By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Just two short years ago the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, and now things are finally starting to feel somewhat normal again Mosaic Life Care officials say.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Edward Kammerer says there are many areas at the hospital that have changed through the two years of the pandemic.
"We understand a lot of infectious disease and containment, we understand that a lot better than we ever did," Kammerer tells reporters. "And so, some of these things about exposure to viruses, and how we take care of our own workers, and all that stuff has really changed with a lot of the regulations, and OSHAs, and masks, so there's all sorts of facets to this we've learned."
Kammerer says the coronavirus pandemic upset the normal, seasonal flow of medical care.
"I always equated it to a tax accountant, a tax accountant knows April 14th is coming, right, they know the train is coming, I always knew flu season was coming, and so I prepared for it, I was ready for it, I knew I was going to work hard all winter, and I knew it would get easier eventually," Kammerer says. "COVID on the other hand is an uncertain oscillation, so the next thing you know we have an outbreak in summer of last year, right."
Kammerer says Mosaic is grateful for all the workers who stood and stayed with them through the ups and downs of the pandemic.
Kammerer says it feels great to see the hospital getting back to regular operations and having a sense of normalcy.
He says now the question is how long will this last?
"Do we have another large blip of COVID, the next variant you know, will this happen to us again and that's the uncertainty this brings," Kammerer explains. "But it's great to be back to kind of what we call normal, again we've talked about this before, we're looking at this now as an endemic not a pandemic, this is something we live with."
Kammerer says Mosaic has to learn how to incorporate COVID as part of its everyday care, saying it's another disease staff has to deal with.