PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Nearly 3 years ago, Oregon’s first confirmed COVID-19 patient was a janitor at a Lake Oswego school. Hector Calderon spent 71 days in the hospital and nearly 60 days on a ventilator under the care of many doctors, including Dr. Katie Sharff.

“I was originally just seeing him to deliver a get well card from my son’s 1st-grade classroom, and then got involved in his care a physician, as a medical professional because things weren’t making sense,” she said.

Sharff, the chief infectious disease physician at Kaiser Permanente Northwest, told KOIN 6 News she is proud of the teamwork between hospital systems and public health that she said saved countless lives during the darkest days of the pandemic.

She also believes the discovery and implementation of a COVID-19 vaccine is one of the most important medical achievements of this generation.

President Joe Biden announced he will end the COVID-19 Health Emergency on May 11, more than 3 years after the emergency was first declared during the Trump administration.

Dr. Sharff said there is one thing she worries about as the official emergency winds down.

“The group of individuals I worry the most about are the uninsured and the Biden administration has stated that they’re working on a program to continue to provide free COVID-19 access and care for the uninsured,” she said. “But those are some of our highest risk individuals.”

But the end of the emergency status does not mean the end of COVID. Sharff said it’s a virus that will be with us for years, even decades to come. Researchers are continuously tracking new variants.

“I think for the time being we can be reassured, you know, I can’t say with certainty that there won’t be a variant that arises that that completely evades, you know, our immunity from prior disease or vaccination, but we have yet to see that,” Dr. Sharff said.

The Oregon Health Authority said millions of people around the country are still dealing with long-term COVID. Kaiser Permanente has a clinic dedicated to helping people suffering with long COVID, and those people are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.