“Annimisery” is the term Lake County Health Department Executive Director Mark Pfister used this week to describe Friday, March 11. The department recorded the county’s first case of COVID-19 on March 11, 2020.
Since then, there has been 122,567 cases of COVID-19 Lake County and 1,344 people have died from the disease as of Friday, according to the department’s website. Pfister refuses to use the word anniversary.
“This is not something to be celebrated,” Pfister said. “COVID-19 has caused much misery the last two years. The No. 1 issue are the deaths. There was misery for health care and other workers who endured many changes. There are still the long haulers who continue to be impacted.”
Residents of Lake County marked two years since the official start of the coronavirus pandemic here Friday at a time when new cases are at their lowest since last summer, and the vaccination rate continues to climb and lead the state.
Of those eligible to receive the vaccine — everyone 5 and older — 81.9% are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. DuPage County is second at 81.4%. Suburban Cook County residents are 76.5% inoculated, and it is 70.4% in McHenry County.
Though the disease remains, Pfister and other health care professionals said it was also a time of heroism. The rapid development of a vaccine in less than a year kept the misery from being far more severe. Caution is still advised, even as the risk of getting the virus becomes less.
While the second anniversary of the pandemic is no cause for celebration, Pfister said a concerted effort by the health care industry, government and people who took precautions to help themselves and others by getting shots and wearing masks prevented greater misery.
Pfister said the rapid development of the vaccine and making it available to millions of Americans is a medical miracle. Not only was it developed quickly, but the effort of the government and the pharmaceutical manufacturers ensured supply and the ability to put shots in arms. There were 10,291 doses injected May 20, 2020.
“We had mass vaccination sites,” Pfister said. “People could go to their pharmacies and their health care providers.”
As health care professionals consider if or when the virus will disappear, they also suggest caution. Dr. Jeffrey Kopin is looking forward to the time COVID-19 becomes more like the flu. He is reluctant to forecast.
“The COVID-19 virus taught us humility when it comes to predictions,” Kopin said in an email. “My hope is that we have now entered the endemic phase of this virus where our experience will be similar to the seasonal influenza virus we all know well.”
Pfister said the disease is transitioning from pandemic to endemic because, along with a vaccine, there are additional treatments and abundant testing which will allow health care providers to treat COVID-19 like the flu.
“We’re not quite there yet,” Pfister said. “We’re moving toward endemic where we treat it as we do influenza. We are able to test and prescribers are able to prescribe treatment. We need to have an ample supply of treatment and enough prescribers who understand it.”
Dr. Lavanya Srinivasan of Vista Health Systems in Waukegan said in an email there is optimism surges caused by the delta and omicron variants are a thing of the past. A high vaccination rate can help that happen.
“The number of cases and surge overall has gradually declined over the past six months,” Srinivasan said. “The hope is that as the vaccination rate improves, cases will continue to remain low. While we may experience periodic increases in cases, we are hoping we won’t see any more surges.”
New cases are at a 10-month low in the Chicago area. There were 57.43 new cases on a seven-day rolling average per 100,000 residents for the past week as of Friday, a 47.85% drop from the week before, according to the CDC.
In suburban Cook County, the number of new cases per 100,000 was 60.95, 76.08 in McHenry County and across the state line in Wisconsin, there were 54.2 in Kenosha County.
Rachel Loberg, chief nursing officer at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, said in an email when the pandemic there was fear among the public and health care workers. She calls the doctors, nurses and technicians heroes. She encourages the unvaccinated to get the shots.
“I hope the community continues to remember and to acknowledge their heroism, grit and tireless efforts,” Loberg said. “It’s hard to believe that we’ve been on the front lines of this struggle for two years.”
