Officials at Freeman Health System in Joplin were more optimistic about the state of the pandemic in the area than they have been in months. President and CEO of Freeman, Paula Baker, said Wednesday they had as many as 54 COVID patients on February first. That figure has shrunk to ten patients yesterday, two on ventilators.

Head of COVID-19 services at Freeman, Dr. Rob McNab, speaking Wednesday. “It’s a much better place today than it was over the past few months where we’ve seen the number drop dramatically into the almost single digits. That’s fantastic because it definitely pulls off a lot of the resource strain off of other service lines.” McNab also said that out of the 1,000’s of vaccine doses Freeman has and continues to administer, they’ve only had to hospitalize two patients with mild Myocarditis or chest pain, a known side effect of the COVID jabs. He went on to say that both men were in good health and were in the hospital for fewer than five days.