Alumni near and far share their perspectives on how the pandemic is affecting them and the work they do.
Life as we know it changed for all of us in spring 2020. What were once ordinary tasks — going to the grocery store, attending a friend’s wedding, holding in-person meetings with coworkers and clients — suddenly became rare occurrences or not permitted at all as the world grappled with the CO VID-19 pandemic and its consequences. Amid it all, alumni across different industries, professions and walks of life stepped up to provide support to those who needed it most. We asked some of them to share their thoughts with us. These are their stories.
The power of the collective
Kristin Feeney Kostka ’11 | exercise science major, public health & religious studies minors | associate director, OMOP data network at IQVIA | investigator, observational health data sciences and informatics | Boston
As an epidemiologist, living through a pandemic is like the “World Cup” of our field. My entire professional life has been in the post-SARS and H1N1 era. There was always a possibility that another pandemic could happen.
Back in 2015, when I joined the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics community — a volunteer-based global open science initiative that aims to improve health care through observational research — I knew I stumbled into something special. These are people who gladly give their time and expertise to help improve the way we do research. The community worked tirelessly over the past decade to create a common language per se so we can make apples-to-apples comparisons in data across the world. In addition, we’ve tackled privacy issues by keeping data where it lives and only sharing aggregate results.
In health care, we take an oath to “do no harm.” In this time of high unpredictability, it’s hard to know if what we’re doing is helping or hurting patients. This is where observational health data is powerful. We rapidly mobilized our network of 330 people from 30 nations via a “study-athon” (think a hackathon for studies). In 88 hours, we developed nine studies including hot topics like large-scale safety of hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin or amoxicillin, building prediction models to understand who will need scarce resources (like access to ventilators), and characterizing overall trends of disease. We believe in 100 percent transparency in every analysis including publishing study code and results for reuse. We’re publishing papers and making evidence available via interactive apps online.
This pandemic brings to a head the need to work together. We each bring unique insight to this problem space. The power of the collective will get us through this time.
Teaching (and learning) how to cope
Monica Huang ’10 | art major | occupational therapist, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools | North Carolina
I am a school-based occupational therapist whose job is to support teens/adolescents with disabilities transitioning from high school to adult life. I love my job. I wake up each day a proud ally and advocate for inclusivity. School is not just a place where I help students figure out their next steps; it’s a place where students affirm their identities and grow into powerful self-advocates. It’s the kind of job where you pinch yourself every day to make sure you’re not dreaming.
So when the COVID-19 pandemic physically removed me from my students, I was overwhelmed by grief and helplessness. All of my students have some kind of disability that affects their access to the nuances of virtual learning. How will I support their needs from a distance? What about lack of internet access or working parents who can’t facilitate their learning? How dare I even ask families to do anything but survive right now?
These questions of equity, access and presumption came from a place of empathy. I have a family and, overnight, became the stay-at-home mom/daycare for my 2-year-old; the teacher for my second grader; and an online educator/ therapist stumbling through screencasting apps, Google classrooms and my YouTube account from the early 2000s. It didn’t take long before late-night binges on webinars and live coronavirus coverage were fueled by Imposter Syndrome and my chronic depression/anxiety.
The latter changed everything. I realized that my students and I needed the same thing — to learn how to cope with mental health during a global pandemic. I began to develop a curriculum to teach my students how to be self-advocates of their emotions, pain and suffering. Making the lessons and recording the videos helped me to regain control over my needs and, ironically, I applied for and received North Carolina’s State of Emergency leave. With permission to hit the pause button on work, I now spend my days caring for my children and implementing my own coping strategies. On weekends, I still find precious time to be there for my students by recording new virtual content for the mental health curriculum I developed when the whole world came crashing down.
And everything might just be OK. The highlight of my week came when a student emailed me the mere message: “I like feelings.” Among other things, I quickly wrote back: “I like feelings too.”
A Time For Adaptation
Dr. Marc Pinn ’03 | accounting major | anesthesiologist, critical care physician and director of cardiovascular critical care medicine at Cleveland Clinic Martin Health | Stuart, Florida
As Elon graduates, all of us feel prepared to practice in our chosen field after graduating or completing residency and fellowship. And while none of us were quite prepared for COVID-19, any one of us who has trained in specialties like anesthesiology, emergency medicine or surgery knows that sometimes the key to success is adaptation.
The pandemic has created austere conditions even in some of the most renowned healthcare institutions. We have all had to rapidly adapt to this. Perhaps just as tiring as performing patient care is the immense undertaking by physicians, advanced practice clinicians, nurses and respiratory therapists to quickly develop protocols and procedures related to caring for COVID-19 patients.
