Lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic as a whole — and specifically the recent omicron spike — may be felt by healthcare workers for a while.
Staff burnout has been mentioned by health officials nationwide as a major issue throughout the pandemic, but especially during omicron, which transmitted among people easier than other variants and clogged patient beds, emergency rooms and waiting rooms as a result. On KVOE’s Morning Show this week, Lyon County Public Health Emergency Preparedness Director Jennifer Millbern said it’s hard to say whether burnout is an issue locally, but stress is definitely a concern after nearly two full years of the pandemic.
Millbern says the patient numbers are one thing, but keeping track on the rapidly-shifting guidance from the state and federal governments have added other levels of stress. She says the decline in cases over the past month has slowed things down for healthcare workers in general, and she says the Public Health decision to transfer caseload investigations to the state has also helped the local workload.
