In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.
Social distancing, sanitation, and remote work became part of our everyday lives. Five years later, its impacts are still being felt.
Becky Smith is an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and a health innovations professor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. She says despite the success in creating vaccines, the widespread vaccine refusals resulted from the lack of communication in the public health system.
“Communication involves conversation. It involves listening to people, hearing their concerns, and responding to their concerns,” Smith said. “So using that approach would have been much better as far as understanding why people have concerns, and being able to address those rather than just giving them the pure information, trusting them to make the best choice.”
However, the emphasis on sanitation and handwashing also brought about prolonged positive changes.
“One is that there’s an entire strain of influenza that went extinct globally because of the use of masks and other COVID precautions,” Smith said. “There is also a better uptake of the use of masks in American society. It’s become a little bit easier to find masks and a little bit more acceptable that if you are sick and you have to go in public, you wear a mask.”
During the pandemic, when social distancing and quarantines became inevitable, remote platforms thrived. According to Statista, Zoom saw its revenue skyrocket during the early days of the pandemic. Smith says these online platforms are a great advantage when it comes to accessibility.
“So, I just had a meeting with a colleague in Chicago and a student who’s currently back home in China, and we could have a conversation about our research even though we’re in three very different places because of this ability,” Smith said.
Recently, the CDC declared it no longer recommends COVID-19 vaccinations for pregnant women and children, leaving many confused. Smith says the reasoning for not recommending vaccines was not based on science.
“It had no scientific backing. It was simply as far as I’ve seen, other countries don’t recommend this, so we’re not going to recommend it either,” she added. “But vaccines for pregnant women are incredibly important, partially because getting COVID while pregnant is a very dangerous thing for both women and babies.”
Smith emphasized that vaccines can protect pregnancy. Because when a mother gets vaccinated, they can pass on that protection to their infants, who are at a higher risk for all viruses.
She says that although children are less likely to have severe complications from the virus, she still recommends they get vaccinated to limit the risk of getting sick.
“We know that children interact with people who are at high risk — with their parents and their other family members and with their teachers, so we want the kids to be vaccinated to decrease their probability impacts.”
Over the years, the public health system has experienced ups and downs. According to Smith, there was an influx of people who became interested in public health careers after the pandemic, but also a loss of experienced public health people who weren’t able to keep up with the work demand.
In a lot of conservative states, public health experienced legislative pushback. Including legislators who have, for instance, banned mask mandates or vaccine mandates.
“Illinois is the exception in that we’ve actually banned mask bans, which is great. But in a lot of states, public health had very few tools to work with to begin with, and they’re mostly being taken away,” Smith said.
However, since the new administration took over, Smith thinks things have gotten worse.
“The CDC and the FDA, and the EPA, they’ve seen a lot of cuts in staff and in funding,” she said. “And we’re worried about the future of public health programs even at the local level because those rely on state and federal funding.”
Smith says COVID-19 is here to stay, just like the flu and common cold, but public health officials can try to keep it under control.