COVID-19 special report

CONNECTING WITH SHARON HAWA, BEST FRIENDS’ EMERGENCY RESPONSE SENIOR MANAGER

How the pandemic is affecting animal welfare.

While the current COVID-19 situation

evolves daily, there are lessons to be learned from the past about how disasters affect pets in shelters and our own pets, and what we can do to help. Sharon Hawa is Best Friends’ senior manager of emergency response. Before coming to Best Friends, she worked at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the American Red Cross and the New York City Office of Emergency Management, often alongside agencies like FEMA. We talked with her about COVID-19 and her experiences in other emergencies.

How is the current situation similar to and different from past emergencies?

The current situation is similar in some ways to active threats or impending natural disasters like severe weather, when people must be provided with whatever resources they need during that time to get through it securely. Another similarity is that disasters often have negative impacts on pets and animal welfare from the standpoint of lifesaving and reunification.

But this pandemic is unprecedented in most other ways. One positive difference is that people must shelter in place — the opposite of an ordered evacuation — which will mean more pets being kept safe with their families, who are staying at home.

However, unfortunately, this situation is bringing some unique challenges that we have not had before. I cannot recall a time when we, as a nation, had to ask nearly the entire population to shelter in

place for an indefinite period of time to curb the spread of a deadly virus. This is a different and challenging beast. The good news, however, is that we have the power to band together and respect what we know to be true — that social distancing is an effective tool to reduce the spread. at risk of losing a pet or reaching out to their local shelter to ask about fostering. We can get through any disaster, but we need to get through it together.

Like everywhere else, Best Friends’ initial response to the rising pandemic was to institute safety measures for staff, volunteers and the public at our lifesaving centers. Luckily, using hand sanitizer and washing hands were already standard procedures to prevent spreading disease between pets. But in short order, as various cities declared states of emergency, it became clear that we’d need to prepare for drastic measures. In New York, for example, over the course of a weekend, the discussion went from “We might have to close down the center” to “We must close the center tomorrow night.”

With center closures looking inevitable, the solution for how to care for pets at our New York center was clear: foster homes. A lot of foster homes. It helped that the nature of the crisis meant millions of people staying home, rather than leaving for work every day. So, really, what better time to bring home a pet? The New York team started reaching out on social media, asking people to step up and foster. Within hours, they received 50 emails from people wanting to foster a pet.

We sent out a similar appeal in Atlanta and in a matter of days, 60 new people signed up to foster in that city, with dozens of pets leaving the Atlanta lifesaving center to go into temporary homes. “This has been

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BEST FRIENDS MAGAZINE May/June 2020