With the rapid spread of the coronavirus and government orders to stay home, public health alumni and graduate students at Montclair State University find themselves in the center of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, calming frightened residents, tracing the contacts of the ill, and working to control the accelerating outbreak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you work for a health department, you truly drop everything else and a situation like this becomes the sole priority for everyone. It’s all<\/em> hands on deck,\u201d said Layal Helwani, a health educator for the Clifton Health Department.<\/p>\n Helwani is a graduate student in the Master of Public Health<\/a> (MPH). The program, marking its 10th year, is at the forefront of the crisis, providing education, commentary, leadership and comfort both on and off campus. \u201cI never would have imagined that the situation with COVID-19 would escalate as quickly as it did,\u201d said Helwani, who, along with others on the front lines with ties to Montclair State, are sharing their stories as the emergency intensifies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is truly a remarkable moment they are living,\u201d said Professor Lisa Lieberman, who reached out on a listserv to the group of graduate students, alumni and faculty. \u201cI got email after email after email back about their experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n In California, the program\u2019s first graduate, Tosan O. Boyo \u201911<\/a> MPH, reported he was asked to step out of his role in hospital operations to manage the COVID-19 Operations Center for the city and county of San Francisco. The Bay Area was the first place in the nation to pass a shelter-in-place law to address the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind,\u201d Boyo said, citing the challenges of constantly changing information. With the lockdown, \u201cwe\u2019re making progress,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re anticipating its impact on flattening the curve will be significant.\u201d<\/p>\n As U.S. cases surge, graduate students are learning firsthand how the lag and lapses in testing will make it difficult to detect the outbreak\u2019s true spread. \u201cWe are living what we talk about in public health,\u201d Lieberman said. \u201cAs a teacher of public health, there could not be a clearer lesson. I wish I didn\u2019t have to teach it in real-time.\u201d<\/p>\n In a blog born of the pandemic, MPH Thoughts, Kat DeMarco, a MPH student studying community health education, shared the story of a relative who was told to avoid all testing centers due to her other serious health concerns. \u201cAlthough isolation might ensure her safety and the safety of others, what does this mean for epidemiological calculations, and how will this impact the way we handle the pandemic?\u201d<\/p>\n Montclair State Public Health Professor Stephanie Silvera, an epidemiologist, has provided the news media with expert insight<\/a> into the urgency needed to minimize the spread of COVID-19. New data suggests a worst-case scenario of 1 in 7 New Jersey residents becoming ill. Silvera said hospitals could become inundated with patients they lack the beds to care for.<\/p>\n \u201cWe only have so many hospital beds and so many ventilators,\u201d Silvera told the Star-Ledger,<\/em><\/a> the state\u2019s largest newspaper. \u201cIf you think of it just from a hospital bed perspective, we\u2019re still going to have people who have heart attacks and strokes and need to be in the hospital and need treatment to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re talking about making decisions about who\u2019s going to survive and who\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n In Clifton, Helwani has been assisting Health Officer John Biegel, an adjunct professor in Montclair State\u2019s Public Health program, with daily updates to the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been receiving calls nonstop, and through our calls, we have been educating the public on what we know about COVID-19, where testing is available \u2013 although this has been a challenge \u2013 and what the Governor’s executive orders mean for residents and businesses,\u201d Helwani said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the weeks ahead, all of us will be playing a more active role in following up with contacts of positive cases, both informing contacts and conducting interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n As Montclair State faculty across campus prepared for online learning, Professor Amanda Birnbaum, the Public Health department\u2019s chairperson, co-hosted an online workshop with Nursing Dean Janice Smolowitz and University Health Center Director Patricia Ruiz, on talking with students about COVID-19. Offered through the Office for Faculty Advancement, the workshop was well-attended by faculty and staff from across the University.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hunger for information and ways to support our students was evident from participants\u2019 questions and ideas,\u201d Birnbaum said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was grateful for the opportunity to share a public health perspective, helping colleagues think about how the social and economic impacts of pandemic mitigation efforts can amplify health disparities, and how we can think about responding in ways that try to promote equity.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to messaging about how to support our students, the need to practice self-care to prevent burnout is another important public health message.<\/p>\n \u201cThese past couple of weeks have been super stressful and I just feel extremely drained after working and hearing these updates,\u201d said Deep Shah \u201919, a pharmacy technician at a long-term care facility.<\/p>\n Shah graduated from Montclair State with a degree in Biology and is continuing his graduate studies in the MPH program. The company where he works supplies medication to nursing homes and hospitals across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. \u201cIt\u2019s expected that the patients will need their medications for the several months of isolation to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be sending out approximately 500,000 prescriptions to make sure our patients are fully stocked on their medications and do not run out,\u201d Shah said.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough the situation the world has found itself in at this moment is far from ideal,\u201d said Shira Morris \u201918, program coordinator for the NYU Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity|NYU School of Medicine, \u201cit is amazing to see the collaboration of institutions and the sharing of resources to help mitigate the effect that COVID-19 is having on its victims \u2013\u00a0victims including COVID-19 patients, patients who need other medical assistance, health care systems, businesses, the economy, and the list goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email to her graduate students, Lieberman recalled having “come of age” as a public health professional during the early days of the HIV epidemic. \u201cI have often talked about the ways in which it defined my career. It is likely that this, too, will begin to define yours.\u201d<\/p>\n Story by staff writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren<\/a><\/p>\n\u2018No Clearer Lesson\u2019<\/h2>\n
Media Looks to Faculty Experts<\/h2>\n
Life on the Front Lines<\/h2>\n