Erin Waldee’s days are different now.  She walks through the doors of the hospital just like she has for the past three years. But before she can start her shift as the critical care pharmacist team leader at Albany’s Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, she gets her temperature taken. Someone hands her a fabric mask, one she’ll have to give back for sterilization hours or so later when she leaves. Then she heads up to one of four intensive care units full of dozens of COVID-19 patients.

The Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, or Phoebe as it’s known locally, got hit early, hard and fast with the novel coronavirus and much to the medical community’s surprise. Two large funerals at the end of February drew visitors from bigger cities, and experts believe that’s how the virus hitched a ride to the small town. About a week later, the hospital saw its first COVID patient.

Read the story by Leigh Beeson on UGA Today.