Kate Jesse, Import Specialist/Consumer Safety Officer, Office of Enforcement and Import Operations

As an import specialist on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, I drive with my colleagues to import hubs in Tyvek suits and N-95 masks to review shipments of COVID-19 test kits. We work with our compliance branch and FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health to review each manufacturer’s test kit. Years from now when I reflect on this unprecedented circumstance, I’m going to look back fondly upon the direct role I played in ensuring that all Americans were supplied with safe and effective COVID-19 test kits. I’d say that we survived this epidemic just like we overcame all the others in our great country’s history. 

There is no need for fear – we are a strong, resilient country whose citizens have overcome pandemics, wars, and great upheaval in our past. We are so much stronger together.

I am Kate Jesse and #IAmORA on the frontlines.