NEW CHALLENGES

Kasey Knutson distributes critical pandemic information

By KARL HOLAPPA

staff writer

Staffing the front lines throughout the pandemic has been a gargantuan task, every day holding new challenges for those tasked with the challenge. While some frontline individuals are front and center during the fight, others are getting equally critical work done behind the scenes.

Providing accurate, timely and dependable information on the public health aspects of the pandemic has been one of the most critical aspects of the fight against the virus, and Kittitas County Public Health Department Public Information Officer Kasey Knutson has been working overtime during the past year to ensure the information gets delivered to local media outlets, agencies, and residents of Kittitas County.

Knutson has been working at KCPHD since October 2008, and she said there’s never been a dull moment in those 13 years. Prior to her time at the department, she said he had no knowledge of public health, nor did she have any intention of working in the field.

“I went to school to be a high school English teacher,” she said. “I student taught and decided that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. I started working with at-risk kids who had dropped out of school or were maybe struggling in school, and as a result of that community partnership I met some of the people that worked at public health.”

Knutson started her public health career in health promotion, education, and community outreach. She worked on programs including tobacco prevention, child dentistry and immunization work. Since then, she has run the gamut of pretty much every task known to

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Kittitas County Health Department Public Information Officer Kasey Knutson stands in from of the health department’s building on North Nanum Street. the department.

“If we have it at health department, I’ve probably dipped my foot in there,” she said.

Knutson eventually got into the field of public health emergency preparedness and response, which gave her the first taste of what she now does every day during the pandemic.

“That was really where it started with public information,” she said. “I remember the first time I ever made phone calls for an emergency during the Taylor Bridge fire. That’s when I was in training, and it has blossomed since then.”

Although the job comes naturally to Knutson at this point, she said it wasn’t always that way, especially in the beginning while she was training for the position.

“I remember getting my hand slapped for using the wrong terminology about air quality,” she said.

Since taking the lead, Knutson said the most common public information responses from KCPHD prior to the pandemic involved flooding and wildfires.

“Sometimes in public health we have notifications of boil water advisories,” she said. “It’s anything and everything.”

PANDEMIC PIVOT

Over the last year, the vast majority of the daily workload for Knutson involves pandemic response as part of the county’s Incident Management Team. One characteristic she said many on the IMT share is that they still have other jobs aside from the tasks related to pandemic response. As the Developmental Disabilities Coordinator for KCPHD, she still needs to take on that workload along with that related to the pandemic.

“I still have those tasks that I need to complete,” she said. “The majority of my day is COVID-19related. I’m either pushing paperwork through for volunteers because I help assist with that, or I’m writing a press release, or I’m responding to concerns and questions that we have. I live, eat, breathe COVID-19, and I have for a year.”

Although things have leveled out a bit as the IMT has gotten into a consistent workflow, Knutson said it was not always that way.

“Especially in the beginning, it would be any

Kittitas County Health Department Public Information Officer Kasey Knutson works with Candi Blackford of the health department, and Dede Utley (in blue scrubs) from KVH during a health department event. hour, at any point, I could get a text message or a phone call, and I would need to get information out,” she said. “It was all the time, round the clock.”

In addition to the initial nonstop workload, Knutson said the situation was compounded with the stress of not knowing what would come next for the county and its residents.

“We went from a positive case in Snohomish County to a lot of change really quick,” she said. “We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen the fight about masking, we’ve seen the fight about closing schools. To look back in hindsight, it’s almost hard to remember because there’s so much and we’ve acclimated to a lot of it.”

FORGING AHEAD

As the county hits a year of dealing with the pandemic, Knutson said there is sometimes the feeling that the life-work balance has leveled out at times since the pandemic began. Then again, sometimes it all still seems overwhelming on certain days. “I think we all feel like we’re doing OK, but I think that the majority of us are feeling like our glass is full,” she said. “It doesn’t take a whole heck of a lot to make that glass spill over.” One anchor Knutson attributes to the quest for stability is the people she works with within KCPHD and the IMT. Since the pandemic began, she said not one employee has left public health, with the exception of one employee that already had plans to retire prior to the pandemic. “Everybody that was here when this whole thing started is still here,” she said. “I’m not the only person that has that kind of workload, believe me. There’s others here that are working hard 24/7, and they’re still here too.” Looking back on the last year, Knutson said after seeing the county rally during catastrophes like Taylor Bridge and the death of Deputy Thompson, she is not surprised that the county rallied to work through the challenges related to the pandemic. “I think this community is amazing,” she said. “We’ve made national headlines, and I think others are wondering how we keep doing it.” v

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