AFTER DARK
Story by Amy Morris and Mary Park | Design & Photo Illustration by Krista Kok
The streets of Wuhan, China were crowded with a population of over 10 million people. Their faces were masked as they tried to shield themselves from getting sick. However, there is no escaping the virus. Flights were canceled and public transportation stopped. The city went into lockdown. On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global health emergency. The virus outbreak is just one out of the many epidemics that have negatively affected millions of people throughout history. Informing the community on how these diseases are spread and eliminated is one step toward protecting society from future outbreaks. Epidemiology, the spread of diseases, at its root means “what befalls a population,” according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This form of study is how public health officials across Washington State monitored the spread of the coronavirus on society. According to the CDC, epidemiologists examine the five Ws of an epidemic: who, what, where, when and why. All of these provide key information on how the epidemic is spreading. The five Ws of an epidemic are what people typically hear through breaking news reports when a new virus or disease is located. The media’s focus on the number of deaths or those
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WINTER 2020 | ISSUE TWO
infected is often either alarming or confusing to the general public, especially if one of the Ws is unknown. In addition, with social media often publishing information that you might not know is true, it can be difficult to tell what is real about an epidemic and what is fabricated. Amie Wojtyna, a former CDC employee and a Public Health professor who teaches a course on Epidemiology, says, “You can make statistics say anything, but it doesn’t mean that it’s valuable or accurate information.” She adds that it’s important to analyze where the statistics you see in the media come from and the CDC is an accessible and accurate source for information on epidemics. Protocol While your first thought during an epidemic might be to panic, you shouldn’t. There are protocols that will be put into place to help contain the spread of a virus. According to Kasey Knutson, the special programs coordinator of the Kittitas County Public Health Department (KCPHD), the department needs to follow a certain protocol when there is an epidemic. If the department is notified of an individual who has a possible but unconfirmed case of a disease, they would work with that individual, says
