Bre | When there’s no ‘off’ switch
I call an average of six or eight positive cases a day.
My sweet and brilliant cousin Bre joined me to share her experience with being a masters student in public health; working as a contact tracer in Milwaukee; and navigating how to refresh in her off time. It’s always so wonderful to hear how amazing my family is and to learn from them. I hope we can all learn something from Bre’s interview. Thank you for listening.
And I apologize for the technical glitches — my wifi is not very strong, but we made it through. Reality when life happens on the internet!
“It’s been tough—I’m studying public health, in my last semester of my MA degree, and covid is a public health crisis so it is something that we focus on in all of our classes. I am also a contact tracer, so essentially there’s no off switch with me in regards to covid-19.”
“We’re getting through it. ”
“A lot of our projects revolve around it [covid], we talk about different preventative strategies, we look at the trends a lot from an epidemiological standpoint, how to reduce exposures. ”
“Even my professors have never really dealt with something like this, in their whole entire lifetimes—to this magnitude at leas—so they’re kind of learning with us.”
“Its been advantageous for us to learn through this and help us to prepare our communities better for the future. ”
“So, contact tracing has changed completely over the course of the pandemic...essentially when I was first hired I was doing contact tracing like, through and through,, contacting close contacts of a positive case...just because we didn’t have the bandwith...I am doing covid investigations. So now I am calling covid-positive cases and letting them know that they tested positive. Which is sometimes emotional. ”
“It’s really heacy, when I’m not contact tracing I always think about the conversations...trying to work though and do the things to take my mind off of it...I have to watch a show, or paint, or cook.”
“I didn’t see friends for like three to four months, I didn’t anyone but Joey. So that was really hard. ”
“I vaccinated, I just have to get my second one...once they draw the vaccine they only have 3-4 hours where they have to give the vaccine otherwise they have to get rid of it which would be really sad. So, they try to find people to fill in so they’ve been doing teachers and health department workers. So I was lucky enough to get vaccinated because there was a no show. ”
“I feel like I am learning so much that I can apply to other jobs and experiences in the future. ”
“Connection is key in an emergency plan...in case this happens again or there’s a climate disaster in the future.”
Thank you to Bre for sharing your experiences with me :)
Photos by Bre.
