Governors across the United States have been working to determine what safe reopening might look during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the National Governors Association (NGA) needed experts to outline considerations, they reached out to UMBC’s Lucy Wilson. 

For more than a decade, Wilson has served as a public health expert on disease response and public health planning at the international, national, and state levels. When the NGA called, she joined an interdisciplinary team of experts in developing “The Roadmap to Recovery: A Public Health Guide for Governors,” published this April.

Keeping Maryland safe

Wilson is an infectious disease physician who is also a professor and graduate program director of emergency health services at UMBC. Prior to coming to UMBC, she served as a medical epidemiologist at the Maryland Department of Health, as chief for the Center for Surveillance, Infection Prevention and Outbreak Response for ten years. There she oversaw Maryland’s infectious disease outbreak responses and infection control guidance in all types of settings. 

Spring 2019 graduate school graduation ceremony. (Wilson, first on the left in the second row.) Photo courtesy of Wilson.

She has also served on the State’s Physician on Call Team, where she was one of a small group of doctors responsible for assessing potential biological, chemical, and nuclear threats. And she currently is the co-principal investigator of the Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) branch of Maryland’s Emerging Infections Program (EIP). Through EIP, she conducts surveillance epidemiology and antibiotic resistance research focusing on healthcare-associated infections (including COVID-19) in hospitals and nursing homes. At UMBC, her research focuses on visualizing health outcomes across the continuum of healthcare.

“I have experience working with stakeholders throughout the state to examine different areas of response…that cut across the spectrum of emergency management and response,” explains Wilson. She notes that this could range from education to agriculture to transportation. “This gave me the perspective to help make recommendations to governors about how to create a team and what type of considerations to have for COVID-19 response.”

Learning from previous outbreaks

The NGA provides governors, cabinet members, Congress, private business, and the international community with guidance related to public policy and governance. To develop a COVID-19 recovery roadmap, Wilson helped assess the various settings impacted by COVID-19. She then applied the science of infection control and disease transmission to help develop criteria to maintain the safety of settings like schools, hospitals, prisons, and nursing homes. 

Wilson’s recommendations were informed by her prior work in infection control, disease surveillance, and government response to outbreaks, diseases, and pandemics at a national and international level. These include responding to the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic of 2009, Ebola, Zika, statewide food-related outbreaks, and medication recalls.

When it comes to COVID-19, Wilson says, “This level of pandemic is unprecedented in modern times.” She explains, “We can look back to 1918 to see how social distancing worked. We can look at other countries who have had different COVID-19 strategies in terms of their response and reopening. But what we need to be prepared for is that the coronavirus is difficult to control.”

Using available tools

“Governors must respond with tools we know will work, as appropriate to their region, to try to minimize illness,” states Wilson. These tools focus on minimizing physical contact between people, from using touchless purchasing and curbside pickup at businesses to adjusting work schedules to spread out employees.

The Roadmap to Recovery report divides states’ COVID-19 responses into two stages. The first stage focused on reducing the spread of infection through mandated physical distancing in the absence of comprehensive testing, treatment, or vaccines. Closing gathering spaces like schools, businesses, places of worship, and recreation areas helped to “flatten the curve.” 

The second stage involves necessary measures and infrastructure needed to safely open up society. This includes continuous assessments to determine whether to keep moving forward or to return to previous restrictions. 

“This is a multifactorial situation where we will likely see more cases and potentially more waves of disease,” shares Wilson. “It will be difficult to eradicate the coronavirus until we have a vaccine or valid treatment. Hopefully, as we implement and determine best practices, we can minimize the number of infections and deaths.” 

Beyond the report, Wilson also provided support to policymakers as a panelist for a Johns Hopkins University Diagnostic Excellence Summit on COVID-19. The summit focused on “Diagnostic Strategy for the COVID-19 Pandemic — Bench to Bedside to Blueprint for Policymakers.” She is currently helping to develop and implement campus policy as part of UMBC’s Incident Management Team and Fall Planning Coordinating Committee.

Informing the public

Since the start of the pandemic, Wilson has also provided guidance to the general public on how to take precautions to reduce coronavirus transmission. “People are being asked to take very drastic measures, which have radically changed their lives,” she says. She takes the time to speak with the media because she knows it is essential for people to understand the reasoning behind public health guidelines. 

In March, Wilson explained the need for sufficient protective equipment for healthcare workers in the New York Times. When the virus began to impact cruises she explained the quarantine process in the Washington Post. 

When COVID-19 testing became a public concern and broader restrictions began to be implemented, Wilson helped Maryland and Washington D.C. residents understand these issues. She contributed to several additional articles in The Washington Post. This included coverage on increasing restrictions, testing issues, the rising rate of infection, contact tracing, and the closing of gathering spaces. 

“It is important to know what is science and what is reasonable. People want to know what actions people can take to take care of themselves,” says Wilson. Wilson was a guest on the Public Health On Call podcast, produced by Johns Hopkins. She spoke about how nursing homes and first responders can address the threat of COVID-19. 

