My name is Kate Mitchell and I am an 18 year old from Chicago. Over the summer, I worked in the Water Tower Place as a dental assistant for a cosmetic dentist. Working at one of the biggest tourist spots in Chicago, as well as in a dentistry where face masks can only be worn by patients for so long put me at the center of the Covid pandemic. The picture above is me wearing my daily protective gear. I am wearing an N95 mask (white), a grade one standard mask (green), as well as a certified face shield (plastic shield). These masks were rotated daily; we had one for each day of the week. Masks and face coverings were so high in demand, and so expensive, our office could not get enough to give a new mask to the dentist, hygienist, and I each day. The office workers were only supplied with grade one masks and plastic shields between the desks because of this. Every day going into the office, we would have to take our temperature and wash our hands, change our shoes so we don't track Covid into or out of the office, change into scrubs, and put on our assigned masks for that day. The 3 extreme layers made it very difficult to breathe, and I often found myself light headed and dizzy due to the lack of oxygen. I also got extremely nauseous throughout the day, both from the lack of oxygen, and not being able to take the masks off to eat or drink water. I often spent my lunch breaks making hypochlorous acid (HOCl) for our office, which was our main disinfectant against Covid. We would wipe down every surface a patient would touch with HOCl, as well as fog the rooms with this solution. Working in a medical facility during Covid made the pandemic much more real, and scary.
