COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ends May 11; What the community needs to know

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ended Thursday, May 11. It’s important to remember that COVID-19 is impacting our community and that testing, vaccinations, and other COVID resources will change.

WAFB talked to Baton Rouge General’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Keith Kellum about what will be different in our community moving forward.

He said COVID testing will still be offered but the way the federal government funds that testing may change based on your insurance provider.

Vaccinations are still available, but mandates from the federal government will see a change.

People with Medicare and Medicaid will be able to get vaccinated at no cost. There could be a cost to those with private insurers, just like a flu vaccine.

“I think we can all acknowledge that we’re in a better place now with COVID-19 and the severity of illness that we’re seeing,” said Dr. Kellum. “In the beginning of the year, we had an average hospitalization of about seven patients per day, and that has slowly trimmed it down to where currently we have two hospitalized patients throughout our entire Baton Rouge General system.”

He said they continue to see a decrease in the severity of symptoms and no longer see the number of deaths they used to see related to the virus. Overall symptoms are similar to the common cold.

What are some takeaways?

Health experts have learned how to respond to an emergency crisis and how to use resources more sparingly.

Where are we now?

Dr. Kellum said deaths and hospitalizations have decreased by 80%. He said we should acknowledge that COVID exists but they’re calling it an endemic rather than a pandemic now. It’s here to stay and their finger is still on the pulse of the virus, it’s just not a great threat to our community.

Could something like this happen in our lifetime?

“I learned to never say never in medicine and this may be something that we have to deal with again in our lifetime,” said Dr. Kellum. “Currently we’re in a good spot. I think we’ve learned a lot of dos and don’ts. I think we’re in a much better position to respond to future medical emergencies.”

The big message, COVID is still in our community so if you feel sick or have a fever or flu-like symptoms, stay home.

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