On 5th Anniversary, Collins Recalls Early Days of COVID-19 Pandemic in Press-Republican Interview
March 11, 2025, marked the five-year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Keith Collins, M.D., clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the Larner College of Medicine and an infectious disease specialist at the University of Vermont Health Network–Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh, New York, recalls the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in an interview with the (Plattsburgh, New York) Press-Republican.
Cases of COVID-19 peaked in the North Country between December 2021 and April 2022., according to coronavirus.health.ny.gov/.
“It was pretty miserable,” Collins said. “When COVID first hit here, we didn’t know what to expect, ourselves. We, at that point, really were unsure exactly how it was truly most transmitted. If you remember way back, they were making hand sanitizers in prisons and everything else because there was a shortage of everything. There was a shortage of PPE [personal protection equipment]. You name it. We didn’t have treatments back then that we knew worked at all. Back in 2020, really the only thing we had was supportive care. So, everything has changed since then and mostly for the better.”
CVPH staff rose to the challenge of providing health care in a fluid environment.
“It was always tight, but luckily we never got to the point where we were so strained we couldn’t function, thank goodness,” Collins said.
Collins remains wary of COVID-19, which still circulates in the community.