Three Things Thursday highlights three things I am paying attention to as an epidemiologist each week. Your responses to my positive encouraging news last week was overwhelming — the texts, comments, likes, emails, and DMs were amazing; my heart is full. It is clear that we all need encouragement and reminders about the medical breakthroughs, public health interventions, and preventive medicine that are keeping our communities healthy.
So this week — I am celebrating three things that have brought me joy and I am thankful for that are a direct result of the COVID lockdowns of 2020.
Can you believe it has been four years since the lockdowns began?
But first, before that celebration — I would be remiss if I didn’t mention norovirus. Norovirus is in the headlines and we are talking about it here at home — just love it when conversations around the dinner table include a list of kids who threw up at school today. This is your friendly reminder that we can stop the spread of norovirus with proper handwashing. This is a disease that is spread through fecal-oral transmission. Everyone MUST wash their hands properly after using the bathroom and before preparing food or eating.
Celebrating…
On the fourth anniversary of the lockdowns, I cannot help but think of the lessons learned, memories made, and life changes that occurred during the months we spent in our homes. I am reminded of the quote from Hans Zinsser —
The lockdowns of 2020 were an adventure…
Four years later —
I am celebrating friendships and the pod family/quaranteam we created.
One major mistake we — public health, me, political leaders — made early in the pandemic was saying we needed to practice social distancing. This was wrong. While we needed physical distance, we needed each other socially more than ever.
Physical distance was needed.
Friends were needed also.
We formed a pod in the spring of 2020 — we went swimming and boating together. We had picnics together. We went on bike trips. We let our kids play together, tie-dye endless articles of clothing, and be kids together.
We kept our pod tight — we discussed risks, talked about exposures, let each other know about symptoms and diagnoses, and shared life together.
Our pod was a lifesaver. It was also life-giving.
And nearly four years later, we are still eating dinner together every Saturday night.
What a blessing…!!
Four years later — and there is still so much joy in Legos.
I do not want to venture to guess how many Legos we have in our home, but building with Legos was a hallmark of our time in lockdown. As I have written previously, the floral Lego sets are the best. My daughter built this one for me (way back in 2021), and I have it in my office. These sets include Lego pieces from other sets (read: the leftover or rejected pieces) to create beauty.
The leaves on the flower stem pictured here are actually the wings from a pterodactyl set. It is amazing, right?
Each time I look at this beautiful bouquet of flowers, I am reminded that beauty does come from ashes (or rejected Lego pieces). It also reminds me that I need to look for the beauty and opportunities that are all around me, regardless of the circumstances. While the lockdowns were hard on all of us — personally, professionally, financially, socially, and spiritually — if we look back at those months with an eye toward beauty, I think we can all see that there was magic in those moments. For us, there were family meals and (virtual) fireside chats with students; long walks in the cemetery and discovering a deer skeleton and baby skunks. We made bread, ice cream, and donuts from scratch.
There was beauty in the lockdown. Can you see it?
And these repurposed Legos are also a reminder to me (and hopefully you, too) that though I may think I am designed for one specific purpose, I could easily be repurposed in order to bring beauty to the world in expected and amazing ways. I need to be open to creating (new) beauty in my life — maybe from the ashes, maybe from something that is yet to be, maybe from something that I have long overlooked. But I need to be open and willing to explore, create anew, try to put the previously unconnected together in order to create more a beautiful world around me.
Finally — four years later and this little community is still together.
For those of you who don’t know the origin story. I was just a professor of Global Health & Biology prior to the pandemic. In January 2020, I was invited to the local TV station to answer some questions about the then-unnamed virus that was spreading around the world. What I thought would be “that time I got to go on TV and talk about my fascination with disease outbreaks,” was the start of a new career. I became a regular at Erie News Now, ultimately being hired as an exclusive contributor. I did a live Q&A for our local hospital and then was asked by one of our County Commissioners to answer community questions about COVID on Facebook.
For 15 months, I hosted a weekly Q&A Facebook Live show.
About halfway into those 15 months, I began writing here because information about vaccines and variants, among other things, needed to be shared as quickly as possible. You all had questions and concerns — and let’s be honest, information on the CDC website was outdated. And here in Pennsylvania, most counties do not have a local health department — so when leaders were saying listen to your local health official, we were faced with a void; we had to stitch together our own “health department” in order to stay informed and up-to-date. Add to that, there was misinformation everywhere. And over the course of the pandemic, we formed a community — where you all asked amazing questions and I did my best to answer (or find the answers to) your questions. We kept each other company and were empathetic to one another as we lived through lockdown, struggled to find vaccines, didn’t know if sending our kids back to school was safe, and re-entered life in the new normal.
I am grateful that four years later our community has grown. It’s also really special to know that some of the founding members of this community are still around — reading, asking questions, challenging assumptions, and working to create healthy communities.
As I look to the future — year five with COVID — I am struck by how much good; how much beauty; how many friendships; how much trust; how much community has been created here.
And I am so grateful — to be part of your world. And to have you as part of mine.
Had there not been a pandemic, our paths might not have crossed. This community would not exist. And so, to the pandemic, I say thank you for these treasures.
As we look to the future — the need to work together to build healthy communities has never been more important. While we have so much to be grateful for, there is much work to do. And so in the weeks to come, I am going to balance my writing with disease updates that you need to know about, positive news to encourage you, and calls to action.
Only together can we create healthier communities for all.
Cheers.
Please share your favorite memories and grateful moments from the past four years with me. Please —
And please invite your friends, family, and colleagues (even your enemies) to join us here — only together can we create healthy communities and see the beauty all around us.
Epi(demiology) Matters is written by Dr. Becky Dawson, PhD MPH — an epidemiologist, teacher, mom, wife, and dedicated yogi. She is a tenured professor at Allegheny College, Research Director at a community hospital, and an exclusive contributor (all things health & medicine) at Erie News Now (NBC/CBS). Her goal is to create healthy communities for all. She writes Epi Matters — first & foremost because epidemiology does matter (to all of us) and she hopes that each post will help to educate and empower readers to be healthy and create healthy communities.
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You have made a large contribution to educating people about public health issues. I regularly read your writing and appreciate your thoughtful approach to the issues.Thank you very much!
You gave so many people such good advice during Covid. Just to have a knowledgeable person to take questions and answer them was comforting. You didn't have to do that, but you did, and that says a lot about you. Covid is not over and I continue to read your informative E-mails weekly. Keep up the good work!