Wilson has also offered guidance on what people can do on an individual level. She addressed issues with physical activities like golfing and running. In the Huffington Post she discussed how to properly remove disposable gloves and why they shouldn’t be reused, what to do about jewelry and beards to avoid disease transmission, and reusing face masks. And in The Conversation, Wilson wrote about the matters to consider after a loved one dies from coronavirus, to avoid further infection.

How to begin reopening

Wilson has now also begun speaking with news agencies, including CNN. She shares what the process of reopening the country might look like. Leaders are learning how to manage rapid changes on a daily basis in all aspects of life, beyond just healthcare. 

Wilson expects that, moving forward, some interventions will work better than others, and communities will learn from each others’ experiences. “This is an evolving process. There will be changes in recommendations and information. Our understanding of this virus is that it affects everyone and every sector of our society,” says Wilson. “We need to have patience and be flexible because we are all learning as we go along.”

Banner image: Lucy Wilson. Photo courtesy of Wilson.

With Covid-19 causing many Americans to file for unemployment, many people are looking for jobs.  Some malicious actors are taking advantage of them by creating new job scams. Here is a list of tips from Forbes to help spot potential job scams.

• Malicious actors will use keywords when describing a job such as “work-from-home”, “work-at-home”, “quick money”, or even “unlimited earning potential”. A legitimate job will usually use keywords along the lines of “remote work”, “virtual work” or “telecommute job”.

• Descriptions and emails for scam jobs will usually have grammatical or spelling errors, while legitimate jobs will not have major errors.

• A malicious actor will want to hire very quickly, they may include keywords like “immediate hire” in the description and any communication will feel urgent. A legitimate job will usually take some time as they want to hire the right people.

• If the job description seems “too good to be true” then it probably is.

• Scam jobs are known for asking for an upfront fee for things like applications, background checks, employee processing or even uniforms. They could also request personal information prior to completing the hiring process. A legitimate job will only request information like tax documents after agreeing to the terms of hire.

• A malicious actor will request to communicate through email or even chat rooms like Google Hangout. Their emails might even try to mimic the real company’s emails. Even if a legitimate job will contact you through websites like LinkedIn.  They will not hire someone without having a phone or video conference interview.

The key to quick scams is urgency.  The scammer doesn’t want you to stop and think, and certainly not to ask questions.  If you are urged to act immediately and told that you will lose a good opportunity or that something bad will happen if you delay, be suspicious.  

Lack of business details is another warning flag. If someone offers you a job without giving you a phone number, street address, or a link to their business to check out, be suspicious.

If the message tells you that your name was provided by UMBC, but asks you to reply from your personal email, ask yourself why they don’t want to use the UMBC email address they just used to contact you.  If you see something inconsistent, be suspicious.

If you do receive any email that you suspect is a scam, please do not click on any URL or reply. Either of those actions confirms to the sender that your email address is valid. Please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu and delete the message.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

For more information, please check out:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2020/05/11/job-hunting-scams-amid-covid-19-pandemic/#57724b253c57

Dear Colleagues,

I am grateful to work at UMBC, with its commitment to equity and inclusion. Our leaders issued a superb statement about the inequality that videos of police and community violence and the disproportionate harm to Black, Indigenous, People of Color from COVID19 have made so visible. Grief and rage are our immediate responses. The continued centuries of racial inequality in the United States take a toll. We hope you are taking care of yourselves, and that those you love are as well as can be. 

Events affect us unequally. Some of us see our loved ones in Ahmed Arbery, Chris Cooper, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or in ill family members and those working on the front lines of the pandemic. Others know someone like Amy Cooper, or wonder whether we do. Unequal access to housing, loans, schools, health insurance, sick pay and too-frequent, dangerous encounters with police are daily life for Black, Indigenous, People of Color. White people in the United States can often choose whether to recognize inequality, and what to discuss with friends and family.  White people can choose to be too uncomfortable to discuss racism, and avoid it. Black, Indigenous, People of Color can’t. Ignoring racism allows benefits of whiteness to appear as if from nowhere. 

The United States political system is much more than one elected official. Myriad civil servants and people in civic organizations and businesses have opportunities to find ways to improve what we do. Anne Arundel County has just declared racism a public health issue. We want the study of public policy to enable hope, and to include our grief and rage in our hope. At its best, hope is a practical emotion: we expect better outcomes when we take steps to bring them about. Taking steps requires recognizing racism and inequality.  Inequality--recognizing it, ameliorating it--is at the heart of studying public policy. We thank you for your work and commitment. 

We invite you to continue to work with Nancy Miller and Zoë McLaren, who work on health disparities; with Pam Bennett and Jane Lincove who work on schooling, race and inequality; with Usman Ali and Lauren Edwards, our colleagues who work on policing and accountability; Yusuke Kuwayama who works on valuing environmental benefits; John Rennie Short, Fernando Tormos Aponte and myself, who work on inequity, disaster, social movements, and the politics of law. Multiple affiliate faculty are also committed to anti-racist work, including in Sociology, Anthropology and Public Health; History; Economics, Education, and Geography and Environmental Systems.

Please don't hesitate to write to share thoughts or concerns.

My very best wishes.

Susan Sterett