Dennison native, COVID-19 expert leads OhioHealth through pandemic
Dr. Joseph Gastaldo is a son of Tuscarawas County and a son of the Italian immigrant community of the Twin Cities.
The 52-year-old medical director of infectious diseases for the Columbus-based OhioHealth system was born in what is now Twin City Medical Center in Dennison, his hometown, the fourth of five children of Roberta and Adolfo Gastaldo. He still returns to Uhrichsville every summer for the Civiello family reunion even though he moved away from Dennison at age 7.
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“I have a fond, soft spot for all of Tuscarawas County since I have so many friends and family there and so many fond memories of my childhood years,” Gastaldo said. As a child, he spent two to three weeks each summer with his grandparents in Dennison. “I used to love going to Clay Week and Railroad Days. I would be down there for the St. Mary’s School festival.” He recalled pleasant trips to the former Hart’s store in New Philadelphia with his grandparents.
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But you don’t need to be a member of his family, or a patient, to see Gastaldo these days. He has done countless media interviews to inform the public about COVID-19 since the novel coronavirus was detected in the U.S. two years ago. He has appeared on Gov. Mike DeWine’s pandemic news conferences along with Ohio Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, who was previously OhioHealth’s chief medical officer.
Looking out for Tuscarawas County
Gastaldo still keeps an eye on COVID in his home county.
“It makes me sad to hear and see the numbers with lower vaccine uptake in Tuscarawas County compared to other counties in Ohio,” said Gastaldo, who estimates he’s related to two-thirds of the people buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery near Dennison.
As of Wednesday, 42.75% of Tuscarawas County’s residents had completed the COVID-19 vaccination process, compared to the state’s 56.17% and the country’s 63.5%, according to the Tuscarawas County Health Department. The Ohio Department of Health reported on Wednesday that the county has had 433 COVID-19 related deaths and 19,813 COVID-19 cases among its 93,263 people.
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Even as an adult, Gastaldo maintained his ties to Tuscarawas County. He did an internship with the former Marlowe’s compounding pharmacy while an Ohio Northern University pharmacy student in 1992. He worked a variety of jobs as a pharmacist to pay his way through medical school. One put him at the Coshocton Walmart pharmacy on the store’s opening day.
“That was such a carnival, when the Walmart opened in Coshocton,” Gastaldo said.
He graduated from the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University in Dayton in 1996. He completed specialty training in internal medicine and infectious disease at Ohio State University in 2002. He has been a practicing infectious disease doctor at OhioHealth since then.
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For the last two years, his professional life has been devoted to COVID-19, working both inside OhioHealth and communicating about the disease to the public. He still sees patients one day a week.
“I’m very sensitive to the fact that rural counties have suffered more from COVID,” Gastaldo said. “When you look at COVID cases per population density, there have been really a lot of pain and suffering in rural counties. A lot of it has to do with cultural issues, and vaccine hesitancy.”
He has heard from Tuscarawas County family members who have not been vaccinated, and is familiar with the false beliefs that COVID is not a serious condition, or that the vaccine against it is ineffective or more harmful than the disease. He also remembers stories about public acceptance of the polio vaccine in the 1950s.
“My mom and dad love to tell the story: In Dennison, when the polio vaccine came out, all the kids went to the movie theater,” Gastaldo said. “They all got the polio vaccine, no questions asked whatsoever.”
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That was a time when information came from newspapers, movie newsreels and major broadcast networks.
But today’s social media and broadcast media landscape creates opportunities to spread misinformation and disinformation, particularly among those who do not have credible sources for accurate information, Gastaldo said.
“It’s very, very confusing,” he said.
He recommends that individuals consult with their doctors about COVID-19, although he realizes many may not have a primary care physician.
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Gastaldo said he trusts the information from the Food and Drug Administation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He compared dealing with COVID-19 to trying to build an airplane while flying; experts have been learning about the disease as the pandemic has rolled across the globe.
“This is a once-in a lifetime world pandemic,”Gastaldo said. “And we have to extend grace to people when things are changing. They are doing the best they can. Can things be done better? In hindsight, things can always have been done better, as we learn more information, as things change.”
He wants people to better understand COVID-19 vaccines. They were not designed to grant “sterilizing immunity” like the measles vaccine, preventing most infection and transmission.
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“The (COVID) vaccines are still performing very, very well with what they were intended to do. They were intended to protect against severe disease resulting in hospitalization and death,” Gastaldo said. “If you are vaccinated, you can still get infection. However, if you are vaccinated, you are less likely to get infection compared to somebody who is not vaccinated.”
Post-vaccination infections do not represent vaccine failure, he said.
“If you get a post-vaccination infection and you are home with a cold or a flu (symptoms), that’s the vaccine working,” Gastaldo said. “Vaccinated people clear the virus quicker; they are contagious for a shorter period of time compared to somebody who is unvaccinated.
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“What’s really changed is variants. There are going to be other variants. Omicron was unexpected. Omicron is the most mutated virus. Since it’s the most mutated, there is some escape from the protection of the vaccine.
“A two-dose vaccine, for most people, still performs really well,” Gastaldo said. “The two-dose vaccine with omicron has an effectiveness roughly in the 60% range, which is still pretty good at keeping people out of the hospital. With a booster, that protection against hospitalization goes up to the 90% range. That’s why it’s so important to get the boosters into people.”
He acknowledged that vaccines do not work as well in all people, such as those with morbid obesity, kidney disease, advanced age or weakened immune systems.
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“The virus is not going away,” he said. “We need to learn how to live safely with this virus. Moving forward in 2022, we are getting the tools to live safely with this virus.”
Those tools include:
- Home testing for individuals who have symptoms, especially if they are at risk for severe disease.
- Anti-viral pills to treat the sick to keep them from needing hospitalization.
- COVID booster shots every year or two.
Gastaldo advises people to continue wearing masks as long as COVID transmission continues to be high within the community. He sees the country reaching a better situation as omicron cases decline, and respiratory diseases take their seasonal dive in spring and summer.
“Realistically, there may be another variant that works its way over here that we have to be concerned about,” he said. “The next letter in the Greek alphabet is pi. There will be a pi variant someday.
“Deaths are avoidable. The vast, vast, vast majority of the hospitalizations are those who are unvaccinated. And for those who are vaccinated and in the hospital with COVID — no surprise: older people and people who have medical conditions where vaccines don’t work as well.”
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