Heroes of the Pandemic

Six Memphians who have made a difference.

by

Laurie Roberts

Special Education Teacher, White Station High School

March 12, 2020, was the day everything changed. “I remember that day almost like it was yesterday,” says Laurie Roberts. “I remember everything I did that day, everything we did in the classroom. Prior to that, there was a little bit of a talk between the paraprofessionals, my assistants. We were like, ‘Okay, what’s going on? Did you hear about this? Did you hear about that?’ I’ve heard other teachers say this. It felt like, ‘Oh, we’re going to get an extra week for spring break. Well, that’ll give everybody time to clean the schools out, and then we’ll come back and we’ll just pick up where we left off.’”

It didn’t happen that way. For teachers, the past year has been a whirlwind of stress as they try to do something that had never been attempted before: Move an entire school online, on the fly.

Few have had it harder than Roberts. For 23 years, she has taught students with disabilities such as severe autism and vision impairment. Her charges require very hands-on instruction. In the pandemic era, that’s simply too dangerous.

“I have students who I haven’t ever physically met, but I have become so close to their parents, because this is something that’s uncharted, and we’ve all had to kind of learn together.” — Laurie Roberts

As the initial shutdown wore on, Roberts became increasingly worried about her students, many of whom come from disadvantaged situations. “How are my kids mentally?” she wondered. “Are they getting enough to eat?”

The school developed learning packets to bridge the gap as virtual instruction plans took shape. “I knew that some students were unable to get their packets, because maybe they didn’t have transportation, or their parents were working during those hours,” she says. “So for the students that I could get in touch with that needed the packet, that weren’t able to get them, I decided to pick up and deliver them to their houses.”

On a few occasions, Roberts sat socially distanced on her students’ front lawns and helped them with their schoolwork. In the fall, she ensured that everyone had devices for remote learning. Now, she teaches virtually from her empty schoolroom. “I set really high standards for my students,” she says, “but if you had told me last year they’d be doing PowerPoint, presenting on the screen, I wouldn’t have believed you. So they’re getting a lot of real-life skills. Yeah, I’d rather be with my kids [in person]. I want to give them a high-five and say, good job.

“But it’s not all bad,” she continues. “I think the biggest benefit has been building relationships with the families. I have students who I haven’t ever physically met, but I have become so close to their parents, because this is something that’s uncharted, and we’ve all had to kind of learn together.”

Dominique Winfrey

COVID-19 Program Coordinator, Shelby County Mayor’s Office

When Dominique Winfrey accepted a fellowship in Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ office, she had no idea she would soon be thrust into the center of a historic crisis. The 2018 graduate of the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law was just happy for the opportunity. “I like to tell people I’m Memphis through and through,” she says. “Being here my whole life, I love serving the city.”

At first, her duties were eclectic. “The way I liked to describe it was, anything that didn’t have a home lived with me,” she says.

Winfrey got her first pandemic-related email in late February 2020. Since projects involving COVID-19 didn’t have a home in county government, it fell to Winfrey to coordinate meetings between departments. By late March, she was one of the busiest people in Shelby County. “You have to remember, during that time, when covid hit Shelby County, we went from zero community transmission to community transmission really fast,” she says. “I wasn’t involved in a lot of the intricate details. I was more just making sure everybody got the [meeting] invites. I did a lot of coordinating communication efforts on the front end, even with our municipal mayors. And I still do that to this day.”

“We truly feel like a lot of people in the South, and in particular in Shelby County, believe that faith is an essential part of their lives.” — Dominique Winfrey

As the deadly scope of the situation became apparent, Mayor Harris called his team together. “I remember he gathered us in a room and said, ‘COVID is here. COVID is real.’ He told us we have to lead,” she says. “The county is depending on us, so we have to drive the conversation. And that just charged all of us. Whatever we have to do, we’re going to fight covid. And we’re not going to forget about the other needs of Shelby County while we’re dealing with COVID, because that’s just one thing that’s going on in the middle of many others — although it’s a huge, big thing.”

After the CARES Act (the federal stimulus bill) passed in March 2020, Winfrey’s role expanded. She helped coordinate funding for dozens of relief programs, such as utility assistance for more than 3,600 families and grants for struggling restaurants. “One program that I’m super proud of, that I was able to work on very in-the-weeds, is our Faithful Comeback,” she says. “That was a program that was for faith-based communities to help them either receive livestream equipment, or get $1,500 toward PPE [personal protective equipment] reimbursement. That was big, because we truly feel like a lot of people in the South, and in particular in Shelby County, believe that faith is an essential part of their lives.”

While people all over the world started working from home, Winfrey has been in her Downtown office every day. “There’s so much uncertainty around COVID,” she says. “Initially everybody was on board, ready to roll up their sleeves and help join the efforts against the disease. Now, you see where people are experiencing covid fatigue — even us. As much as we tried, as many efforts as we put forward, this thing is still here. We’ve had to be intentional in our office about promoting mental health and really doing things to make sure we can continue to be the leaders that our residents expect us to be.”

