UN FUTURO PROMETEDOR
UN FUTURO PROMETEDOR
By Rodrigo Garcia
“Carrying out is the work when many share the fatigue”
It's January 2020, and like every start of a new day, I open my email and start scanning my messages to know what I should devote my attention to first. Among a dozen new messages, one stands out, telling me that I have been activated to serve on the Santa Clara County Emergency Response Team and to report immediately. Within the next half hour, I arrive at the right place and meet a large number of people in constant movement. It is a scene similar to science fiction movies where a whole team of people monitors the asteroid that threatens to crash with the earth. There are about 100 people, all organized into smaller teams, the logistics team, the operations team, the call center, and so on. My assignment - the content development team.
“ .....similar to science fiction movies where a whole team of people monitors the asteroid that threatens to crash with the earth.”
After I introduce myself to the team supervisor, they hand me my laptop and initiate a to-do list, all with a high priority level. Procedures must be created so that clinical staff can go to the home of a person who has possibly been exposed to 2019-nCoV as it has been known until then. It is also urgent to develop a PowerPoint presentation to train field personnel on how to use the HAZMAT special suit for hazardous material since the only thing we know so far is that the virus that is spreading in the world is highly contagious, and there is no medicine to cure it and no vaccine to prevent it.
Every day the work and the urgency level increases, and there is a need to call more people. Work hours are increased, including weekends. On each shift, people work non-stop, reviewing what they have done while having a bite or a drink of water. The urgency is such that one cannot afford to go on a walk or sit on the park bench to eat lunch. Little by little, more and more people left our regular posts to join the emergency call. Then what was so feared is now a reality, the World Health Organization declares a global pandemic. The number of cases is growing alarmingly worldwide, and the order to stay at home is announced—an extreme but necessary measure to prevent infections from spreading more quickly.
“On each shift, people work non-stop, reviewing what they have done while having a bite or a drink of water. ”
As if a health pandemic were not enough, we are also facing massive events in favor of social justice, a series of natural disasters that test people's faith, all this in a hostile political climate that evades social responsibility and polarizes society more.
There are moments of fear, uncertainty, pain, emotional and physical exhaustion. The various teams that are now part of a more complex apparatus of operations, work tirelessly to ensure that help and information reaches all corners of the county. This operating apparatus is made up of people who unite their talents and abilities to achieve a common goal to help mitigate the pain experienced in our community. Outside, you also find a prominent group of essential workers who help keep our society moving forward. Farmers, janitors, retail workers, food delivery drivers, health and first aid personnel, among many others, make it possible for a good number of people to stay at home and thus stop infections by COVID-19.
“This operating apparatus is made up of people who unite their talents and abilities to achieve a common goal to help mitigate the pain experienced in our community. ”
Over a year and a half later, we are celebrating having surpassed 85% of people vaccinated in our county. The number of new daily cases is less alarming and fewer deaths are reported every day. There is a promising future but much remains to be done to ensure that our Latino community continues to be vaccinated since it is the ethnic group with the lowest percentage of vaccination. Those of us who continue to work in the Santa Clara County emergency operations team value the supportive participation of each worker. The successes achieved have been thanks to a collective effort focused on the common good. Solidarity is based on the idea that we are not simply a group of individuals but that we all form a social body and what happens to a part of a body affects its totality, we are each one of the interconnected fibers that form the fabric so rich and vast that we call community.
“Solidarity is based on the idea that we are not simply a group of individuals but that we all form a social body....”