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01/19/2022 08:00 AMThe truth about public health is that most people think about it only when the public is unhealthy. Then public health becomes of prime concern. That has meant Essex Director of Public Health Lisa Fasulo has had her hands full since the onset of the pandemic nearly two years ago.
By December, she thought things were manageable enough so she could get away for a week’s vacation over Christmas, her first time off in a year and a half.
It didn’t turn out that way, and, of course, COVID-19 was the culprit; more specifically it was the omicron variant of COVID that caused Fasulo to spend some five of her six vacation days on conference calls, often planning for how to distribute the testing kits at that point promised but not yet delivered by the state. More kits are still needed, she added.
Fasulo said that stress and burnout were discussed in weekly online meetings of state health directors.
“At a meeting a week ago, people did say they wondered how they were able to keep doing this, but it helps everybody to talk to other health directors,” she said. “The questions they get are not different. Sticking together helps.”
Fasulo, nonetheless, said she had never felt overwhelmed.
“I still have a job to do and I do it every day,” she said. “I am not discouraged and I am not the kind of person to start feeling down.”
Fasulo admitted that she came to the office with a to-do list daily but often the first thing she had to do was revise it to respond to new situations and to the questions and concerns of Essex residents.
“I think half the town has my cell phone and the other half my email,” she said. “I try to respond to everybody.”
She is not a doctor and cannot give medical advice but tries to provide information on relevant resources and to answer questions within her fields of expertise.
In addition to Essex, she does get telephone queries for residents of Deep River and Chester. She thinks it is because students from the three towns are together at John Winthrop Middle School and Valley Regional High School.
Despite the continuing and discouraging mutation of the virus, Fasulo said it is important to remember we are in a far better place than we were at the outset of the pandemic.
“Two years ago, we didn’t know anything, but now we do,” she said. “The science has been great.”
Still, she warns this is no time to abandon vigilance. Cases for the last week for which Fasulo had statistics at the time of this story indicated a positivity rate of 10.5 percent in Essex. In fact, she said that she believes the omicron variant is far more prevalent in Essex than the official statistics indicate, because there are people who test at home and do not report the results.
She urges people to wear masks and maintain proper distancing.
“Use mitigating behaviors. Give people the benefit of a step back; be respectful,” she says. “If you know a restaurant is going to be packed, chose another night to go.”
Fasulo wanted to remind college students to get boosters before they return for their second semester and she is eager for the youngest residents eligible for vaccinations, those from 5 to 12, to get their shots. Her last statistical report showed some 25 percent of those children in Essex were fully vaccinated.
It has been a difficult year and a half, but Fasulo said she remains upbeat.
“I am totally optimistic that it is all going to work out, and that we are going to be able to deal with different mutations. With omicron, we are not seeing the same kind of major illness; most people can manage it,” she said.
But, she is not taking anything for granted.
“I am still holding my breath,” she admitted.
And she has no more plans for a vacation, though she does have ideas of where to go whenever that becomes possible.
“Somewhere warm and sunny,” she said.