Chatham-Kent’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby is taking advantage of the skyrocketing cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and other hot spots around the world, to remind us our work is not done yet.
“We must continue to be vigilant and maintain our physical distancing, probably until we get a vaccine,” Colby says. “We’re going to be in some degree of precautions for the short and medium term, at the very least.”
And as far as that vaccine goes despite efforts around the world there won’t be a vaccine any time soon.
Meantime, staffing efforts continue at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
President and CEO Lori Marshall says they have brought in a lot of new employees during this pandemic. She believes that is a good thing when it comes to procedures and practices.
“This is really both an interesting and exciting time to be joining health care,” Marshall says. “Certainly there are practices that for them are essentially normal, they haven’t known a difference in terms of things like our focus on personal protective equipment, things like setting up social distancing in the organization.”
Marshall says that could make it an easier adjustment for new staff, since this is the way they are learning standard procedures instead of being asked to change the way they operate.
Marshall says change is inevitable in these situations, adding they learned a lot through the SARS outbreak 20 years ago, and they are using that knowledge this time around.
