Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 05/11/20 9:00-10:00; Tuesday: 05/12/20 11:00-12:00,

total weekly hours- 2 hours

JOURNAL #1
The first week of my internship was a bit of a struggle because my site supervisor was

difficult to communicate with and he used the first week to figure out what my tasks and roles

will be instead of giving me actual work to do. I was told multiple times by Jonathan that I would

be receiving tasks last week, but unfortunately that did not end up happening. Because I did

pretty much no work last week, in this journal, I will be discussing the future plans of my job as

an intern and how I will overcome my past and possible future struggles. That being said, I

understand that my internship has gone through a bit of a change because I will no longer be

doing work for Do Good Health but will now be working with the CORE Response team to learn

more about COVID-19 testing and how my role can help the organization share more critical

information about this virus to the state of Georgia. During my first week, I was not given any

tasks to do so that is why I only have accumulated a total for 2 hours. Hopefully in the coming

weeks there will not be many issues like this because moving forward I will be working Samuel

Archbold who is the Georgia Operations Specialist at CORE. He is supposed to be providing me

more information and details about what my job entails as an intern for CORE and what his

expectations are of me. We have a phone call scheduled for Monday May 18th to discuss which

programs I would like to be most plugged into and where I can provide both support for the

organization as well as gain experience that relates to my passions and interests. I am excited to

communicate more with Samuel because I think he will be a great help in making sure not only I

am helping the organization accomplish their missions and goals but also that I have an enriching

experience as an intern. I am extremely excited to start working diligently because I definitely

want to make sure I am getting enough hours required for the internship but also that I am

gaining a lot of relative knowledge in an extremely important field during this time of crisis.
Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 05/18/20 3:00-4:00; Wednesday: 05/20/20 12:00-3:00,
total weekly hours- 4 hours, Total Hours to Date: 6 hours
JOURNAL #2
The second week of my internship did not go as I expected but there were some things

that happened that helped me move forward in my role as an intern. I am officially an intern for

CORE response and my new supervisor is Sam Archbold. He is the operations specialist for the

southeast area of the country. In addition to Sam, I was also assigned a specific supervisor that

oversees logistics at the Atlanta sector of CORE. His name is Will Ober and last week he was

supposed to contact me to delegate tasks, but I still have not heard from him. I hope to hear from

him early next week and if not, I will be contacting Sam to figure out what is going on.

Last week I also had a great phone conversation with Sam about what it means to be a

CORE intern and what he is expecting from me as well as what I should expect from him and his

colleagues. He made it a point to discuss that this experience is about a mutually beneficial

relationship for both CORE and me. He wants to make sure that I am able to make professional

connections so this internship experience can possibly lead to a great career opportunity in the

future. Sam also said that one of his priorities is to have great communication throughout the

entire internship and to make sure I am comfortable asking him any questions if I don’t

understand what I am supposed to be doing. He also told me to let him know if I am ever

overwhelmed with work or feel like I am too bored and need more work to do.

I am extremely excited to start working on projects for CORE because what they are

doing with COVID-19 testing is amazing and I believe this relevant experience will serve me

well when it comes to my future opportunities. That being said, I am worried because Sam and

his other colleagues are extremely busy every single day from morning to night. I am worried

that they will not have enough time to dedicate to making sure I am receiving enough work to get

the minimum number of hours required for this course. In addition to that, I obviously have other
assignments to complete as a part of the course requirements which depend on my internship

tasks and experiences. I am trying not to worry too much because it is still the beginning and I

will continue to do everything that I can to make sure I am not only helping CORE but making

sure I am getting a great experience as well.

Dates and Hours worked: Tuesday: 05/26/20 11:00-4:00 (5 hours), Wednesday: 05/27/20
11:00-4:00 (5 hours), Thursday: 05/28/20 11:00-4:00 (5 hours), Friday 05/29/20 10:00-4:00
(6 hours), Total Weekly Hours: 21 hours, Total Hours to Date: 27 hours
JOURNAL #3
The third week of my internship was a huge improvement from the first 2 weeks. I finally

was able to have a phone conversation with my two new individual supervisors who will be

delegating my tasks to me. Will Ober is in charge of logistics at CORE and Adrian Backus is in

charge of the safety/protocol procedures at CORE. I had a phone call early in the week with both

of them to discuss my tasks for this past week as well as how the upcoming weeks will look. We

discussed my potential project of creating documents about disinfecting and decontaminating N-

95 masks as well as other smaller activities that I will be given on a weekly basis. I am very

excited to work with them as they seem very helpful and excited for me to be a part of their team

this summer.

