Qu i n ta na St e wart Di r e c t o r , O r a n ge Co u nt y H e a lt h D e pa r t m ent
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he Christmastime wind was bonechilling. Quintana Stewart carefully stepped out of her car and onto an icy parking lot
at Lattisville Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Hurdle Mills. It was not the ideal day to be volunteering outside at a vaccination pod (point of dispensing), but it was a ready reprieve from her back-toback Zoom meetings about the changing COVID-19 guidelines. She had never explored the northernmost part of the county in her three years directing the Orange County Health Department. But Quintana felt a sudden sense of relief as she greeted community members who lined up to receive their first dose. “I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she thought. Finally. A word that never rang more true than in 2021, thanks to her. There’s no book on how to handle a global crisis. Yet Quintana stayed calm all the same this past year. “That’s just my personality in general,” she says. “I don’t do well with this panicky kind of response. I like to take a deep breath – pause. Think it through.” She remembers March 13, 2020, like it was yesterday: Orange County’s first confirmed case and her first formal briefing to announce the news. Since then, she has led at least one pandemicrelated briefing a day, whether that’s with her staff of 120-plus employees or for elected officials and policymakers. “I like to say I am an introvert by nature,” she says, “but nothing about this
May/June 2021 chapelhillmagazine.com
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