#23: Experiences From the Field - The Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic

Thinking Critically

In this episode, Patrick is talking with Bettina Schneider about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. They discuss: •Her recent viral TikTok video where she briefly discusses how she first knew that COVID-19 was very serious. •How Bettina was working in China at the time when COVID-19 first started to be taken seriously as a novel pathogen that had pandemic potential. •The stark differences between how the Government handled the Ebola outbreak versus COVID-19. •How the scientific community still doesn't know what the long-term effects are for those afflicted by the disease. •How the severity of the disease was not taken seriously enough initially by the U.S. Government as well as by many of its citizens. •Bettina's experience as she lived through the worst part of New York City's COVID-19 health crisis. •How this is going to be a tough winter for the United States and that it's incredibly important everyone wear a mask, practice social distancing, and monitor their health closely. •And other topics. Bettina Schneider, MPH, is a PHI/CDC Global Health Epidemiology Fellow working with CDC South Africa within the Prevention Branch of the Division of Global HIV and Tuberculosis (DGHT). She holds a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the New York University School of Global Public Health where she graduated spring of this year. Prior international experience includes academic collaboration in Beirut, Lebanon with UNICEF and American University of Beirut to increase measles immunization coverage and cholera prevention efforts in Syrian UNIDP refugee camps during spring of 2019. During January of 2020, she collaborated with NYU Shanghai in Shanghai, China researching the affects of climate change on communicable respiratory illness. Bettina is familiar with working in the public sector of public health. She has previously worked for the Minnesota Department of Health in the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control (IDEPC) Division with a primary focus on zoonotic surveillance. More recently, she has worked for New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of Communicable Disease with the surveillance of critical threat antimicrobial-resistance, where she conducted a city-wide surveillance evaluation of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections. You can connect with Bettina on her social media here: TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJ9GNhmQ/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Be_Sc_Ience LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettina-schneider/ You can find this episode on our YouTube channel as well: https://youtu.be/tVlPnrUb91w This show is supported and produced by Final Stretch Media. Final Stretch believes in creating something that disrupts attention spans and challenges the marketing status quo. They do this by creating high quality visual content that captivates your audience. You can find them on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fsmedia2020 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/finalstretch_media/ This show is also supported by QuikLee; the creators of Brain Racers. The world's first ever live racing competition for the brain. Download their app and play live on the weekends on an iOS device against the world. I have raced and it's a blast! App Download: https://apple.co/33n8aJs