Toggle navigation
SUCCESS!
We look forward to helping you advance your career as a travel nurse!
March 4, 2021
The last two weeks of COVID tracking have been confusing with declining numbers of new cases and increased vaccine availability. But, experts are cautioning that we aren’t in the clear just yet.
Here’s what travel nurses need to know about the latest updates in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interested in assignments in COVID-impacted areas? Start here.
Following a 7-week decline, we have now reached a plateau in new COVID cases in the U.S. And while many of us were encouraged by the decline in the first place, it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the fact that even with the decline, the cases are still higher than they were in the first peak of the pandemic. In other words, that decline was in large part due to a drastic uptick in cases from over the holidays.
On March 2, CDC Director Director Rochelle Walensky also cautioned in a White House press briefing that the numbers from the previous 7 days show a slight increase in new cases–new cases and deaths rose about 2% higher than they were the week prior. Her words come on the heels of many states lifting COVID-19 restrictions, from Michigan, which doubled the allowed capacity of restaurants and resumed nursing home visitations, to Texas, which lifted its mask mandate and opened the state entirely.
Walensky expressed concern over states lifting restrictions, noting that the current 2,000 per day death rate should not be considered a new norm, and pointing out that the new variants now known to be circulating could threaten to undo all of the progress that’s been done so far.
“Please hear me clearly. At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained…Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know could stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close,” she stated.
Ready to start travel nursing? Start here.
Hospitals have also been seeing a decline in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, which is encouraging. While the U.S. passed the 500,000 mark of deaths from COVID-19 and is now up to a total of 513,000 deaths, the CDC does note a 23.8% decrease in deaths from the previous week.
The emergent need for travel nurses due to COVID-19 has definitely slowed and some nurses have even seen their crisis contracts suddenly cancelled at the last-minute. However, travel nursing is an industry that will never go away and there are still travel nursing assignments with average weekly pay available in areas such as:
Speak with a recruiter about available assignments in COVID-impacted areas today.
To date, 78.6 million doses of the vaccine have been administered. Vaccination efforts have been helped with things like mass vaccination sites and the initial rollout of pharmacy vaccinations at some major retailers including CVS and Walgreens locations, as well as a catch-up to local health departments after severe winter storms derailed some shipments.
And as you have probably heard, Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine has been granted emergency use authorization by the FDA. (A quick note: EUA is not the same as FDA approval and because COVID-19 vaccines are not yet FDA-approved, they also can’t be mandated by an employer.) It’s not yet known when the vaccine will be readily available for distribution and in fact, the White House has warned that it will most likely be very limited supply at first.
In other vaccine news:
There has also been more attention turned to the stress that travel nurses especially have experienced in this pandemic. The travel nursing industry largely heralded as an upbeat way to gain experience, meet new people, earn money and travel all at the same time has been completely upended in a lot of ways by the pandemic. Instead of a positive experience focused on growth and fun, travel nursing was thrust into the bellies of the COVID-19 beast, a band-aid solution to hospitals unable to care for patients fast enough.
Coupled with the sudden emergent needs of caring for patients with COVID-19, the pandemic also brought severe isolation and stress to travel nurses, who were often sequestered alone in hotel housing near the hospital and forced to quarantine away from others.
“I did have moments where I didn’t want to talk to anybody because I felt like no one could really understand what I was going through, and that made me feel more alone,” one travel nurse said in a CNN feature.
If you are a travel nurse, it might feel like you are only just now coming up for air after back-to-back assignments or a crisis contract suddenly getting canceled. And if you are realizing that you are burned out or struggling with any mental health issues, be sure to take a break and reach out for the help you need. The beauty about travel nursing is that you can absolutely take a break when you need it — not only will it help you rest and ensure you can come back to work recharged and ready to help your patients again, but you can also rest assured that there will plenty of jobs to come back to.
Interested in assignments in COVID-impacted areas? Start here.
