Five years ago this month, a tsunami of patients struggling to breathe due to a new, out-of-control virus slammed into Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck — the first epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Jersey. Doctors and nurses covered in full protective gear worked around the clock treating many patients who would die within days, sometimes hours, of arrival. A refrigerated truck was parked outside. The morgue no longer had room to store all the bodies. Today, the morgue truck is long gone, masks are optional and Holy Name’s emergency department is filled with patients sick with another highly contagious respiratory disease: the flu.
COVID has claimed the lives of 12 to 25 New Jerseyans each week this year. But it is no longer the potent killer that it was and has become something of an afterthought in the public consciousness as the state on Tuesday marks the fifth anniversary of its first confirmed case.
“While we are still getting infected, we are not getting severe disease for the most part,” said Dr. Suraj Saggar, chief of the Department of Infectious Disease at Holy Name, who was on the front lines five years ago treating patients. “It’s natural that its place in society has certainly transformed and evolved as the risk to the average person has decreased.” To read the full story.