Public Health Lab
COVID-19 Stories: Jisun
“My name is Jisun, and I'm the Enterics Unit supervisor at the Infectious Disease Lab in the Public Health Lab.
“Back in 2020, I remember I was watching the news about other countries’ lockdowns and the lack of supplies like toilet paper and water, and people were lined up for groceries … It felt like I was watching a movie, but it was happening out there. In March it was scary, but we had to be at work, figuring out the testing methods for COVID-19 and how to report the results. I was a lab specialist at the time, and as a frontline worker, I realized the work that we did impacted the community right away. The commissioner would give pandemic updates every Wednesday for a while, and all the testing numbers came from us at MDH.
“Even though I was just a little scientist in here, our impact was huge out there. I was proud of working here, and we were doing the work we were supposed to do. This pandemic really gave us a lot of homework moving forward, like how we need to prepare and prevent any unforeseen events.
“I was pregnant and in my second trimester when the pandemic happened. My husband and I had been waiting for this baby for four years. We did a lot of procedures to make it happen, so it was really scary for me, because there was no knowledge on how this virus would affect the baby if I got infected. I was really very careful about everything, and I hoped the pandemic would be over when the baby came. But that didn't happen. I think that was my biggest fear … to lose the baby. Although we were socially distanced, it was nice to interact with people at work. That helped me stay mentally and physically healthy.
“I eventually had my baby in August 2020, but there was no vaccine or treatments available at that time. I needed to be careful about everything I did, for the baby. I'm from Korea, and I used to go back there at least every other year, but because of the pandemic, I was unable to visit until September 2023. I really missed my hometown and food. It was sad.
“My most memorable day at MDH was the Saturday [March 14] right after the president declared the pandemic. We had to be on site. At the time, we didn't have any automatic extraction systems for processing COVID tests. If I remember correctly, we received around 400 to 500 specimens, and we had to extract those samples manually. We could only do 24 sample manually at a time, and it took about an hour to complete each batch. There were about four or five people working that day, and as time went on, our fingertips and shoulders were sore and tired. At the end of the day, we completed them all, and it was really nice to have such a great team of coworkers.
“Despite the pandemic, I still love science and my work in infectious diseases. I have to keep learning new things and technologies, so it never makes me bored. Here at MDH we are really working hard to keep Minnesotans healthy. We hope people can better understand what we are doing and trust that the guidelines we provide are based on the data we collect.”
PHL COVID-19 Stories is a series about the experiences of Public Health Lab employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.