Sara Governor

Head Nurse and Lead ECMO Coordinator, Baptist Memorial Hospital

In early March, Sara Governor got word that the first COVID-19 patient had been admitted to her hospital. “I didn’t think much of it because,” she recalls, “when you work in a big hospital, you expect to see people with unusual problems.”

Soon afterwards, she had a startling conversation. “One of our doctors said, ‘Oh, Sara, I just talked to a friend of mine down in New Orleans. He said they intubated 25 people last night for COVID.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry, what? I don’t know if we have 25 ventilators just lying around! What if that happens to us?’ All of a sudden, the reality of it sort of hits, and you think, ‘What happens if we get a big surge like that? What’s that going to feel like?’”

For healthcare providers, one of the biggest challenges of the pandemic has been logistical. Governor has had an unsung, but vital, task: coordinating the supply of ECMO devices.

“ECMO is an acronym,” she says. “It stands for Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation. It’s a device we can bring into a patient’s room, and a doctor would place large tubes or drains inside of the patient. The machine does all the work for the patient’s lungs or heart, depending on what organ is not doing well. Talking about the pandemic, it’s their lungs. [The ECMO] drains blood from their body, takes it to the machine, which does all the work for their lungs, and then puts the blood back into their body. So their lungs that are so sick with covid don’t have to do any work.”

Normally used for transplants, the ECMO machines are now the covid treatment of last resort. When ventilators fail to arrest a patient’s decline, doctors call Governor. “I take the initial information from them and sort of triage the patient over the phone,” she says.

“It makes me get up and want to go to work. Every single day I’m giving it everything I have.”  — Sara Governor

If, after consulting with the lead ECMO physician, Dr. John Craig, it looks like the patient can be helped, Governor coordinates the treatment. “I’m at the bedside, assisting the physicians to get all this stuff done. Beyond that, the whole time they’re on the ECMO machine, I have to keep track of their data.”

The survival rate of COVID patients given ECMO treatment is 44 percent. “Which sounds bleak, but in our reality of things, all those people would have died,” she says.

Governor admits the pandemic has taken an emotional toll: “Anybody that’s a nurse, you get more comfortable with death than you want to be. It’s part of life, you know? You see it more than you want to, in general. This has sort of amplified that. I don’t know how to explain this. It’s not like it haunts me every day — it makes me get up and want to go to work. Every single day I’m giving it everything I have.

“And if it works out, good, and if it doesn’t, it was that person’s time,” she continues. “But I can only do as much as I can do. To me, there’s someone much higher, more powerful, in control of stuff. I just come in and do my job. I do everything I can do to help these people, and at the end of the day, that makes me sleep good at night. And I know that I work with a team of people that feels the same way.”

Kat Farris

Mask Maker

Like most people in the film and television industry, costumer Kat Farris has been sidelined by the pandemic. “Our last union gig here was Bluff City Law, and that ended in October 2019,” she says. “We have been on hiatus since then, although there are a few things stirring back up now. During the downtime, my question to myself was, what can I do?”

Ferris quickly decided her talents were best used making masks. She began weeks before the CDC started recommending face coverings. “My husband’s a scientist,” she says, “so we saw the logic of containing your breath and not being exposed to other people’s breath.”

She connected with other mask makers on social media. “There were a lot of people doing this; it’s just that a lot of people don’t have the same speed advantage that I do,” she says. “They don’t necessarily have a designated studio in their home. I had the equipment to make it go faster, and I had a network of people. It was just a perfect storm for me. I knew that, in a day, I could cut out about 150, and then, in another day and a half, I could sew and finish about 150.”

At first, Farris put out word to her friends that they could pick up free masks in her backyard. “Then, as things accelerated, pandemic-wise, I decided to reach out to some nonprofits,” she says.

“It gives me chills to talk about it. People, somewhere else, that I will never know, sent $25 to give people in this area access to masks. It still chokes me up.” — Kat Farris

The Blue Suede Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence began handing out her masks, first on Beale Street, then at Black Lives Matter protests. Last year, she worked with Tennessee House of Representatives candidate Gabby Salinas. “I believe I supplied at least 5,000 masks to her campaign, and volunteers distributed them in her district,” she says. “We discussed, should we have the fabric printed with their [campaign] logo? But we came to this realization that no, masks are not about politics. They are about basic healthcare, and her life mission is basic healthcare.”

When Farris’ supply of materials couldn’t keep up with her frantic production pace, her daughter, Jess Zafarris, author and audience engagement editor for Adweek, put out a call on Reddit, and donations started rolling in. All told, Farris says she has sewn and distributed more than 12,000 masks.

“It gives me chills to talk about it,” she says. “People, somewhere else, that I will never know, sent $25 to give people in this area access to masks. It still chokes me up.”

