FEATURE
The New World Order of COVID-19
By Jill Sakai, PhD, writer
On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in
Wuhan, Hubei Province to the World Health Organization (WHO), ringing in the new year in ominous fashion. The cause
of the pneumonia, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, swept the globe. Within weeks, the United States had its first
confirmed case: a traveler from Wuhan who arrived in Washington.
On March 11, WHO declared the COVID-19
outbreak a global pandemic. “We have
never before seen a pandemic sparked
by a coronavirus,” said WHO Director-
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
PhD, in his announcement. “And we have
never before seen a pandemic that can be
controlled, at the same time.”
The ensuing global response to do just
that has become a defining event of 2020.
The scale and duration of the pandemic
and its response efforts have revealed
strengths and weaknesses in health
systems around the world, while also
highlighting the creativity and generosity
of the human spirit.
In the US, public health laboratories
pivoted from regular testing and
surveillance duties into emergency
response mode, operating around the
clock, mobilizing staff and coordinating
shifts to ensure personal safety, and
scrambling to keep their shelves stocked
with critical testing supplies.
With a hyperfocus on testing throughout
the pandemic response, US public health
laboratories were thrust into the spotlight
for officials, media and the public alike. As
they responded with a blend of resilience
and ingenuity in the face of testing
snafus, crushing workloads and massive
supply shortages, it has become clear
that SARS-CoV-2 has changed the future
course of public health.
Early Days
On Sunday, January 19, Washington State
Public Health Laboratory director Romesh
Gautom, PhD, received a call from his
microbiology director. The laboratory had
received a request to pick up a specimen
from a nearby community clinic for
coronavirus testing. Laboratory staff and
an epidemiologist collected, packaged and
shipped the sample to the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Then they waited.
The next evening, the Washington team
got the news they had both dreaded
and expected: the sample was positive
for SARS-CoV-2. The US had its first
confirmed case of the novel coronavirus.
That day, the Washington State
Department of Health activated an
Incident Management Team at the
building that houses both the state public
health laboratory and the communicable
diseases epidemiology office. “Forty, fifty,
sixty people appeared over the course of
weeks,” Gautom recalled. “Our lunchroom
was converted into an operation center.
Conference rooms were converted into
offices to accommodate everyone.”
On the national level, APHL was also
mobilizing staff and resources to support
members. It established its own Incident
Command System on January 22 to
coordinate with CDC and other federal
agencies. At the end of the month, APHL
established a COVID-19 Laboratory
Task Force with laboratory directors
from jurisdictions across the country
and initiated weekly calls between
public health laboratories and CDC for
situational updates and briefings on
testing strategies and rollout plans.
With that information, laboratories were
able to start preparing even before a test
was available, acquiring supplies and
equipment and training staff. But as the
number of specimens mounted, so did
the urgency. “Every day, there was a lot of
pressure to establish testing here at the
lab,” Gautom said.
With many travelers from Asia arriving
in southern California, the Orange
County Public Health Laboratory had
been prepping and shipping numerous
specimens to CDC. Eager to move testing
in-house, the laboratory staff were glad
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Summer 2020 LAB MATTERS 5