The first activity I got to do this week was create a flyer for the patients at the testing

centers who have been tested for COVID-19. The flyers included information on what to do

when you register in order to get your results in a timely manner, what to do if you test positive

and what to do if you test negative. I included links to the CDC website so patients can review

the guidelines on what they should do whether they test positive or negative. I actually learned

how to create “bitly” links while making these flyers because a long link on a piece of paper can

be overwhelming or hard to read so changing the long links into shorter “bitly” links makes a big

difference in terms of aesthetics and readability. I also learned how to use an application called
“Canva” while making these flyers because Adrian specifically wanted these flyers to be ¼

sheets so I had to create a custom document with specific dimensions in order for him to be able

to print them out the way he wants them. In addition to creating this flyer, Will had me call

FedEx to try to reroute a package that was originally going to a residential address and they

needed to change it to a commercial address. Although this task does not really help me gain any

public health knowledge, I do expect to be given small tasks like this because I know Will and

his team are extremely busy with much more important work and as an intern I am here to help

them with whatever they need. Unfortunately, I was unable to get FedEx to change the delivery

address for the shipment because it was already in route to the final location and I explained that

to Will. I wish I could have helped more because this shipment contained over 10 large packages

and I know it is going to be a pain for them to move them from a residential location to the

commercial location they are needing these items at.

Overall this week was great because I finally got started on work and I am excited for this

next week to pick up even more.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 06/01/20 12:00-2:00 (2 hours), Tuesday: 06/02/20
12:00-2:00 (2 hours), Wednesday: 06/03/20 10:00-4:00 (6 hours), Thursday: 06/04/20 10:00-
4:00 (6 hours), Friday: 06/05/20 10:00-4:00 (6 hours), Total Weekly Hours: 22 hours, Total
Hours to Date: 49 hours
JOURNAL #4
During the fourth week of my internship the beginning of the week started with a group

phone conversation between one of my supervisors, Adrian, and my fellow intern, Lanier.

During this phone call we discussed upcoming projects in order of priority. The first priority was

to create documents that would be used during the bi-weekly safety meetings for the CORE

workers and volunteers. The CEO recently made it mandatory that all the staff must have these

safety meetings in order to ensure that the testing sites are running smoothly, and all safety

protocols are consistent across all locations and are being carried out efficiently and effectively.
The document that I completed this week included information about how to care for your N95

mask at home as well as sanitation procedures for N95 masks. This informational document is

extremely important because most workers are being told to reuse their mask up to three times

because of the N95 shortage. Some of the information for at home care included how to store

your mask, making sure your hands are clean before and after touching your mask, avoiding

touching the inside of the mask, and making sure the workers are not using disinfectant sprays

like Lysol to clean their masks because these products can negatively affect the efficacy of the

filter on the N95 masks.

In addition to that, I also did some research on standard protocols for how to sanitize N95

masks in order to be able to reuse them. There are three methods that make it possible to reuse

the masks up to three times and these include vaporized hydrogen peroxide, UV light

sterilization, and 70% ethanol spray. Another method that makes it possible to reuse the mask

only up to two times is a dry heat method which eliminates the virus at 70 degrees Celsius.

Overall it was a good week of working and learning but this amount of work still is not

making is possible to catch up on hours. I am hoping to continue to get even more work so I can

stop stressing about meeting the 250 hours requirement.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 06/08/20 9:00-5:00, Tuesday: 06/09/20 9:00-5:00,
Wednesday: 06/10/20 9:00-5:00, Thursday: 06/11/20 9:00-5:00, Friday: 06/12/20 9:00-5:00,
Total Weekly Hours: 40 hours, Total Hours to Date: 89 hours
JOURNAL #5
During the 5th week of my internship, I had much more work than previous weeks. One of

the main tasks I completed was creating a document including information about what

businesses should do when they decide to reopen their physical offices. I used the CDC’s website

as the source of my information because they had a lot of detailed information regarding

cleaning and sanitation of office buildings. There are many factors that determine whether or not
a business should even make the decision to open back up again. These factors include

determining whether or not the recommended health and safety protocols can be successfully

carried out in the workplace. There is specific guidance for cleaning and disinfecting in the

workplace and they are broken down into three important steps. The first step is to develop a

plan which includes determining what needs to be cleaned, how those areas will be disinfected,

and also considering the resources and equipment needed. There are two other steps after that

that include the implementation of cleaning processes and maintaining and revising safety

practices as needed.

