A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
One of the earliest first responders in one of the early epicenters of the pandemic was Dr. Sara Cody. She is the health officer and director of public health for California's Santa Clara County. She spoke with our co-host Michel Martin about issuing what's considered the country's first order for people to stay home.
SARA CODY: We were initially talking about how we needed to pick one standard around the Bay Area, about what the gathering limit size should be. But we quickly realized that we were having the wrong conversation and that we needed to be talking about shelter-in-place. And this happened very quickly over a weekend.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: Well, say more about what was going on that triggered that. Like, what did it look like there?
CODY: What happened was in the first two weeks of March, we were finally able to test more widely. Remember; the CDC test rollout was fraught. So during the first two weeks of March, we finally saw what had probably been happening for many weeks. We had imperfect information, but we had enough information to know that the virus was spreading like wildfire. And we also knew that we didn't have very many tools available because remember; at that time, there was very little personal protective equipment. There were no therapies. There was no vaccine on the horizon. And so there are almost no tools that we could turn to, and we decided to issue a shelter-in-place.
MARTIN: How long did you think the shelter-in-place order was going to last?
CODY: (Laughter) Well, it's really funny to admit this, but I honestly - we issued it, and it was for three weeks. And somehow, I had this magical thinking that, you know, maybe something would change. Maybe we'll have to extend it by a little. But never, never, never did I imagine that it would need to be in place for long as it was.
MARTIN: And then, of course, as it went on, there came to be a lot of pressure to reopen. And, you know, let's just be honest. There were conflicting messages. Did it feel that way to you?
CODY: Yeah, it was a tough communication environment, for sure. We had some advantages in the Bay Area. And by and large, the public in the Bay Area understood what we were doing, understood why it was necessary. There were certainly exceptions, but for the most part, the public appreciated what we were doing and stayed with us for a very long time.
MARTIN: You know, some of the public health professionals who were particularly visible started to have to have security.
CODY: So I was with a armed sheriff for almost 18 months. Protesters did come to my home, with increasing frequency and frequently at night, and they were very loud and very disruptive.
MARTIN: Just looking back now - and I realize that this is hard to do - but are there any aspects of the decisions that you made that you now think were incorrect?
CODY: Honestly, the decision that felt most clean and that I would make again and again and again was the shelter-in-place. I think the much more complicated decisions were around reopening. And it was, what do you reopen when? And how to get input and from whom on making those decisions - that was enormously, enormously complex.
MARTIN: Do you think something has fundamentally changed for you and for other professionals like you as a result of that experience?
CODY: Yes, I think many public health professionals at every level of public health were really traumatized by that period. And I am in awe of colleagues who did what they did with less support than I had.
MARTIN: How do you think this experience may have changed the way the country may face a future pandemic?
CODY: Honestly, I'm quite worried. I think that we are in a much weaker position now, for a variety of reasons, than we were five years ago. And I think that we're going to have to face it in a different way. Local is important. That's where the rubber hits the road. That's where you can make change. That's where you can be nimble.
I don't have the answers, but we're in a really, really, really tough place right now. The country is incredibly polarized. We've had this, like, radical change in norms about how we behave and how we speak with each other and how we solve problems together. We need coalitions of like-minded people to express themselves and try to make change.
MARTIN: That is Dr. Sara Cody. She's health officer and public health director for Santa Clara County in California. Dr. Cody, thank you so much for talking with us.
CODY: Thank you so much.
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