Baker County Health Department director retires, reflecting on the pandemic

May 2—The telephone call that changed Nancy Staten's life — and indirectly, pretty much everybody else's in Baker County — happened on a Friday.

She remembers that part clearly, even if so much that was to come in the ensuing two years passed, as she puts it, "in a blur."

The date was Jan. 24, 2020.

Staten had been working for the Baker County Health Department for 34 years, and as its director for almost three years.

The topic of the phone call from the Oregon Health Authority was something unfamiliar to almost everyone who isn't an virologist.

A novel coronavirus, first detected in Wuhan, China, was beginning to worry public health officials across the globe.

Including in Oregon.

Staten was curious but not terribly concerned.

The first U.S. case had been confirmed in Washington state four days earlier.

There were none as yet in Oregon.

The concept that a pandemic could affect Baker County was not completely farfetched, to be sure.

Staten remembered the swine flu outbreak in 2009.

The Baker County Health Department had distributed vaccines, but the outbreak was relatively short-lived.

About two weeks later, in early February 2020, Staten participated in another call with state health officials.

This call was different.

The novel coronavirus was spreading.

What was to become the COVID-19 pandemic was underway, even if most people didn't realize it.

"I remember that sinking feeling," Staten said.

In March her trepidation would be justified.

Schools closed. So did businesses.

The term "social distancing" shoved its way into the lexicon.

For the first time in a century, an infectious disease was the dominant force in America.

"Things exploded," Staten said. "It was becoming more apparent that this was going to be a big deal."

And suddenly the last stanza of her career, with retirement actually conceivable, turned into an ordeal Staten couldn't have imagined.

A Baker County native

Staten, now 62, was born and raised in Baker City. A member of the Colton family, she graduated from Baker High School in 1977.

She attended a business school in Phoenix, Arizona, and earned an associate's degree. She didn't envision a career in public health.

But in 1986, Beth Baggerly, then director of the Baker County Health Department, offered Staten a job, one day a week, in the WIC program, which helps buy nutritious food for Women, Infants and Children.

Staten and her husband, Chuck, had two children. Their son, Jason, was four, and their daughter, Kari, wasn't yet two.

"I was a stay-at-home mom," Staten said.

She enjoyed the part-time job, though.

And when it expanded to three days per week, adding front desk duties to her work with the WIC program, Staten accepted the offer.

In 1991 she started working at the school-based health center at Baker High School. She became a certified nursing assistant, and stayed with the school-based clinic, which was operated by the health department, until February 2008.

She worked at the health department's front desk until she was named interim director in late 2016, dropping the interim from the title in the spring of 2017.

For the first two and a half years the job was busy but predictable.

Until that fateful phone call.

A pandemic begins

The first phase of the pandemic was in some ways the most hectic, Staten said.

"There was so much we didn't know," she said.

Schools closed before spring break and then didn't reopen.

Restaurants, prohibited from having indoor dining, shifted to takeout.

And as the number of confirmed cases rose in Oregon, Baker County awaited its first.

It took longer than most.

The health department announced the county's first positive test on May 6.

During those initial weeks, Staten said, her tasks, and that of the health department staff, included preparing for what Dr. Eric Lamb, the county's public health officer, described as the inevitable arrival of the virus.

Indeed, Staten said she wonders — and she knows many county residents share her curiosity — whether COVID-19 was here well before May 6, 2020.

"There were a lot of ill people around here in January and February," she said, noting that other viruses, including influenza, could have been responsible.

Regardless, even before the May 6 announcement, Baker County, like the rest of Oregon, was engulfed in the pandemic and its effects.

Staten said her life became a series of phone and video conference calls.

With officials from the Oregon Health Authority.

With other county leaders.

With representatives from the county's four school districts.

The 6:30 a.m. calls with school officials, for instance, became something of a ritual.

Staten said Lamb, who participated in most of those and other virtual meetings, helped her immensely.

"We're very fortunate to have him," she said. "He's been there every step of the way. He's been amazing."

Staten recalls that in the spring of 2020, there was less opposition to the restrictions that Oregon Gov. Kate Brown imposed through executive orders.

Although subsequent studies have concluded that lockdowns of the sort used in Oregon and much of the U.S. likely didn't have a significant effect on the spread of COVID-19, Staten said she has never questioned Brown's intentions.

"Her intent was to keep people safe," Staten said.

Dealing with complaints

As the pandemic progressed, Staten said it was apparent that residents' attitudes had changed.

She and other health department staff fielded occasional complaints about school restrictions, which continued into the 2020-2021 school year, limits on restaurant capacity, and mask mandates.

Staten said the situation was frustrating at times because the health department "wasn't calling the shots" — the restrictions were set at the state level.