Another task that kept me extremely busy this week was reaching out to businesses and

organizations that could possibly be interested in hosting a COVID-19 testing event for CORE. I

called a number of different businesses including churches, gyms, libraries, and restaurants. This

job can be very tedious, but I know it’s one of those things that is very important but not

something that my supervisors are necessarily prioritizing at this current moment in time. I am

happy to help wherever I can and even though “cold” calling many different businesses is not the

most fun thing to do, I know I am making a difference at a small level. In addition to calling new

businesses, I was also asked to reach out to previous organizations that have partnered with

CORE to host COVID-19 testing sites to ask if they would be interested in hosting events in the

future. The only downfall to this task was the fact that out of at least 50 phone calls that I made,

only about 2 of the businesses actually answered the phone. This can be discouraging but I will

continue to reach out to these places and look for new opportunities so CORE can expand their

testing events to locations that are underserved or have hotspots.

To fill any remaining time during the week I continued to do extensive research about the

process of opening businesses during a pandemic. This really interests me, and I am always
excited to gain more knowledge about something that is still very unknown. Overall, I really

enjoyed my week and am excited to continue doing meaningful work for my organization.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 06/15/20 10:00-4:00, Tuesday: 06/16/20 10:00-4:00,
Wednesday: 06/17/20 10:00-4:00, Thursday: 06/18/20 10:00-4:00, Friday: 06/19/20 10:00-
4:00, Total Weekly Hours: 30 hours, Total Hours to Date: 119 hours
JOURNAL #6
During my 6th week of my internship, I focused on finding data for new coronavirus

hotspots in Georgia in order to target specific businesses that could potentially partner with

CORE. Although CORE mostly only does testing around the greater Atlanta area, I think it is

time for them to start expanding to the other areas of Georgia that are in great need of testing.

My supervisor told me that they recently have received more funding in order to have more

testing sites, so I think this is a great opportunity to use that money and make sure there are no

communities without free and easy access to COVID-19 testing.

Some of the newer hotspots around Georgia include Hancock county, Terrell county,

Randolph county, and Early county. Each of these counties have more than 300 deaths per

100,000 people. These are the only counties in that category as of June 15th, 2020. This was

surprising to me because these are not counties with big, metropolitan cities but then I realized

that since these are less populated and smaller areas, they probably do not have as much access

to good healthcare and COVID-19 testing as the areas around Atlanta do and that is why is they

are being disproportionately affected by the virus. Another reason why these counties are being

affected more is because of their demographics. The data so far has statistically shown a greater

impact of the virus on African American people. Hancock county is made-up of over 74% black

or African American residents. Terrell county is over 60% black or African American. Randolph

county has a racial makeup of almost 60% black people. Last but not least, Early county’s racial

makeup is almost 51% black or African American. There seems to be a pattern of communities
with a higher percentage of black residents being increasingly affected in regard to coronavirus

cases and deaths.

After doing some of this research this week, I am hoping that these communities can start

having increased access to free testing. My next steps are to figure out if there are any

businesses, churches, and/or restaurants that would be interested in partnering with CORE to

host a permanent or temporary testing site. Also, my supervisor is supposed to be sending me an

outline of the mapping project I will be completing so I am very excited to get started on that.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 06/22/20 9:00-5:00, Tuesday: 06/23/20 9:00-5:00,
Wednesday: 06/24/20 9:00-5:00, Thursday: 06/25/20 9:00-5:00, Friday: 06/26/20 9:00-5:00,
Total Weekly Hours: 40 hours, Total Hours to Date: 159 hours
JOURNAL #7
Week 7 of my internship consisted of me starting on the big project that I will be

presenting on at the end of the summer. Both me and Lanier have been working together in order

to complete this project because it has a lot of different components to it. CORE will end up

using this project to aid them in the continuation of making COVID-19 testing more accessible

in highly infected areas. My supervisor came up with the idea of a mapping project that will

assess the utilization of CORE resources in order to see if we are effectively targeting high need

areas of Georgia. The areas of interest that we want to look into include prevalence of COVID-

19 in the areas CORE is testing, access to commercial testing within the area we’re testing,

income levels in the areas we’re testing, and relative risk levels of the patient’s we’re testing.

