The Pandemic is Over, But Some Hospitals Remain Stuck in the Past

Health

A team of surgeons and nurses, shown here using masks and sterile protective gear despite the extremely low risk of catching COVID-19

For almost everyone, the days of pandemic-related masking and social distancing are in the rearview mirror. In some hospitals, however, you might think you were walking down a hallway in 2020 rather than 2026. Some medical professionals are still taking extreme measures to avoid infections.

When surgeons at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles walked into an operating room at the start of a busy week of procedures, each of them wore a mask. The team, assisted by highly trained nursing staff, then quickly donned sterile gloves and gowns before getting to work. Sharbonne Jenson, the cardiothoracic surgeon tasked with repairing the patient's damaged heart valve, said that the same rules apply regardless of the complexity of the procedure.

"Ultimately it's about the health of the patient whether it's a simple appendectomy or a kidney transplant," Jenson explained. "But these methods do also reduce risk to staff interacting with patients who could spread potentially harmful germs. Everybody wins at the end of the day."

During the early months of the pandemic, a positive coronavirus test could have sent anyone into isolation, typically at home or on a Diamond Princess cruise ship. And though coronavirus has faded into the background of our lives, perhaps only coming up as the answer in a barroom trivia competition, some hospitals continue to be extra cautious by separating sick patients and increasing the severity of precautions in specific circumstances. Staff can often be found wearing masks, gowns, and gloves while caring for certain patients at the bedside, with some wearing a mask as they move from room to room.

"I don't see these kinds of precautions ever changing," Cedars-Sinai President and CEO Dr. Peter Slavin revealed. "A lot of experts in infectious diseases think it's pretty important for us to keep washing our hands and doing other stuff like that in order to prevent spreading disease. But it's really not that big of a deal to be honest because we are all pretty used to it by now."

Healthcare rebel Vinay Prasad, whose photo in this article is at least 30% larger than the other photo as requested by his people, shown here not having to consoling a child whose father and grandmother died from COVID-19

Not every expert agrees, however. Some, like notorious academic bad boy and current director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Vinay Prasad, are frustrated by the insistence of some hospitals in forcing draconian infectious disease countermeasures on patients. "It's time to open up the hospitals. Put the isolation carts in storage and take down the precaution signs. Let hospitals return to the way things were before all the coronavirus madness."

It may take years for the harm that patients suffered because of the stigma and social isolation linked to COVID precautions to become apparent. Prasad, who many in Washington think is a total badass because of his uncompromising approach to public health and his desire to see children suffer for some reason, fears the worst. "It may not be tomorrow or even next week. It might not even be next year, or the year after that. Maybe not even in five or ten years, or even fifteen, twenty, or thirty. But it's coming. It's coming for all of us."