She Fell Into a Burning Ring of Public Fire

PHOTOS COURTESY IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND WELFARE

Dr. Christine Hahn, Idaho State Epidemiologist

BY MARGARET CARMEL

Dr. Christine Hahn went from 24 years of invisibility to walking a political high wire under the lights of the COVID-19 big-top almost overnight.

Hahn, 58, took her post as Idaho’s state epidemiologist in 1997, a position most Idahoans probably didn’t know existed. Since then, she’s quietly advised five governors and other high-ranking state officials on the spread of infectious diseases cropping up from all over the world, including SARS, bird flu, and Ebola.

Sometimes, if things got particularly hairy, there was a press conference where she would pop up. But usually, it was just one, before the disease ebbed back into obscurity and the worldwide threat of the world’s first major pandemic since 1918’s Spanish Flu died down.

Not this time. Now, after dozens of weekly press conferences and with nearly 600,000 Americans (including over 2,000 Idahoans) dead from COVID-19, Hahn is more famous than she ever expected.

“This has been the only time I have had this sustained high-profile work,” she said earlier this month, sitting at a picnic table across the street from the Idaho State Capitol. “Even with my mask on, I’ll have people kind of recognize me and I think, ‘Oh god.’ I am looking forward to sinking back into obscurity.”

That doesn’t mean she is nervous, though. Hahn and other epidemiologists have been preparing for this exact scenario for decades, watching each new disease that springs up with eagle eyes to see if it’s going to be the next major pandemic the world is due for. She wasn’t totally sure COVID-19 was going to be “The One” when it first emerged, but once it took hold in Washington State’s long-term care facilities she knew it was time to batten down the hatches.

When Hahn stepped up to the podium for her weekly appearances on press conferences with Governor Little watched by thousands, she used the same advice she tells her kids before they have to do public speaking: If you say what you know, and admit what you don’t, you have nothing to be worried about.

“The only reason I could be nervous is if I felt like I should know more than I do, but I don’t and then I would be nervous and my weakness would be revealed,” she says. “Or if I was trying to mislead and I felt like I wasn’t being honest with the public, but I’ve always been free to say what I want to say.”

Idaho, like many deep red states, wasn’t an easy place to do this work in 2020. Hahn took criticism from both sides of the aisle, with the far-right doubting the existence of the pandemic at all and protesting measures to control the spread while liberals were demanding more action. The Gem State was one of 11 states never to impose a mask mandate, even when officials like Hahn and the CDC said high rates of mask-wearing could save lives.

Hahn says she spent hours discussing the pros and cons of a mask mandate with Little as pressure mounted. But, she says his locally focused approach to mandates likely worked for Idaho because it kept tensions down.

Someday, when all of the dust settles and people look back at what worked and what didn’t work, I believe there will be some recognition that in some communities mandates can be helpful...

“We had heard there were some people who said, ‘If you mandate it, I will take my mask off,’” Hahn says. “...Someday, when all of the dust settles and people look back at what worked and what didn’t work, I believe there will be some recognition that in some communities mandates can be helpful and in some communities, it might be counterproductive.”

America was already a simmering hotbed of government skepticism and conspiracy theories, but the virus and government-imposed public health orders took it to a new level. Hahn says that her strategy throughout the pandemic was focusing on reaching people who were in the middle of the political spectrum and trying to stick to the facts as she had them, instead of trying to bring in people from the fringes.

“I understand that there are some people who are very skeptical and very mistrustful, but I felt like I didn’t need to reach specifically out to them,” she says. “I’m going to try and reach most people and hopefully the people who are skeptical will say, ‘Well, I’m not necessarily going to jump out and get a vaccine but I don’t think she’s lying. I feel like she’s telling her truth and I don’t agree with it.’”

And even after everything that has happened over the past year, Hahn still heads into the office eager to get to work, volunteering administering vaccines or taking a look at the latest data. “I love what I do and I feel like it’s still so important,” she says. “I still get up and I think, ‘Oh my gosh, today I’ve got this meeting.’”