My supervisor split this project into 8 phases and so far, Lanier and I have completed 5 of

those. Using Google MyMaps, we have created multiple different layers on a map that show a

multitude of different things. The first step of our mapping project was to map all of the areas

that CORE has already conducted testing. The counties we are currently testing in are Fulton,

Gwinnett, Newton, Rockdale, Cobb, Douglas, and Dekalb. After placing points on the map
where these counties are physically located, we used publicly available data from county health

departments to link the prevalence of infection at the time of testing. We also included the link to

a source for epidemiology reports so we can assess the prevalence of COVID-19 on an ongoing

basis. As we continue to complete this project, we will keep an updated map layer of available

COVID-19 testing resources meaning all of the locations CORE is currently testing at. In

addition to understanding the geographic locations of testing resources, we also pulled together

demographic data for each of the counties including race, age, and income levels. These are all

risk factors to COVID-19 so it is important that CORE understands how these factors are

affecting the incidence and prevalence of the virus.

This week was very productive I am excited to continue working on this interesting and

meaningful project.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 06/29/20 9:00-5:00, Tuesday: 06/30/20 9:00-5:00,
Wednesday: 07/01/20 9:00-5:00, Thursday: 07/02/20 9:00-5:00, Friday: 07/03/20 9:00-5:00,
Total Weekly Hours: 40 hours, Total Hours to Date: 199 hours
JOURNAL #8
During my 8th week of my internship, I continued working on the mapping project that

was assigned to me last week. Me and Lanier continued to add different layers on the map that

include important information about testing. We added layers to the map that include all the

available COVID-19 testing sites, past testing sites, and libraries in hotspots so we can actually

visualize the association between the counties we are supposed to be serving and the physical

locations of the testing sites. I can see that we are doing a pretty good job of serving our priority

populations, but the testing sites do seem to be a bit more concentrated in the Atlanta/Fulton

County area. Because of this conclusion, me and Lanier are trying to discover more locations in

the Cobb, Dekalb, Douglas, Newton, Gwinnett, and Rockdale county areas. Like I mentioned

last week, we provided information about the race demographics in each county and this week
we also added information about age and median income. These are important factors because

statistics have shown that people over the age of 60 are much more affected by the virus than

people who are younger. Also, income is an interesting indicator because a lot of times people

with a higher income most likely have health insurance through their employer or can afford to

pay for a private insurance plan. People with lower incomes tend to not have health insurance or

insurance that does not give them as many options or benefits. These factors come in to play with

COVID-19 because having a good healthcare provider can help with the early diagnosis and

management of chronic diseases. If someone has a chronic or underlying disease like high blood

pressure or obesity but has not been diagnosed by a doctor, they are at extreme risk of becoming

severely ill or dying from the coronavirus.

In addition to that, I think it would be a great idea for us to gather information about the

incidence and prevalence of chronic conditions in these counties that CORE is serving. This

information is extremely relevant to the virus and could help us understand why the number of

cases is changing in certain areas.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 07/06//20 10:00-3:00, Tuesday: 07/07/20 9:00-2:00,
Wednesday: 07/08/20 9:00-2:00, Thursday: 07/09/20 10:00-3:00, Friday: 07/10/20 10:00-
3:00, Total Weekly Hours: 25 hours, Total Hours to Date: 224 hours
JOURNAL #9
Week 9 of my internship was much less busy than my two previous weeks. Since Lanier

and I have done a lot of our project in a short period of time, we only have a few finishing

elements that need to be added to our mapping project before it is complete. That being said, as

we finish up our project, we have to complete a retrospective analysis of all the data we provided

in each of the different map layers for each of the counties and testing locations. Since this week

wasn’t as busy as the last couple of weeks, I decided to supplement my time with researching the

current COVID-19 trends. As you probably know, coronavirus cases have spiked in the last
couple of weeks in many parts of the nation including Georgia. Everyone can speculate about

why exactly this happened but what we do know for sure is that cases have gone up, but deaths

have virtually stayed the same or decreased. The reason for this is because the majority of the

people being infected with COVID-19 at this current moment fall in the age category of 18-29.

Most people in this age group do not have a hard time fighting off this virus. It is very rare that

someone from this age group gets hospitalized and/or dies. This explains why the death rate has

not shown the same increase in comparison to the number of new cases.