Not all the complaints were from people concerned that the state rules were too restrictive, Staten said.

The health department also heard from people who thought the county should have been enforcing, for instance, the mask mandate.

Staten said she had to explain to people that the health department is not responsible for enforcing such rules.

She said her goal, as it has been throughout the pandemic, was to distribute accurate information and to answer residents' questions.

"We knew we were never going to please everyone," Staten said. "We do our best."

'Long days. Nights and weekends'

Although the terms "case investigation" and "contact tracing" have long been familiar in epidemiology, neither was especially common in ordinary conversation until COVID-19 arrived.

But once Baker County had its first confirmed case on May 6, 2020 — and particularly when cases became more common starting in July of that year — investigating cases and trying to interview everyone who might have been in close contact with someone who tested positive came to dominate Staten's work and those of her staff.

"Long days," she said. "Nights and weekends. It was unlike anything else we've dealt with."

But even with the massive increase in workload, Staten said the health department had to continue its usual tasks — the WIC program, for instance, which brought her to the department, and administering childhood vaccines.

By the fall of 2020, Staten said, the imminent arrival of COVID-19 vaccines became a major topic for public health officials across the country.

Baker County received its first doses in mid-December 2020.

Perhaps her most poignant pandemic memory is from Feb. 12, 2021, when the health department put on its first large-scale vaccination clinic at Baker High School.

Despite snow showers and temperatures hovering around 20 degrees, about 300 county residents — most of them 80 or older — turned out to get their first vaccine dose.

Staten remembers the volunteers who drove people in golf carts from their cars to the BHS gym to minimize their time exposed to the wintry weather.

She remembers the challenging logistics.

But mostly she remembers the smiles.

"People were so excited to be getting their vaccines," Staten said. "I will never forget that. It gave everybody hope. It was very touching."

Pandemic divides society

COVID-19 vaccines weren't a universal source of optimism, to be sure.

Although the vaccines were, and continue to be, very effective at preventing people from getting severely ill, their ability to prevent infection isn't as robust.

The prevalence of "breakthrough" infections starting in the summer of 2021 with the delta variant, and continuing with the omicron variant in the winter of 2021-2022, combined with Gov. Brown's requirement that some people be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs, contributed to the widening divide in public attitudes about the pandemic.

Staten watched that division — and occasionally heard it directly, through phone calls and other comments from local residents — with dismay.

She understands that people have differing viewpoints, and she respects those.

But Staten said she was bothered that some people downplayed the risk that COVID-19 posed, or worse, accused officials of using the pandemic as an excuse to expand government power.

Staten said she encourages respectful debate about the approaches to dealing with the virus. But she was also disheartened by skepticism about COVID-19 even as she received the latest report about a county resident who died after testing positive.

"These are our people — people we knew and loved," she said. "It's very difficult."

Ready to retire

Staten said she had begun to at least contemplate retirement not long before that life-changing phone call on Jan. 24, 2020.

The previous November, she and her husband had started renovating a home they were moving into.

What they intended to be a team effort turned out quite differently.

"My husband has carried the burden of home for the past couple of years," Staten said.

She has had a few brief vacations during the pandemic, mainly camping trips. But even then she had her laptop computer along.

"I didn't venture too far," Staten said with a laugh.

She decided early in the pandemic that she wouldn't retire until the situation had improved.

This winter, with the peak of the omicron surge passing, Staten finally set a retirement date of May 2.

"It feels like a better time for me to leave," she said.

Her successor, Meghan Chancey, who joined the health department as office manager in late October 2021, has been working "hand in hand" with Staten, preparing for the transition.

"I think she's going to do great," Staten said of Chancey, who previously served as director of the Eastern Oregon Healthy Alliance.

On Friday, April 29, her penultimate work day as health department director, Staten conceded that she can't yet truly reflect on the tumultuous final two years of her career.

"I'm going to have to take some time to process it," she said. "I haven't been able to do that."

She doesn't anticipate having any trouble staying busy in retirement.

All five of her grandchildren are scheduled to visit this summer, for one thing.

Staten said the past two years have been a challenge without precedent during her career, and life.

And although her job meant she was more directly involved in the pandemic than most people, she understands that for everyone, this era will be like no other.

"I think it changed all of us," Staten said. "I think I've seen the very best in people, and I've worked with some amazing people. I've also seen the other side."

With the conclusion of her career actually looming, Staten said she plans to finish by doing what she has been doing the past two years.

"I will be working until probably 5 o'clock on Monday (May 2)," she said with a smile. "It's taken a toll, the past two years. But I care about people and I want people to be taken care of. I wanted to do the best I could for the people of our community."