As the Covid-19 pandemic entered its second year, VTDigger interviewed dozens of Vermonters about how they’ve coped, how they’ve grieved, and how they’ve changed. Hear excerpts from those interviews in a two-part audio special, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify for more VTDigger podcasts.
Part 1: The responders
When the pandemic hit, Vermont saw a massive outpouring of community support. Those who helped respond to the crisis now say they never expected we would still be facing the same challenges a year later.
- Brenda Field, the emergency management director in Tunbridge, led her town’s effort to disseminate public health information to a rural community with limited broadband and cellphone service.
- Dr. Cath Burns, clinical director for Covid Support VT, has provided crisis counseling throughout an event that’s defied the common methods of disaster response.
- Christine Matusevich works in the state health laboratory, where her team ramped up a Covid testing operation from scratch in the face of supply shortages and stress injuries.
- Peter Carmolli, director of the South Burlington Food Shelf, discovered that the people he served were seeking not just food, but reassurance.
- Michele Ready Ambrosino, co-director of Ready Funeral and Cremation Services, handled the first body of a person killed by Covid in Vermont, then spent the year helping families grieve over Zoom.
- Delaney Partlow was 16 and in her first health care job when the coronavirus swept through the Four Seasons Care Home in Northfield.
Part 2: The survivors
The Covid-19 vaccine gives hope that some kind of normal life will start again, but it won’t bring back everything we’ve already lost. Some Vermonters say their experiences were traumatic in ways that won’t fade from memory anytime soon.
- Diana Bander, a Covid “long hauler,” still has flashbacks about fighting an illness she says was the worst of her life.
- Omar Biladi, a refugee from Burundi, became homeless with his six children. The family lived in four different hotels before they connected with relief agencies that could lead them toward stable housing.
- Julie Brisson was already self-isolating when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was left to recover from surgery alone in her apartment.
- Rae Rappold lost her husband, Mike, to Covid last March. Now she wonders if life will return to normal in time to hold a proper memorial service this summer.