Velda Dedeaux

Election Worker

Blame a hurricane for why Velda Dedeaux ended up in Millington. She lived and worked in New Orleans as a civilian employee for the U.S. Navy until a fateful day in August 2005. “Having been born and raised on the Gulf Coast, I never ran from storms,” she says. “But Katrina was the first hurricane that I ever actually ran from. This was our safe haven after Katrina because our building was inundated with water.”

She continued to work for the Navy in Millington until retiring in 2010. But the life of leisure wasn’t for her. After a stint as a crossing guard, she signed up to be an election worker. “It’s something I look forward to,” she says. “I enjoy it, because I feel voting is important. What better way to give back than to get out there and work for the people who are coming in here trying to cast their votes?”

Ironically, she missed the first election day of 2020 because she caught the flu. “The doctor told me, you’re going to have to be off for a week,” she says, “and I’m like, ‘No I can’t! I made this commitment to work on election day!’”

“I didn’t give it a second thought. It was just something I was going to do.” — Velda Dedeaux

Throughout the fall of 2020, Dedeaux staffed one of the busiest polling places in Tennessee, processing 800 to 1,000 voters a day. “We didn’t think we were going to get that many people,” she says. “In November, we were in the top three at one time. That was just unheard of because of the location. It keeps you busy. As long as they had people in line to vote, time flies by. You don’t even know you’re working 10, 12, 13 hours.”

Even though she and her fellow election workers, many of whom were in vulnerable demographics, faced so much potential exposure to the coronavirus infection, Dedeaux says they didn’t hesitate. “We had a big enough room where we could spread out a whole lot more than maybe some other places,” she says. “I didn’t give it a second thought. It was just something I was going to do.”

She says her mother, who was also an election worker, instilled in her a love of democracy. “It is important that you vote in every election, because who you vote for at the local level is going to have more effect on your day-to-day life than the person you vote for at the national level,” she says. “It’s our voice. Whether the person I voted for wins or loses, at least I put my opinion out there. Nobody knows what I did, or who I voted for, but I can go to sleep at night saying, I know I did the right thing.”

Dr. Aditya Gaur

Medical Director of Occupational Health, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

The effects of COVID-19 have not been felt evenly. Vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, and people in group care and assisted living facilities have borne the brunt of the disease. There is no more vulnerable population in Memphis than the children of St. Jude. Most of them are immunocompromised in some regard, whether because of cancer, sickle cell disease, or HIV.

It’s Dr. Aditya Gaur’s job to keep them safe. But Gaur says he’s not alone on the ramparts. “You know, the saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is so appropriate when I think of how many people have been working on campus for the institutional, ongoing efforts to prevent COVID-19 from getting to patients, families, and other employees,” he says. “It’s hundreds of individuals with various titles.”

Gaur and Dr. Hana Hakim, medical director of infection control, routinely keep track of emerging disease outbreaks that might affect St. Jude’s global workforce. COVID-19 was on their radar months before most people had heard of it. “We were seeing, on a day-to-day basis, from how rapidly it was spreading, that there were no signs of containment, and how infectious it was,” Gaur says. “And then, the quick awareness the scientific community started to have about asymptomatic transmissions, in many ways, changed the whole landscape of what to expect. In infectious diseases, when you have symptom-based screening, it’s in some ways easier, because you have something tangible to go by. But when you are facing something which can transmit even from those who are asymptomatic, that’s a different level of challenge.”

“We still have to prepare for another year where there will be some level of virus activity. It will be important not to drop our guard.” — Dr. Aditya Gaur

Thanks to St. Jude’s scientific resources, Gaur and Hakim were able to implement a rigorous test and trace program in March 2020. “It’s involved working weekends and long hours,” he says. “We do our own contact tracing and case investigations. We work very closely with the [Shelby County] health department, but because we have set up a system, we have trained staff in contact tracing and case investigations. Typically, we get test results the same day. As soon as the test result is called out for someone that’s positive, within hours, we complete our case investigation and contact tracing.”

The stakes are high. A single missed case could lead to an outbreak that rips through the hospital. “We continue to see cases in our employees,” he says, “but we feel overall, with a multilayered prevention program in which testing is part, we have hopefully contained it as much as possible. And this is reflected in the fact that workplace transmission is the exception rather than the norm.”

As if that weren’t enough, Gaur was also a principal investigator in the clinical trial of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. It was found to be 72 percent effective in preventing infection. “This vaccine is unique in some ways,” he says. “Right now, it’s the only vaccine which is being researched with a single dose. And this vaccine has less stringent storage requirements, as in, it can be kept refrigerated for many months, and does not need to be frozen at minus-70.”

But while vaccines have brought hope to a tired world, Gaur says we’re not out of the woods yet. “We still have to prepare for another year where there will be some level of virus activity,” he says. “It will be important not to drop our guard.”