March 15, 2020 Chautauqua County Executive PJ Wendel declared a State of Emergency.

The date was March 12, 2020. Local, county and state officials gathered at Fredonia Village Hall, standing shoulder to shoulder, no masks in site, to discuss the novel coronavirus that was dominating much of the national and international headlines after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. SUNY Fredonia was sending its students home for the remainder of the semester and Jamestown Community College was shifting to on-line learning.

The overarching message at that press conference was “Don’t panic. We’re keeping an eye on this.” There were 325 cases in New York state, but the closest known case was in Monroe County, two hours away by car. There were no known cases throughout the 57th Senate District, which includes Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties.

Three days later, on March 15, 2020, County Executive PJ Wendel declared a State of Emergency. Local schools began closing their doors to students, with teachers going in the next couple of days to gather materials and try to figure out how to teach virtually, wondering how long this would last.

“I don’t think any of us expected it to be the scope of what this global pandemic has turned into,” said Christine Schuyler, Chautauqua County public health director and commissioner of Social Services, during an interview reflecting on the past year.

Schuyler started in her position in July 2008. In 2009, H1N1 hit the country and came to the county, so the idea that a global pandemic would hit home was not a surprise.

“We knew it (coronavirus) was coming. Communicable disease prevention, surveillance and investigation is something we do, something we’ve always done,” she said. “I think it was something we were hoping would not affect us in little Chautauqua County in our corner of the world as much as it has.”

But it did reach us. The first positive cases in the county were announced on March 22. There were two — one in Dunkirk and one in Silver Creek. “It was almost a relief, I think, when we got our first positive case, because we knew that shoe was going to drop,” Schuyler said. “Just the realization of that put everybody up to the next level of response. … We know for a fact now that COVID-19 is here.”

Deaths soon followed. The local health department announced it had learned on March 30, that a county man in his 80s passed away at a hospital in Erie, Pa., due to complications with the virus. The second death was announced on April 6 and the third death was announced April 10.

These positive cases and deaths meant the county needed to coordinate with area schools, businesses, hospitals, nursing home administrators, as directions were passed from the state to the county. “We were really trying to keep our fingers on the pulse of everything that was happening everywhere,” Schuyler said.

It also meant implementing rules regarding travel and restrictions. “I had never had any real experience with isolation and quarantine as a health official. We didn’t go there before. We didn’t have to go there with H1N1 or other communicable diseases,” she said.

Christine Schuyler, left, is pictured with County Executive PJ Wendel and Christine Schuyler in October 2020.

That meant coordinating with the legal department, the Sheriff’s Office, as well as area businesses and not for profits to make sure a person who was quarantined got the necessary food and supplies needed.

“We’re so fortunate in this county that so many people work together so well,” Schuyler said. “We needed the support of our community agencies, such as United Way, community foundations, Office for the Aging, our mental health providers. Everyone was on high alert ready to step in and be there.”

In the spring, fighting COVID-19 seemed real, but even as the first deaths were reported, the thought was we would quickly overcome. “It seemed like we as the local health department were expected to manage this as a sprint. This has certainly not been a sprint. Instead it’s been a very, very long marathon with sprints throughout it. Most emergencies of this scope in nature are something like a natural disaster, or a flood or a fire. You have to battle that for a few weeks or even a few months. To think that we have been at this for 12 months, it has been quite frankly exhausting,” she said.

VIRUS INCREASES AS SEASONS CHANGE

When schools first shut their doors on March 15, the thinking was they may be delayed until after spring break. Instead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on May 1 that schools would remain closed for the remainder of the year. Still, compared to much of New York, Chautauqua County was faring relatively well.

“The pandemic didn’t really spread our way until later on. It was good for the health of our residents, but in a way it was kind of bad because I don’t think residents were believing that this was something. There really was a train coming at us but it was so far in the distance. I think it was hard to grasp that,” she said.

That changed by summer.

“Our first real increase in cases was related to the Fourth of July holiday,” Schuyler explained.

Most of the fireworks and other celebrations had been canceled in the county, but people were still gathering. “You had a lot of younger people who were asymptomatic or very mild symptoms and were sharing drinks and sharing electronic cigarettes and that sort of thing,” she said.

The daily positive cases went from one or two, to more than a dozen each day.

By the end of August, Fieldbrook Foods in Dunkirk had an outbreak, the first business to have this problem.

“When we had any cases that were linked to employers, we worked well with our environmental health team who would go in and do an inspection of the physical plant and review their safety plans and see what was happening there,” Schuyler said. “We’ve seen the same pattern with businesses and schools and nursing homes. The spread of the virus happens when people bring it in from the outside.”

As the county was dealing with the surge at Fieldbrook Foods, SUNY Fredonia had its own outbreak as students returned to campus. It never had to close, but dozens of students tested positive for the virus, especially the first couple of weeks of class. There was also the Labor Day holiday, which may have caused a spike as well.

The fall brought the return of public school. Some schools did not open at all, others opened with a hybrid model, while three — Ripley, Frewsburg and Chautauqua Lake — returned to full time in person.

