Matt Seidel
In late December 2019, Dr. Alex Garza was on a ski trip with his wife and kids in Colorado when a news item caught his eye: A weird flu was circulating in China. He made a mental note. Over the next couple weeks, more stories popped up. “Early January [2020] is when I started thinking, ‘This could be the pandemic we’ve all been afraid of.’”
The fear had haunted him for years. As assistant secretary and chief medical officer to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, Garza had kept a close eye on the H1N1 virus (commonly known as swine flu). He brought it up during a 2015 interview with SLM, when, as dean of Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice, he wondered aloud: “We saw the spread of H1N1 throughout the world in a matter of months—what if it had been a deadlier virus?”
Cut to early 2020: Such a virus had arrived. He discussed it with his colleagues at SSM Health, where he served as chief medical officer.
On February 13, Garza received the first email from Dr. William “Clay” Dunagan, his counterpart at BJC HealthCare. They agreed that the region’s health systems should coordinate and prepare. Dunagan recalls going to Garza because the latter “brought a planning mindset that wasn’t something that the typical health care exec has.” Sure enough, when the group later dubbed the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force convened, an initial question was how to mobilize—and Garza, a decorated Army veteran, had a suggestion: Adopt the military decision-making process. The others agreed, and they elected him as the incident commander and spokesperson.
“It was anxiety-provoking,” Garza says. “I had no idea how in-depth this would become.”
Since then, Garza has run the task force’s virtual meetings. Some have grown contentious, but by many accounts, he makes sure dissenting views are heard. He has also become the public face of the region’s official COVID-19 response. “He’s very steady,” says Dunagan, praising Garza’s ability to “project an air of confidence and dependability.” It wasn’t always easy. Amid a spike of infections in October, Garza grew emotional during a media update in which he lamented the loss of life. Months later, he criticized the state’s vaccine rollout, to the annoyance of Gov. Mike Parson. His prominent role has even turned him into something of a local celebrity. Folks recognize him at mass vaccination sites. Some have asked that he pose for photos with them. One elderly woman joked, “I’m your groupie!”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Garza has taken a broad view of the crisis. He thinks it has not only revealed societal inequities that cry out for remedy, but he’s also suggested some major reforms going forward. First, he believes, we ought to steer more funding toward public health. Second, we need better surveillance systems to detect pandemics before they spiral out of control. And finally, we need to help other countries with their outbreaks, if not for humanitarian reasons, then for self-protective ones. Says Garza: “We’re not an island.”
