
“It’s going to take our economy years to recover from this,” Rhodes-Conway said. “We really do have to be very proactive about thinking about the recovery and making sure it benefits the people who have been hurt the most.”
Rhodes-Conway and other leaders who guided us to this point are confident this time next year will shine a little brighter.
“I hope it’s a story of recovery,” Rhodes-Conway said. “I hope that it’s a story of coming on the upslope out of a really hard time.”
While we recognize a year of COVID-19 in our lives, Rhodes-Conway recommends people look back and acknowledge how hard the past year has been, while also taking a moment to grieve and mourn before taking a deep breath and moving forward.
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