In October the county saw an outbreak at Tanglewood Manor in Jamestown, bringing more than 100 positive coronavirus cases in a week. Later in the month, there was another outbreak, this time in the northern end of the county, stemming from some of local social clubs and a private wedding.

By mid-November, the virus seemed to be everywhere, as the positive cases continued to climb. On Thanksgiving, the county sent out a news release stating there were 41 new cases that day alone. At that time, Western New York’s positivity sat at 5.46%, the highest region in the state.

Deaths began to tick up as well. By Dec. 1, the county had 20 people who had passed away from the virus. Dec. 4, the county hit its daily high with 90 recorded cases. Some of those came from an outbreak at the county jail. Later in the month, an outbreak was reported at Lakeview Shock Facility in Brocton.

By the end of the month, the county once again hit record high daily cases as well as high hospitalization rates, adding another 12 deaths in December alone.

In early January, an outbreak struck at the Chautauqua Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, with more than 70 cases connected to the Dunkirk facility. There were also virus clusters at two of Heritage’s nursing facilities.

The reporting of nursing home deaths became more complex, as they were not part of the county Health Department’s daily updates. On Jan. 23, the death total went from 52 to 75. Schuyler explained that the nursing homes fall under the state reporting, not the county.

“The state is responsible for overseeing licensing and overseeing inspecting the nursing homes and also for following any outbreaks, or any of the cases that happen within the nursing home residents,” she said. “We have to take a back seat to them, but at the same time, we have a great relationship with our Western Regional Office of the state health department so we were working with them to try to know what was happening in the nursing homes.”

FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE STATE, NATION

Schuyler noted as public health officials, over the years they routinely develop plans on what to do in a pandemic. Yet those plans were not utilized by state, nor was the federal government properly stocked.

“Nationwide, the country wasn’t prepared. We weren’t prepared with a stockpile of PPE (personal protective equipment), we weren’t prepared with testing kits. … ventilators,” she said.

Testing was an issue throughout this past year, especially in the spring and summer. Normally, Schuyler said, public health departments would coordinate testing at healthcare providers, as well as handle coordination, disease investigation, quarantine, and vaccination.

“When New York state decided not to utilize the emergency preparedness plans that were already in place with the state health department and local health departments, they turned that testing onus onto us,” she said.

As Cuomo was holding his daily briefings, Schuyler said the local health department had to watch them to see what the latest plan was, instead of using the plans that were already in place.

“The fundamental problem was not a failure of the public health system in New York. It was a failure to use the public health system in New York state. … We were prepared in the event of a pandemic of any sort of large scale disease outbreak but it just felt like the rug was pulled out from under us,” she said.

When the governor issued executive order after executive order, Schuyler said the public would turn to them for clarification, but they didn’t have answers, creating frustration. “I don’t mean that to be a criticism of state government, but I think it’s been a failure of state government to not implement the public health plan that had been there and use the public health system,” she said. “It created such undo stress and bureaucracy and burden. It didn’t have to be that hard.”

FINDING HOPE IN GRIM TIMES

January by far was the worst month of the pandemic. There were 65 reported deaths that month alone. For nearly a two-week stretch, Chautauqua County reported at least one COVID death a day. The obituary pages were spilling over of people who lost their lives. They were friends, family and collagues. In a small county like Chautauqua, they were known by the public health workers.

But even when the deaths continued to grow, Schuyler said her staff of around 60 people pressed on. “They’ve been amazing,” she said. “It’s been a true testiment of the work they do and they just keep hanging in there to get the job done.”

They’ve even been able to add temporary staff and get retired volunteers to help out as well. That doesn’t mean it’s always been easy. “There have been days where nobody wants to do this anymore. There have been several days where we all break out in tears,” she admitted. “You get the deaths … outbreaks in the community … People end up on ventilators. It’s been hard on our staff to deal with.”

Some of her staff has young children and struggle with the same issues as other parents, with childcare, virtual learning, trying to balance a work life and a home life as they work seven days a week. “The staff, to me they’re super heroes,but they’re human and they have the same needs and the same issues as everybody out there,” she said.

They’ve also had to deal with the ire of the public, telling people they have to quarantine when they don’t want to or insisting that their children can’t go to school. “Some people can be very belligerent, very nasty,” she said.

It’s even worn on her personally. “I can very honestly say there have been times this last year when I was as close to true depression that I’ve ever been in my life. There were definitely times of being overwhelmed. I’m very fortunate that I have a very supportive husband. But I won’t hide that personally, this has been a very rough year,”

But fortunately, there are those who continue to show their support. “You get a card in the mail from someone thanking for all that you’re doing, or there are days when someone would send lunch up to the nursing staff,” she said.

Another highlight she noted is the partnership Chautauqua County has among its leaders. “We have something really rare in this county where people can work together and we do that really well here. … We really have tired to be absolutely transparent as we could be in the midst of a tsunami, in information overload and work overload. We have done the absolute best we can for the residents of our county through really tough times,” she said. “I know the bad news and the shocking news always makes the news but in reality the real headline here is the way we have pulled ourselves through this through a whole lot of tears and pain and misery at times.”