'We have learned a huge horrible lesson': Palm Beach County doctor says COVID-19 trending in right direction
While COVID-19 trends in Florida appear to be heading in the right direction, one St. Lucie County doctor believes a hefty price was paid to get there.
"We have learned a huge horrible lesson," said infectious disease specialist, Dr. Moti Ramgopal. "We made mistakes and these are mistakes we should not have made."
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Dr. Ramgopal was asked if COVID-19 was over.
"COVID-19 in this wave is coming to an end," Ramgopal said.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Leslie Diaz was asked the same question.
"COVID is definitely not over," Diaz said. "The situations is much better in the hospitals."
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Both were on the first line of defense in the war against the pandemic.
Diaz is also an infectious disease specialist. She practices at Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter Medical Centers in Palm Beach County.
"We went from having a good 60, 70, 80 at one point, 100 patients in the hospital, to having maybe 15 total between the two hospitals," Diaz said. "So that's a significant improvement."
She's cautiously optimistic.
"If we make it through the spring without any surges, I think we're out of the woods," Diaz said.
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Since the peak in August, there has been a decline in cases and that continues today, according to the Department of Health in St. Lucie County.
"With the combinations of vaccines, with the combination of innate immunity, with the combination and access to monoclonal antibodies to take when people get sick, I don't think we're going to see what we just saw unless there's a new variant," Ramgopal said.
He believes lives could have been saved if more people followed medical advice in the early stages of the pandemic.
"As you move forward to February and March of next year and as we look back we say again - those kids without their parent and grandparent we failed them," Ramgopal said. "I would say, 'Yes, we failed them because we stopped doing the things that worked the first two phases.'"