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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown Course Highlights Diverse Perspectives of the COVID-19 Pandemic

A course offered in fall 2021, titled “How To End A Pandemic,” highlights the impact individuals from various sectors had on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.   

Rebecca Katz, a professor at the Georgetown University Medical Center and the Walsh School of Foreign Service, covered the role of individuals from communities students may not expect to have a role in pandemic responses. Katz teaches courses on global health security, health diplomacy and emerging infectious disease and serves as the Director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security. 

GUMC | “How To End A Pandemic,” a class offered by Georgetown in the fall 2021 semester, aimed to highlight how individuals from communities students may not expect to have a role in pandemic responses can make an impact in combatting viruses such as COVID-19.

The course was offered to undergraduate and graduate students. 

It is critical to emphasize the unrecognized heroes, including local politicians, journalists and CEOs, who helped slow the spread of COVID-19, according to a press release on the course. 

“There’s this narrative that there are a handful of heroes or heroines in the story of this pandemic — I want to challenge that,” Katz said in the press release. “In actuality, there are tens of thousands of people from all over the world, from all walks of life, who all play a role. So why wouldn’t we highlight the experiences of people from a variety of communities and industries?”

Katz said the course featured speakers from different sectors to share their roles in the pandemic response.  

“There were three parts to the course,” Katz wrote to The Hoya. “Guest speakers from different disciplines speaking about what they have done to ‘end the pandemic,’ a group project to propose to the President’s office how Georgetown could memorialize those from our community who we have lost to COVID-19, and a reflection by students on what they were going to do during the next pandemic.”

Guests invited to speak to the class include Matt Maddox, CEO of Wynn Resorts, a hotel chain; former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan; Ed Young, a science journalist for the Atlantic; Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, the COVID-19 technical lead for the World Health Organization; and Joneigh Khaldun, the vice president and chief health equity officer of CVS Health, according to the press release. 

All interviews with guests were recorded and posted to the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security website in a new project called “How To End a Pandemic: Oral Histories.” 

Sara Gómez Trillos (GRD ’21), who also participated in the course, said the speakers opened her eyes to the ability all individuals have to become leaders during a global health crisis.

“Something that all of the speakers had in common was that none of them had planned to become leaders in pandemic response,” Gómez Trillos wrote to The Hoya. “Rather, they found themselves in a position where something was needed and they saw an opportunity to bridge the gap by either applying their skills or using their positions of power to make informed public health decisions that would benefit the country and world.” 

The course is relevant to all students regardless of their studies or if they are graduate or undergraduate students, according to Trillos. 

Lucien Carbonneau (COL ’22), who participated in this class, said the course allowed students to learn about the behind the scenes research that went into the pandemic response. 

“While we have all been inundated with various information regarding the novel coronavirus and its spread over the past two years many of us have not had the opportunity to hear directly from the people charged with researching the virus, communicating the findings, and designing policies to alleviate its impact,” Carbonneau wrote to The Hoya. 

The course enabled students to understand how they can best apply their skills, according to Trillos. 

“I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of the stories that speakers had to share with us. I was surprised that I could relate to all of them in one way or another and felt inspired by their achievements,” Trillos wrote, “This, to me, reinforced a deep conviction to always use my skills and power for the public good – and, in my case, to improve health.”

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