Local nurse reacts to COVID-19

By Campbell Hauschild

With the number of COVID-19 cases in the US constantly increasing not only on a nationwide scale but in Ohio, many wonder if our current safety standards have impacted the spread at all.

Heidi Shaw, a nurse at Athens High School, answered a few questions regarding her opinion as a medical professional. When asking Shaw about our current mask guidelines in Ohio, she said that “As a licensed school nurse and as a private citizen with an older parent who still works as a Hospice RN doing home visits, I absolutely do not think that the mask requirement is comprehensive enough.”

Shaw felt that with our current guidelines, increased enforcement from local to state government will ensure that standards are being met.

With the development of vaccines underway and some reaching their final stages of testing, I asked Shaw about possible prioritizations, and how we can best utilize vaccines. As she and many other medical professionals believe, if/when vaccines are available to the public, “That means prioritizing those on the front lines- aides, nurses, physicians in hospitals, long term care facilities, those that are truly on the front lines.”

With our frontline workers constantly being subjected to possible exposure, prioritizing them is the key to minimizing the spread of COVID-19.

On the topic of returning to school, Shaw felt that when students return to school, the proper process should be slow and thorough. With a methodical process, “plans and protocols can be implemented while also giving time to fix the problems that we discover along the way without having an entire district back while we are doing that.”

Shaw also pointed out that our knowledge of COVID-19 is less than a year’s worth of information, and that we must approach the return “slowly and cautiously.”

In the city of Athens, there is currently a $100 fine given to people who are found not wearing a mask in public. Within Athens, opinions vary on whether this fine enforces the wearing of masks in public. When asking Shaw what she thought of this fine, she said, “Unfortunately, there is limited enforcement of this mandate within the city limits. I think that having the OUPD and the APD more involved in the discussion of community spread could possibly help.”

It seems that even the threat of a $100 fine isn't enough to properly enforce the mandate within the city. With the actions taken by Athens and Ohio at large, we have been able to minimize the spread of COVID-19, but not yet to the standards that medical professionals would have hoped. Though in the future, we have the chance to change our own actions for the better of our community, and our nation at large.