"We were looking at our numbers and looking at what was happening in Italy and really concerned that we were heading in the wrong direction at that point," said Dr. Erica Pan, who was at that time the interim health officer for Alameda County. Dr. Pan is now the State Epidemiologist with the California Department of Public Health.
She told KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert" that she has clear memories of the day.
"It was really only such a small number of cases compared to where we are now."
Italy was the first country to go into a national lockdown after it was hit hard by the virus before most other countries had even recorded their first cases. Now Italy is tightening its restrictions once again, an outcome that was unthinkable last March.
"I think we still had hopes at the time that we would do that stay at home then, and it would be a few weeks, a couple months or two or three months, but not as long as it has been," said Dr. Pan.
She said that in the intervening year, there has been a major investment into public health infrastructure and an increase in collaboration across health systems, public health and community organizations, as well as between state and local agencies.
As a former local public health official who now works with the state, Dr. Pan explained that infrastructure needs to be sustained even when the coronavirus pandemic is in our rearview mirror.
"I think it’s really important that local health has the flexibility and authority that’s needed, but also, how do we build systems and infrastructure statewide to really improve our coordination and consistency statewide as well?"
Despite the devastation of the pandemic, Dr. Pan said there is a lot to be hopeful about.
"I’m really optimistic…really excited that there’s going to be more vaccine coming down the line very quickly," she said. "We’ve come an amazing, long way. I never thought when you asked me last spring that we’d have a vaccine by December."
State data shows that over four million Californians are fully vaccinated, with another four million partially vaccinated.
“I do see a lot of hope and really hoping that later this year we’ll be back to a lot of the things we used to do.”
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