Health Her es EASTERN GRADUATES ARE AT THE HEART OF SPOKANE’S CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE
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t is not glamorous work. The days are long, often exhausting: there are phone calls, data analyses, site visits, isolation interventions, testing, more testing, and messaging that urges, sometimes pleads, with residents to “wash your hands, maintain social distance, wear masks, stay home when you’re ill.” Their labors are mostly behind the scenes, thankless. When the workday ends, no one hangs out of apartment windows cheering their efforts. But make no mistake, the local public health professionals who perform these tasks — those crucial foot soldiers in the battle to beat back the most deadly viral pandemic in a century — are heroes just the same. Their work has already saved dozens, if not hundreds of lives here in the
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Inland Northwest. In the coming months they will almost certainly save many more. At the Spokane Regional Health District, the agency at the center of Spokane County’s full court press against COVID-19, graduates from Eastern Washington University are prominent among those keeping us safe. Eastern magazine spoke with several Eagle alumni to learn how they’ve contributed — and how they’re coping — during this time of unprecedented threat to our health and wellbeing.
