b'Cone Health provides medical care in an innovative partnership with GuilfordTriad Health Care CEOs Plead with Public as COVID-19 SurgesCounty SchoolsThe CEOs of the Piedmont Triads leading health care systems issued an important message to the public.Extraordinary circumstances called for an extraordinary gathering of the leaders of the Piedmont Triads three major health care systems on Monday, January 10, 2022.The CEOs of Cone Health, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and Novant Health came together for a first-ever virtual joint news conference. The CEOs offered insight into the dire effects of the pandemic locally as the Omicron variant continues to spread rapidly.We want people to know that it is all of your health systems, its all of the hospitals in your area, and its more than the hospitals, said Mary Jo Cagle, MD, CEO, Cone Health. It is the entire safety net structure in your community being affected. And its going to require all of us working together to keep you safe.The leaders pointed to emergency departments overrun with patients and hospital resources stretched to their limits. The solution, the leaders said, is for community members to get their COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, wear masks in public and take other precautions to protect themselves and others. The CEOs also recognized the health care workers who have spent the past two years working on the front lines of the pandemic. They asked the public to do more than just think of them as heroes.There were 83 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Cone Health system on Dec. 10. A month later, the Jan. 10 Midnight Census showed 250 patients hospitalized. Cagle asked the community to heed the groups warnings as researchers expect those numbers to get worse before they get better.We are health care professionals, and ourJanuary 10, 2022entire life has been about serving others and keeping our community members healthy and safe, Cagle said. We are telling you that we are at a point that we need the public to hear us and help us so that we can continue a mission, a mission that we take very seriously.O c t o b e r 1 , 2 0 2 1 t o S e p t e m b e r 3 0 , 2 0 2 2 26'