CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two years ago this month, COVID-19 gained pandemic status, the world turned upside down, and people were left struggling to make sense of the situation.
Like most, Dr. David Priest remembers the moment he realized the newly discovered virus was going to change everything.
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"February of 2020, I was out of town and my phone rang and someone said, 'We have a team member coming back from Asia. What's up with this SARS-CoV-2 thing?'" Priest said.
Just a couple of weeks later, the infectious disease specialist said he was trying to take time off, and his phone was constantly ringing off the hook with questions about the virus.
That's when he knew.
Flash-forward two years and people are still coming to Priest with COVID-19 questions. With weekly COVID-19 briefings, Priest has fielded questions from reporters across the Carolinas, breaking down myriad topics, including how COVID-19 spread happens, the science behind masking, how variants emerge, and the difference between coronavirus vaccines.
Those explanations have become a staple in TV and newspaper coverage of the pandemic.
So, while Priest's title with Novant Health is Chief Safety, Quality and Epidemiology Officer, his unexpected emergence as the face of the health care system's pandemic response has earned him the unofficial title of "the COVID guy."
"I was actually walking down the street the other day, and someone yelled out the window and waved," Priest said, with a chuckle. "I didn't know who they were."
Priest credits his faith with buoying him through the grueling crests of multiple COVID-19 surges, noting that he is weary, as are his colleagues in health care.
"Sometimes, you've come through something and think, 'We did a good job. We did the best we could... we spent it all,'" Priest said. "You don’t figure out someone's character unless you go through a trial."
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With the pandemic still underway, that trial continues, but Priest reflects on the accomplishments the world has witnessed on the COVID-19 front. He said the day he received his first COVID-19 shot is one of his memorable moments, but he said vaccines are also a source of dismay when he thinks about how the country failed to unite in their use.
"I think moments when I felt like we weren’t going to get where we needed to be with vaccination rates... Those were hard days," Priest said. "I thought, 'Man, here's a tool that could protect a lot of people, and it's not going to be utilized to the extent it could be.'"
As the pandemic pressed what he saw as an already divided country politically, it also unveiled other core concerns for him.
"I think of American health care as a dilapidated house with a Ferrari out in the driveway -- we have a lot of great toys and a lot of great tools," Priest said. "But the foundation of the house -- the public health, the monitoring for pandemics, preventative health care -- we've just ignored that for a while, and we've paid the price for that."
In fact, Priest said the U.S. has more to learn when it comes to communication and health messaging, noting that social media became a major foil for health leaders, as misinformation and pandemic-related clashes thrived on all platforms.
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"Underfunded local health departments or even the CDC are no match for the 24/7, 365 social media machine that is built on a business model of engaging people and making them angry... The next time this happens, how do we de-politicize things and get information to people?" he asked.
But with the devastating cost that COVID-19 has brought, he hopes there is a lesson.
"What good can come out of this about how public health works, about how the health care industry works, about racial reconciliation, about what happens on social media, about how we treat each other?" he asked.
Contact Vanessa Ruffes at vruffes@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.