PAWTUCKET – One year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic started in Rhode Island with a first, documented case, an administrator at Saint Raphael Academy who is thought to have contracted the virus while on a school trip to Italy. As it approached the anniversary, the school leadership acknowledged the experience of the past year.
The Pawtucket-based Catholic prep school became the focus of public scrutiny for much of those first weeks, as several people connected to the school trip became infected with the new coronavirus.
At the time, northern Italy was experiencing heightened infections with the virus, which had started in Wuhan, China.
Soon after returning to Rhode Island, several people associated with the trip became ill. On March 1, 2020 the R.I. Department of Health announced that the state had its first documented case of COVID-19. It would be 10 more days before the World Health Organization declared the epidemic a global pandemic.
Marc Thibault, the associate principal for student life at Saint Raphael, was that patient. He was hospitalized with the disease at The Miriam Hospital in Providence. He spoke publicly about his ordeal in an interview with The Wall Street Journal a few weeks after he was released.
In that article, he recounted a harrowing few days of having difficulty breathing; his lungs had started to fill with fluid. At the time, there were no known treatments for COVID-19. The medical personnel had to help clear his lungs every hour, he said.
A year later, he is healthy and back on campus. Thibault did not respond to a request for an interview with the Providence Business News.
But in a one-page statement, released by Saint Raphael Feb. 26, Thibault thanked everyone who helped him recover. “I am so appreciative of my family, friends, students, colleagues and the entire Saint’s community,” he said. “I firmly believe in my heart that God answered their prayers. I am also extremely grateful to the nurses, doctors and certified nurse assistants who took care of me. They all risked their health to save my life. I will forever be indebted to every one of them.”
“It’s nice to wake up each morning and walk the halls with my students again.”
Initially, some parents were angered that they learned about potential exposures through news accounts. For a time, 60 people associated with the school or the trip were in home quarantine.
In his statement, Richard said the challenges have made the school grow stronger.
From its origins in central China in late 2019, the virus quickly spread globally. It was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
Over the past year, nearly 2,500 people in Rhode Island have died of COVID-19, and are included among more than 500,000 fatalities in the U.S.
The virus has infected more than 125,600 people in Rhode Island over the past year.
Vaccines, which were quickly developed and approved after being found to be safe and effective against severe illness with COVID-19, started being deployed in December 2020 in Rhode Island. To date, more than 67,000 residents or workers in the state have been fully vaccinated.
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at macdonald@pbn.com.
