The hope is to find a new normal post pandemic. However most do not understand what that means for them. Who better to turn to than the healers of the community? 

“I do not believe we will ever completely return to normal,” Alon Weizer, MD, chief medical officer at St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea said. “The COVID pandemic has forced us to acknowledge that we truly are a global community and that something that starts in another part of the world has the potential to impact our lives.”

Weizer hopes the pandemic will focus our government and public health infrastructure to develop better processes and protection to allow us to return to a new normal.

 It’s not a one person job, though.

The best actions we can take to achieve a new normal are: continue to maintain social distancing, wear masks and wash our hands.  In addition, when the community can get vaccinated for COVID-19, they should, regardless of which vaccine is available to them. This will provide the protection we need to be able to resume more social activities according to Weizer.

The key is that we should open up slowly and in a stepwise fashion to allow us to understand the impact of decreasing restrictions and back track if we see an increase in cases.

“We can’t stay shut down forever, even this open and close cycle is still killing society,” Weizer said.