The early weeks of 2021 carried a sense of promise for the Chattanooga health care workers who were weathering a devastating winter surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. Vaccines were being administered. By late January, cases were dropping.
Gov. Bill Lee invited tourists to the state and even offered an incentive program for them to come. Hamilton County’s mask mandate was lifted. Live music returned to downtown and the Riverfront on Friday and Saturday nights.
But three weeks in August erased the months of momentum as an exhausted and understaffed workforce now face a wave of sick patients that threatens to overwhelm the local and state health care systems.
The treatment for Chattanooga’s sickest patients largely resembles the previous peak, but as hospitalizations continue to break records, demoralized workers are haunted by one key difference.
This was preventable.