Despite all of these strains, if ever there were a sense of unity among healthcare workers, it is now. We are all in this together — all pieces of a very important puzzle. I am very proud of my multidisciplinary critical care team at Cleveland Clinic and hopeful that this sense of community will perpetuate itself far into the future when we return to whatever new normal awaits us.
Facts in uncertain times
Jasmine Turner ’15 | broadcast journalism major | reporter and weekend anchor for NBC News 12 | Richmond, Virginia
Humbling. Uncertain. Affirming. These are three words I would use to describe reporting and anchoring during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a reporter and weekend anchor for NBC 12 News in Richmond, Virginia, I am continuing to adapt to little-to-no in-person interaction with viewers and my colleagues. I am beyond grateful for the measures taken to keep reporters, photographers and anchors safe during this time. Most of my interviews these days are conducted via Zoom or FaceTime, which has challenged me to be more creative.
Right now, medical professionals are working around the clock, some separated from family and friends in order to protect the ones they love. There are families financially impacted by this health crisis; they are concerned about their bills being paid and worried about having enough food on the table. It has been humbling to share the story of a food bank that has distributed more than 330,000 meals in six weeks or to speak to a paramedic with a medically fragile child who was given an RV to temporarily live in by a Marine veteran. It has been humbling to watch an organization step up in less than 24 hours to ensure a family of five’s rent would be paid after the COVID-19 pandemic led to job loss.
In this time, it is important for the voices of our community to be heard. It is important that we are rooted in facts in this uncertain time. It is my responsibility as a journalist and member of my community to accurately and effectively tell stories. I am reminded daily how important local news is in a time like this. I am also reminded that no matter the scenario, what has continued to be said is true — we are all in this together.
Moving in the right direction
Don Campbell ’01 | public administration major | emergency management director for Guilford County | North Carolina
I remember talking to my wife, Tucker ’03, in mid-January about the novel coronavirus that was beginning to impact China and cause concerns about what impact it could have on us in the coming months. My role as the emergency management director for Guilford County keeps me constantly looking at future risks and making sure we are positioned to respond as needed to protect the community.
Our office began actively monitoring the situation in late January and held our first meeting with more than 120 partner agencies to provide an overview of the situation and begin planning for future realities. This was quickly shaping up to be a uniquely challenging event to manage with the lack of clear information, scope of the emergency and complexity of the situation. Teams started to wrap up existing projects and focus all of their attention on creating new plans, policies and processes to combat the arrival of covid-19. For weeks we prepared and waited for the first cases to be detected in North Carolina. Schools closed in early March and we quickly enacted a local state of emergency and stay-at-home order. Our first positive case was detected within the county on March 17 and we continued to add cases steadily over the following weeks.
Along with managing the coordination elements of the event, my focus early on was supporting the stay-at-home order implementation and ensuring a common message with our county, cities and partner agencies. We were in full activation mode in the Guilford County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and working 12–16 hours a day for seven days a week for the majority of March and April. And while our plans for typical disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.) were working well, we had to make numerous adjustments on the fly to meet the needs of a nationwide pandemic when our typical support structures were not able to help us with materials, resources or people. We were on our own, like every other community in America. I spent my days bouncing between meetings with department directors and elected officials, doing news interviews and managing the EOC. I spent my evenings catching up with the volume of email and messages I had missed during the day. I felt like I was in the middle of a game of whack-a-mole that wouldn’t end.
As of May 10, our positive cases and deaths continue to increase but at a slightly slower pace. We are focusing on increasing testing in the community and trying to keep momentum going with our teams who have been engaged in this event since February and showing signs of fatigue. We know we are still in the early stages of a marathon and we have no clear sense of where the finish line is or what obstacles we have to overcome between now and then. Preparing for what this summer and fall may look like from a personal, professional or community level is still a challenge every day as the situation continues to get more and more complex. But I am optimistic that working as a community, washing our hands, wearing a mask and keeping space between us, we can get through this together.
Being black in china during a pandemic
Dioni L. Wise G’13 | interactive media | english teacher | Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China
The morning I was released from quarantine, I couldn’t leave my apartment quickly enough. I recorded a video as I skipped from my apartment building to the adjacent lake. Mom, dad and Aunt Dee Dee got the footage via group text. “I’m moving in with you,” my aunt quipped.
The sun shined for the first time in a few days on April 8. I simply felt good. Just 12 hours later, a friend called to say a security guard had stopped him and announced black people had to stay inside, starting at 10 p.m. Some Nigerian immigrants in Guangzhou, where I live, had contracted COVID-19. They visited several popular spots, including a restaurant where Chinese people also tested positive. In a rush to prevent more infections, the local government abruptly quarantined all African passport holders, black and white, and people who had been in contact with them recently. Many Chinese people don’t know that all black people aren’t born on the African continent, so black foreigners were put on notice: DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE! My freedom was short-lived.
