More than 930,000 COVID-19 deaths — some 35,000 in Georgia — according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Public health.
A health care system — and the workforce that keeps it afloat — that’s been battered by wave after wave of coronavirus patients.
Rapidly developed COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that have seen varying levels of acceptance.
Public health guidelines that have been implemented, pulled back and implemented again.
Georgians have been living with COVID-19 for nearly two years, and while there’s hope to be found in falling case numbers, there’s still lots of uncertainty.
“Even after two years, I feel like there’s still so much that we don’t know about this virus — what will happen with the virus, when the next variant will take hold, if it will take hold, when the next big wave will be that will require us to divert our resources again,” said Dr. Andrew Kim, a physician at Ethne Health, a small clinic in Clarkston, Georgia.
He participated in a roundtable discussion on Wednesday’s edition of “Closer Look” featuring health care experts from around the state.
He was joined by Dr. John Delzell with the Northeast Georgia Health System; Dr. Jayne Morgan, head of the COVID-19 task force at Piedmont Healthcare; and Dr. Jean Sumner, dean of Mercer School of Medicine.
The panel also discussed COVID-19 vaccine uptake, the health disparities exposed by the pandemic and the path ahead.
“We’re going to have to do a lot of damage repair and assessment and lessons learned and take a transparent and honest look at what our infrastructure is and hopefully not get back to normal,” said Morgan. “That normal wasn’t working.”
