As the US grapples with the surging Delta variant, a doctor has told of her heartwrenching deathbed conversations with unvaccinated patients. As the United States grapples with the surging Delta variant of COVID-19, medical experts nationwide are desperately trying to convince hesitant Americans to vaccinate. That includes experts in the national spotlight, such as Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. But doctors at the local level are also speaking out. One of them is Dr. Brytney Cobia. Dr. Cobia works at Grandview Medical Centre in Birmingham, Alabama, with the country’s lowest percentage of fully vaccinated people (33.7 percent).
According to Alabama’s Department of Public Health, 94 percent of the people hospitalized with COVID there since April, and 96 percent of those who’ve died have been unvaccinated. “I’m admitting young, healthy people to the hospital with severe COVID infections,” Dr. Cobia wrote in a heartwrenching Facebook post this week. “One of the last things they do, before they’re intubated, is beg me for the vaccine. “A few days later, when I call the time of death, I hug their family members and tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.
I hold their hand and say I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought they wouldn’t get as sick because they had a certain blood type or skin color. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. “But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me, and they get the vaccine. And I return to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.” Alabama exited its state of emergency on July 6, and its Republican Governor, Kay Ivey, has rescinded most COVID restrictions. “This is now a managed pandemic,” Ms. Ivey said in May when she announced the state of emergency would end. “Alabama is open, and we are moving forward.”
She has urged all Alabamians to get vaccinated. At the national level, while almost half of eligible Americans are fully vaccinated – some 160 million people – about two-thirds of the nation’s counties still have vaccine coverage below 40 percent. And the pace of the vaccine rollout has been slowing steadily for months. In mid-April, the US averaged more than three million vaccinations per day. That figure is now hovering at just over 500,000. The country missed President Joe Biden’s goal of giving at least 70 percent of adults one dose by Independence Day on July 4, beating previous targets.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are rising in all 50 states. Last week, the US averaged 239 deaths per day, an increase of 48 percent over the previous week. “The majority of these deaths could be prevented with a simple, safe, available vaccine,” Dr. Walensky, head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told a congressional hearing on Tuesday. “Areas with the limited vaccine are allowing for the emergence and rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant.”
Dr. Walensky revealed that the Delta variant now accounts for 83 percent of new cases in the US. That’s a “dramatic increase” from the week of July 3, when it was about 50 percent. She said the CDC was engaging “trusted community leaders”, such as doctors and pastors, to reinforce messages about the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. “The overwhelming number of deaths from Covid-19 are now occurring in unvaccinated people. Vaccines are widely available nationwide, and this suffering and loss are entirely preventable.” Those remarks followed a public health briefing on Friday. Dr. Walensky referred to covid in the US as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
“We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have a low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk, and the fully vaccinated communities are generally faring well,” she said. “The good news is that if you’re fully vaccinated, you are protected against severe COVID, hospitalization, and death, and even against known variants, including the Delta variant. “If you are not vaccinated, you remain at risk. And our biggest concern is that we will continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations, and, sadly, deaths among the unvaccinated.”
