The pandemic is affecting the economy in Jackson

JACKSON, TN (WNBJ)-

The covid-19 pandemic’s new omicron variant has affected much more than just the health of people. Businesses are experiencing staffing and supply issues as a side effect of the pandemic.”

“Staffing has been an issue for the last couple of years, regardless of covid, so it's something that we are constantly looking at on a daily basis,” said West Tennessee Healthcare's Amy Garner.

Garner says the Covid-19 pandemic has created an even great staffing problem at West Tennessee healthcare

Garner said that the already-stretched staff have been hit with another blow,

“We have had several employees that have tested positive recently with covid.”

One thing that has helped the hospital is a new CDC recommendation for how long covid positive patients should quarantine.

The isolation time period has been reduced from 10 days to 5 days, followed by another 5 days wearing a mask.

Garner said this will help them with their staffing issue, “It definitely helps us get them back to work faster.”

One restaurant in Jackson has experienced a different issue due to the ongoing pandemic.

“We’ve done good on staffing, we are still probably a little short compared to what we’d like to be, but we haven’t had near the staffing issue of other businesses that they’ve had through the pandemic. The supply chain has become a bigger issue especially in the last six months,” Brooks Shaw of the Old Country Store said.

Shaw said The Old County Store has had to adjust because they have not been able to receive items in the same quantity,

“We have made some adjustments to the menu, we have raised a few prices on food…so instead of just raising all of our prices across the board like some places have done, we tried to control the increase as much as we could for the sake of the guests.”

Shaw said they have made some changes to their menu and the days that certain items are available.

Over the last two years, challenges like this have become par for the course for Shaw,

"Just another day at the office it kind of just feels like, this is a problem now we’ll tackle it head-on and deal with it as best we can and just go from there.”

Shaw says customers are very understanding during this time.