ST. LOUIS – It’s been more than a year since the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in the United States. A St. Louis Infectious Disease Specialist has high praise for health care providers and the public in making big changes to deal with the pandemic.
Dr. Hilary Babcock, director of infection prevention at BJC Healthcare and Washington University School of Medicine, said there is more to learn about the virus, but it has been remarkable to see how the medical community was able to pivot quickly to meet the challenge.
Babock said all the hospital and medical systems in the St. Louis area responded immediately and professionally to take care of COVID patients and implement measures to stop the spread of the virus.
She said local health care officials made it a priority to communicate with each other about what was important and what changes were being made along the way during the year of the pandemic.
“We’ve learned that we can pivot faster than we thought we probably could before, so we were able to make changes on both the way that we take care of patients, where we take care of patients, how that care is delivered, how we get staff to the places that they’re needed,” Babock said. “We’re really able to make changes that before always looked really heard but when you really have to do them you just have to do them.”
Babcock said we also learned that community interventions like masking and distancing are really critical to controlling the spread of the virus.
You can listen to the full interview with Dr. Babcock below:
