WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Marathon County Health Department is under new management these days.
Laura Scudiere was selected to lead the department following a national search in August, but she’s no stranger to public health in the region. She’s previously held jobs with North Central Health Care and Bridge Community Health Clinic. It wasn’t until the spring of 2020 that she started as a patient educator.
During the early stages of the pandemic, which hit two weeks after she took her first job with the County Health Office, she helped coordinate testing. As vaccines became available, she shifted her focus to organizing their distribution including helping to set up the community vaccine site at NTC.
“I had to figure out how to support the county in a whole different way than I was anticipating,” she said.
Now that role means breaking through the frost that’s grown between those on the political left and right over things like vaccines and masking. She says that comes from being an active listener.
“When I’m talking with people who are adamantly anti-vaccination or adamantly anti-mask, there’s stuff to unpack there. You have to sit down with them and [say] ‘tell me more about this, tell me more about what your fears are, tell me where you got this information.’ If we are listening, it’s more likely that we are going to understand them than it’s more likely we are going to have a dialog rather than fight against each other,” she said.
She adds that there are no current plans for the department to issue some sort of masking requirement or resolution, but they are continuing to look at the numbers surrounding the virus. “The numbers are concerning right now,” she says. “[Masking] is one of the mitigation measures that has been scientifically proven. I’ve done the research, I’ve looked at it. DHS, CDC- a lot of different scientific organizations have said this makes a difference.
“I think because of the political nature of masks that is going to be a very difficult discussion if that is what’s needed. So what I’m hoping for is that people get vaccinated. I really see that as one of the ways that we get out of this. Talk to your doctor, and get vaccinated. My hope is if enough people get vaccinated- then we have an exit ramp,” she added.
She says as of last week the number of positive cases in the county has been so high the department doesn’t have enough contact tracers to call everyone who may have been exposed, so they are relying on those who do test positive to notify those close contacts on their own.
“The last couple of days we have been getting around 80 cases in a day. To add to that people are not quarantining or staying home the way they were this time last year. It could be 10 people that they were close contacts with, it could be 50 or more. We could be calling up to 4,000 people in a day if we had enough people,” she added.
Scudiere also discussed the county’s strategy for the upcoming flu season, saying she’d like to see vaccine clinics offered where residents can get both their flu and single-shot Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 shots in one location.
She discussed all those topics and more about her path to becoming the top health official in the county in the above video with WSAU’s Mike Leischner.
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