EDITORIAL: Day in, day out, Phoebe professionals just do their jobs

There is an air of optimism, an air of hope, that surfaces each time we welcome a new year.

But hope is harder to come by in the age of COVID, and as we close in on our second year of living under restrictions wrought by the pandemic, some of us are having a difficult time mustering the energy and spirit needed to face each day.

Too many of us have grown so accustomed to bad news and an overall sense of dismay that we choose to shut ourselves off from the world and just exist behind the closed doors of our homes.

Still, one thing people in southwest Georgia have learned as the coronavirus has raged around them is that we have a powerful ally in our fight to, if not overcome, then mitigate the impact of this virus that has taken the lives of almost 400 people right here in our community. We have, in Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, a health care institution that is made up of dedicated individuals who have gone above and beyond the call of duty every day that they’ve walked through the hospital’s doors for the better part of two years and counting.

As humans, we have a tendency to “move on to the next thing” as soon as the latest thing has lost the sting of immediacy. It’s what’s allowed the people of southwest Georgia to overcome the devastation brought by floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other significant calamities — natural and of our own making — with an air of “we got through that one, now what’s next?”

Many of us have done that with the pandemic. We see a lull or a lessening of the severity of the virus as it mutates into new variants, and we become callous, wondering why we have to keep hearing about COVID, COVID, COVID every day, why such a big deal is being made when in reality, things are so much better than they’ve been. And, unless the virus hits close to home, sickens or even takes the life of someone we know or love, we develop a kind of personal COVID defense mechanism through which we damn the messenger who tries to keep us informed about the reality of the pandemic.

In the end, though, our COVID “jet lag” doesn’t matter, and neither do the pockets of special interest groups or politicians who encourage us to either avoid all human contact or, conversely, ignore all warnings and precautions and live our life as we did before the pandemic got its grip on the world.

Each of us has the capacity to choose for ourselves how we — and, in most cases, our families — will respond personally to this virus that, experts say, is not going to go away until enough of us are vaccinated against it to develop a herd immunity. Since that seems unlikely, it stands to reason that we will continue to see mutations of the virus, giving life to variants that may be more dangerous or progressively less so.

We can hope for the latter, but there is a real possibility that a new variant could come along that is not impacted by any of the vaccines currently available, and it will be back to the drawing board for scientists and health care officials who are working around the clock in an attempt to irradicate this menace once and for all.

Until such a time comes — or perhaps we should say if and when such a time comes — we will continue to hope and pray for the best and, depending on our point of view, do the things that protect us or ignore the warnings and play Russian roulette with our health. No matter which we choose, each of us in this region should be thankful we have a caring staff of physicians, nurses, health care workers and administrators at Phoebe who stand ready to take on whatever challenge awaits them each new day.