Keeping Community During a Pandemic
Relying on Education Dr. Minns believes education is key to helping the public understand the new virus and the behaviors that spread it in a community.
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is role as chief county health officer is normally a very part-time position, mostly consulting; however when cases of COVID-19 started to surface in Wichita in early to mid-March, Dr. Garold Minns ‘73 became a leading health official for Sedgwick County, and his decision to implement a stay-at-home order for the county on March 24 thrust him into the public spotlight. Dr. Minns grew up in McPherson. He graduated from McPherson College with a degree in biology and continued his education at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita where he also completed his residency training in internal medicine followed by an infectious disease fellowship. He joined the faculty of KUMC-Wichita in 1980, and today he serves as its dean as well as associate dean for Academic and Student Affairs, professor, and program director for the Department of Internal Medicine. His background in infectious disease, basic epidemiology, and public health, as well as a commitment to education provide the right tools for the work he finds himself doing this year. In December he began studying medical publications coming from China on the spread of a new virus and recognized that the severity of it would eventually lead to outbreaks in the United States. “I guess in some ways we were fortunate here in the middle of the United States, in that we were able to learn from what coastal cities were experiencing before it even arrived here,” Dr. Minns said. “When it finally did arrive here, we had some virtual experience of it and learned quite a bit from other parts of our
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MCPHERSON COLLEGE MAGAZINE
country that got it first. I think we were more prepared for its arrival than many of our coastal cities.” Dr. Minns believes education is key to helping the public understand the new virus and the behaviors that spread it in a community. It has been challenging to gain widespread acceptance of the personal behavioral interventions required to decrease the transmission of the disease, but that is to be expected with something that has never been seen before, he said. Additionally, the virus is unique in the different ways it affects people. “It’s quite variable in the illness it produces in people,” he said. “I think that has led some people to be skeptical of it. It’s been easy for people to discount the virus because it’s hard to understand how a virus can be bit.ly/33Jt5by so variable from mild and almost no symptoms to life-threatening. I think we have to assume that we are all susceptible to it. There are differences of opinion on whether we really need to wear masks and practice social distancing. It’s been a challenge convincing people that yes, for the greater good we all need to do that because we just can’t predict who is going to get sick and who is going to transmit it.”