GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) — COVID-19 numbers and hospitalizations are declining In North Carolina. Many people are encouraged by the downward trends, but it’s taken a long time to get to this point.
Two years ago on Mar. 3, 2020, Governor Roy Cooper announced the first confirmed COVID-19 case in North Carolina.
“We are where we are,” said Dr. Ron May, CarolinaEast chief medical officer. “It’s not a great place to be, but it’s way better than where we were before. And we know a whole lot more now than we did before.”
Over the course of two years, the health care community has rallied together.
“In a lot of ways health care came together in ways they never have before,” said Dr. Ryan Gallaher, Vidant’s medical director of infectious disease. “Just the rapidity at which we were able to create a safe and effective vaccine to keep people out of the hospital. As well as therapies whether it was IV or pills.”
Not only has it been a long two years ago for the entire world, but especially for health care providers.
“We had a lot of people go to work who were putting patients first,” Gallaher said. “Going through having to go to work before the vaccine saying, ‘Hey could I get this going to work?'”
Now as cases and hospitalizations decline, many are wondering where we go from here.
“I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to a pre-COVID lifestyle,” Gallaher said. “Most experts agree that we’re at a point of COVID where we’re endemic. Which means it never will really go away, just kinda always be something you deal with.”
“It’s reason to feel good about where we’re going, but it’s not reason to drop your guard,” said May.