This is my reality — dealing with the fear of contracting a potentially fatal virus on top of being black in China. Up until April 8, I would’ve told anyone I felt safer in China as an African-American woman than on my home soil. Many black foreigners echoed that sentiment. Of course, we faced minor racist digs occasionally. But never had we experienced the terror of hiding in our homes or getting unexpectedly evicted from our rental homes or hotel rooms. The country I’d called “home” for the past three and a half years let underlying racism and xenophobia boil to the surface.
Chinese people were afraid of the imported cases of coronavirus, although the vast majority came from Chinese passport holders. I saw a comic strip depicting Chinese security throwing white and black men in trash bins. Weeks earlier, many Chinese and Asian Americans implored people not to attack them or say “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus.” I found this quite ironic.
In the past few weeks, the panic has subsided. To my knowledge, Guangzhou officials have not apologized for the blatant racist actions of landlords and hotel managers, but have reminded all business owners that discrimination is unacceptable. I feel safer, but I won’t forget the extra struggles brown-skinned people endured during the pandemic. If COVID-19 didn’t teach us that we’re all connected and need to care for each other, then what will?
A business model shift
Lisa Hurtgen Pope ’98 | middle school education major | farm manager for Hurtgen Meadows Farm | Hillsborough, North Carolina
At Hurtgen Meadows Farm, we grow high-quality, pesticide-free vegetables, fruits, flowers and garden plants. Our flock of free-ranging hens provides nutritious eggs and our multi-generational tradition of making jams and jelly preserves the season to enjoy throughout the year. When the Durham and Eno River farmers markets in North Carolina closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we literally lost our storefronts, and our customers lost access to one of their major trusted sources of food — the kind of food that is best for maintaining health and wellness.
Our farm needed to pivot quickly. In less than a week, I built an online farmstand cooperative. Our new website-controlled inventory accepted customer payments and coordinated contactless pickup. We went further: we partnered with other local farms and businesses to offer our customers even more options to complement our offerings including meat, cheese, wood-fired breads, granola, shortcakes and frozen pizza dough. Our model provides these other small businesses (who are our neighbors and friends) an outlet to continue selling their goods as well. In this way, our customers can fulfill more of their weekly food needs by placing a single order with our farm cooperative.
Each spring, our farm also sells 100-plus varieties of vegetable transplants for home gardeners including more than 40 different varieties of tomatoes. With the absence of our Saturday markets, it presented a significant challenge to carry out that part of our business. So I built a comprehensive online plant catalog that allows shoppers to select their plants, pay online and arrange to pick up their plants at our farm through the same online store. The response has been tremendous. My family and I have noticed that in this time of uncertainty, our customers are planting bigger gardens and some who have never planted one before are giving it a try, which is reminiscent of the victory gardens that were popular during the World War I and World War II eras.
Although this pandemic has caused a major shift in our business model, we are managing and doing well. People love having a trusted source for food and plants without needing to enter a traditional store. We are happy to have a way to continue to supply what we produce while we do our part to help our local community through this pandemic. Fortunately, we are also healthy, busy and working outside — all of that is a blessing.
Finding strength in running
Michael Rodgers ’97 | political science and French majors | vice president, youth and community runner engagement at New York Road Runners
New York City is my home and the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. My neighborhood has the highest number of confirmed cases in Manhattan and I lost count of the number of people I know who have the virus. Unfortunately, I even have several friends who lost family members to the disease.
Every night at 7 p.m., the people of New York go to their balconies, windows and down to the streets to clap, ring bells and bang on pots and pans to show our appreciation for essential workers, especially healthcare professionals and first responders. I proudly participate as my husband is an infectious disease doctor managing a COVID-19 ward at a local hospital. Thankfully, he has the necessary protective gear and he has not yet contracted the virus.
Like most New Yorkers, I transitioned to working from home in March. As a lifelong runner, my current position at New York Road Runners — the nonprofit organization most widely known for producing the TCS New York City Marathon and more than 50 races annually — is as close to a “dream job” as I could get. My team supports members who raise money for free running programs serving 250,000 kids across the country, 20 free weekly community run/walks, a scholarship program for girls who are new to running, a senior fitness walking program and a leadership program for young runners.
As the virus began to spread in New York and the city issued stay-at-home orders, the organization canceled all in-person events and programs and ramped up our virtual offerings, including races, training and youth and senior programming to encourage people to stay active during this challenging time. Now that gyms, yoga and fitness studios are closed, I notice more and more people running. Granted, we now run with face coverings and alone rather than in groups, but we still run. We run not just to stay in shape, but to clear our minds of the stress from the ongoing uncertainty of how long this pandemic will last.
If you need to take a break from reality to clear your head, I encourage you to go for a walk or run. Regardless if it is around the block, a mile or 5k, just get out and move. You will feel better when you finish.