Aside from everyone wearing face masks, life within Erlanger hospital is starting to more closely resemble a time before the novel coronavirus brought Chattanooga health care systems to their knees, forcing them to pivot nearly all their energy toward preparing for a COVID-19 surge and conserving valuable resources for only the most essential services.
Several pedestrians converge at the entrance to the main corridor that leads from the medical mall lobby to the main hospital. Doctors clad in scrubs hurry down the hall to their next procedure. A pair of food service workers laugh together as they push a cart carrying supplies.
Outside, it’s a warm and sunny day in late February. More Chattanoogans are venturing into the world, discovering their “new normal.” In the coming weeks, public health officials will give those who are fully vaccinated the go-ahead to reunite with their friends and loved ones.
More than 1,600 doses of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine – a scientific breakthrough that was only theoretical a year ago and the key to ending the coronavirus pandemic – will be administered in Hamilton County that day.
But tucked away in a far corner of the hospital – down the corridor, up four stories and at the end of a long hallway – ongoing reminders remain of why the masks, the social distancing and the vaccines have been so badly needed, of what they are protecting against.