On March 11, 2020, the novel coronavirus, later referred to as COVID-19, was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Later that day, after an NBA player tested positive for the virus, the league shut down, soon to be followed by countless other businesses and organizations nationwide.

Five years have now passed since the pandemic began. In that time, we all have experienced a once-in-a-lifetime event that has altered the course of history and taken the lives of millions worldwide.

The Beacon talked with community leaders who helped Warwick through the pandemic to put things in perspective five years on. What follows are the insights of leaders in the two realms of life that, in retrospect, seemed most profoundly challenged by the virus and all the changes it brought to daily life: education and health care.

In the schools, ‘we had to be comfortable with uncomfortability’

To call the pandemic a time of change for Warwick Public Schools would be a serious understatement.

Superintendent Lynn Dambruch, at the time, was Warwick’s assistant superintendent – Philip Thornton, now the superintendent of Cumberland Public Schools, held the role at the time.

March 13, 2020, would end up being the last day of in-person schooling in Warwick for the year. From there, making sure each of Warwick’s 8,610 students had a Chromebook for remote learning became a top priority for the administration.

“That was D-Day, as we call it,” said Patti Cousineau, principal of Warwick Neck Elementary School at the time. “My teachers and I, we were meeting at a Taco Bell parking lot with families and just opening up our trunks and handing [Chromebooks] out. Every school was doing the same thing outside.”

Making sure students were still learning in a brand-new situation, Dambruch said, was one of the biggest challenges the pandemic brought.

“Every family was different. Some parents were really helping their children, and some were too busy working on their own job and didn’t have the time to help,” Dambruch said. “Some parents had four children at home, all in different grades. That was a big challenge for them.”

Keeping the educational experience as normal as possible was a high priority throughout the era of distance learning.

“No matter what the child’s schedule was, we kept the week looking exactly the same as their week would have looked had they been in school,” Cousineau said.

Classroom instruction finally resumed, with restrictions, in January 2021.

“They were so excited to come back. I will never forget that day at Park [Elementary School],” said Lisa Schultz the school district’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment. “Hearing their voices after having an empty building –  you  don’t realize how heartbreaking as an educator it is to not have children around you, because that’s what your whole life is. So having them come back was just amazing.”

Later that year, Thornton departed, leaving Dambruch to take over as Warwick’s superintendent and William McCaffrey to become assistant superintendent. Cousineau and Schultz each took their positions at similar times, with Schultz principal at Park Elementary School when the pandemic hit.

To support each other as they transitioned to higher-ranking positions, the four met every night to discuss the best ways to move WPS forward and to bring them closer as an administrative team.

“We already had to have such a flexible-thinking mindset, because everything was new that we were going through during COVID, trying to re-envision what teaching and learning looked like now,” Schultz said. “So I think it was actually a good time for us to move into a new position, because everywhere there were a lot of unknowns. We had to be comfortable with uncomfortability.”

A consequence for schools around the world following the pandemic has been learning loss among students, with standardized test scores nationwide dropping significantly after the pandemic.

Warwick is no different, with the four leaders saying teachers noticed signs of it as soon as in-person classes resumed.

“It wasn’t just the academic loss,” McCaffrey “There was a social-emotional loss, where kids’ behavior seemed delayed by two years. It was evident right away.”

Since in-person learning resumed, Dambruch said, WPS has been taking steps to fight learning loss, including hiring math interventionists for the district and purchasing new curriculums.

“We have seen our scores rebound, but what we’re most proud of is our math scores, because we’ve continually improved against the negative curve that the rest of the U.S. and the rest of Rhode Island is seeing,” Schultz said. “Although I don’t think any district could confidently say that they are back to pre-COVID with their numbers.”

When asked what, if anything, he would do differently with the benefit of hindsight, McCaffrey said he would have looked more closely at improving the district’s transportation.

“When we were headed back, the Winman hill would be like New York City, with all the cars congested, ready for pickup and dropoff,” McCaffrey said. “It was hard, but they pulled it off. Hats off to the teachers and each school’s administration.”

Though Dambruch said she would look back on the pandemic as a tough time, she was proud of the work that she and WPS put in.

“It was a lonely time. We definitely felt isolated,” Dambruch said. “But the teachers worked really, really hard, and I was very impressed. Everyone stuck together as a team.”

At Kent Hospital, intensive planning but pervasive burnout

Within Rhode Island, Kent Hospital and its chief medical officer, Dr. Paari Gopalakrishnan, ended up on the front lines of the pandemic.

“Even though we prepared, I don’t think anybody knew just what we were preparing for,” Gopalakrishnan said. “This was the first pandemic, really, in our lives.”

As the pandemic continued to spread, Gopalakrishnan started having meetings with other hospital leaders in the state, as well as with Gov. Gina Raimondo and other political leaders.  

“We all started meeting together and planning quite a bit, and I’ve never seen as much collaboration between health systems and state officials as during that time,” Gopalakrishnan said. “We were preparing for the worst because we were seeing what was happening in other parts of the world.”

Among those preparations were quadrupling the hospital’s number of low-pressure rooms and the size of Kent’s ICU. That planning, Gopalakrishnan said, ended up being integral to keeping the pandemic from getting even worse, noting that Kent did not have serious issues with the hospital’s capacity.

As the first wave of the pandemic crashed upon the United States, the hospital was able to adapt quickly, Gopalakrishnan said.

“Things changed quickly,” Gopalakrishnan said. “We planned for a lot of uncertainty ….”

Keeping the hospital staff motivated early on, Gopalakrishnan said, was not an issue due in large part to public support.

“There was a lot of pride in coming together in the hospital and across hospital systems,” Gopalakrishnan said. “It was also a time where there was a lot of public outpouring of support for health care workers, the first go-round. I still remember all the fire departments coming and doing a parade with their engines down Toll Gate Road. I’d say it felt like everyone at Kent felt appreciated.”

But as the pandemic dragged on and the waves of patients continued, morale dropped and the years of illness and loss ultimately strained the health care system, Gopalakrishnan said.

According to the Rhode Island Department of Health, 3,636 deaths from the pandemic were reported in Rhode Island. That number includes 259 reported deaths in Warwick, 222 in Cranston and 205 in Johnston.

Gopalakrishnan says reducing staff burnout is something he would prioritize thinking about more if he could do everything over again.

“It’s, you know, three to five years for a pandemic to go through the world, right?” Gopalakrishnan said. “And that’s tiring. As the surges kept coming – we’d come off one surge and be on another surge – our workforce was getting limited. People were getting tired and burnt out. The public also was getting frustrated with it. It was tough in that regard.”

Gopalakrishnan said he was proud of how Rhode Island handled the pandemic, and that the state did a much better job than almost anywhere else.

“I can tell you,” he said,” it was different here than in many parts of the country.”

What he’ll take from the pandemic is a sense of mission and capability.

“It’s taught me that there’s no need to get frazzled about anything,” Gopalakrishnan said. “Just take it in, assess and make plans, and work as a team to get back together.”