Based off of what I can conclude from my knowledge in public health and after doing

more specific research, social distancing and wearing masks during public outings is very

important now more than ever. The best suggestion is to just stay home as much as possible

while also having little to no contact with people outside of your home. This is simply not

possible for many people because of various reasons so that’s why mask wearing, and social

distancing must be a priority for people going out.

After gaining even more knowledge about how this pandemic is changing every day, I

gain more and more respect and appreciation for what CORE is doing. I am very proud to have

been a part of this organization even though it was only for a short time and I did not get to be as

hands on. I am curious to see how this pandemic progresses and I hope we will see a light at the

end of the tunnel soon.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday: 07/13//20 9:00-3:00, Tuesday: 07/14/20 9:00-3:00,
Wednesday: 07/15/20 10:00-4:00, Thursday: 07/16/20 10:00-4:00, Friday: 07/17/20 10:00-
4:00, Total Weekly Hours: 30 hours, Total Hours to Date: 254 hours
JOURNAL #10
During the 10th week of my internship, I finished up the final elements to my mapping

project. I continued to add more layers of information that could be used to analyze how well

CORE has done when it comes to COVID-19 testing. On Wednesday, me and Lanier were able
to have a phone conversation with Adrian to check in on the progress of our project. He first

asked how we were feeling about the project and if we had any questions or if we needed any

clarification on the elements of the project. He let us know that he was impressed with how much

we had done, and he was really grateful that CORE would now be able to use this as resource to

visualize their impact on the communities they are serving. In addition to that, he asked us to

implement a couple more bits of information into the map. He wants us to add a description

under each testing site location that includes the date they were testing and how many COVID-

19 cases there were during that time. Me and Lanier started working on that this past week and

we will finish that up at the beginning of this week so we can complete our project and move on

to creating our individual presentations. Adrian is also trying to figure out how to export the

map into a spreadsheet because CORE recently hired someone who is an expert in contact

tracing, and he could use all of the information and data we inputted to help CORE. He ended the

phone call with asking us how we felt about the project and had us explain what we had learned

from completing it. He also asked us what our future plans are and let us know that he would be

happy to be a professional reference when I start interviewing and offered his help if we ever

need anything. He also offered a phone conversation that could have with his wife who works at

the CDC so she can explain to us what it’s like to work there and what it takes to get there. I am

very grateful for Adrian being so generous with his knowledge and willing to help in any way

possible.

Dates and Hours worked: Monday 07/20/20- Friday 07/24/20: no hours worked, used this
week to work on and complete class assignments, already met hour requirement after week
10, Total Working Hours to Date: 254 hours
JOURNAL #11
During week 11 of my internship I dedicated all of my time to completing the required

assignments for this course. I finished all of my work for my internship project during week 10
so I could allow myself enough time during the last 2 weeks to put in an appropriate amount of

effort to ensure my work is of great quality. My resume and mock interview were the first two

things due this past week. I sent my resume to be reviewed by the career center before I

submitted it so I could get any possible feedback to make it better. Since I had gotten my resume

reviewed twice before this, they had no edits for me and told me that I did a great job taking

advice from the last two resume review sessions I attended. After getting feedback on my

resume, I actually had my friend redesign and re-format my resume and now I think it looks

easier to read and more organized. The second assignment due last week was the mock interview

which I ended up performing better on than I thought. I wanted to do well so I previewed the

questions before recording and wrote an outline of how I wanted to answer the questions. Being

able to prepare like this made me less anxious for the interview and I think it helped me have a

better outcome. I know I won’t be able to prepare like that for real interviews, but I will take the

feedback given to me and use it to improve my skills for future interviews with actual employers.

In addition to the resume and mock interview, I also spent a lot of my time working on

creating my presentation and electronic portfolio. I spent a couple of days organizing my

presentation and coming up with objectives as well as planning what exactly I want to speak

about during my video recording of my presentation. I enjoyed making my presentation because

it gave me the opportunity to analyze what I did this summer and it was cool to see everything I

worked on altogether in one place. Working on my portfolio has also been an enjoyable

experience because I have never created my own website before, so I am definitely learning new

skills while completing this assignment. The only things I have left to do are finish up my

portfolio and finish writing the description of my project and activities. I am happy I was able to
reach the hour requirement last week so I could dedicate all of this time to completing the final

assignments for this course.