“I see healthy young people in hospital with very serious Covid infections. One of the last things they do before they are intubated is begging for the vaccine. I hold their hand and say I’m sorry, but it’s too late.
The report comes from Brytney Cobia, a doctor in the US state of Alabama, who wrote an article on his social media recounting his daily life in the “unvaccinated pandemic” – as the current phase in the United States has been called. United, in which there are enough vaccines for everyone, but many people reject the immunizing agent.
Cobia goes on to say that after the patient dies, she tells her family that the best way to honor the loved one is to get vaccinated and encourage other acquaintances to do the same.
“They cry. And they say they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. They wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and go get the shot. And I go back to the office, notify the death and pray that this loss will save more lives. “
In Alabama, 94% of those admitted and 96% of those killed by Covid are patients who have not been vaccinated, according to data from the association of hospitals and the state health department.
In the United States as a whole, more than 99% of coronavirus deaths are currently unvaccinated, Anthony Fauci, White House health crisis adviser, reported in July. Among those hospitalized, they are 97%, indicated last month Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) of the American government.
Some of those patients even refuse to believe they have Covid-19, even with test results and doctors’ confirmation, an intensive care pulmonologist told The New York Times. But others regret not having taken the vaccine and, once recovered, testify on social networks, television programs or health campaigns to convince other skeptical people.
“If I knew what I know now, I definitely would have been vaccinated,” Joshua Garza, a Texas-resident industry worker, told ABC television. At 43, he had to undergo a rare double lung transplant after his lungs stopped working after a coronavirus infection.
He was admitted in February and in April received a transplant. It took several weeks of convalescence and he is still in rehabilitation. “It would have been much easier to get the vaccine than to go through what he is going through,” his doctor said during the interview.
Garza says he hopes his story inspires others. “When they tell you that your lungs are failing, you fall asleep not knowing whether or not you’ll wake up the next day.”
Another who has gone to the press to testify to the risk of not getting the vaccine is nurse Aaron Hartle, 45, of Utah. Even though he treated critically ill patients with Covid in his clinic – one of them died – he chose not to be vaccinated when it was his turn, in December of the year. last, by joining the group of health professionals.
Besides believing that there was little information about vaccines, he believed he was too healthy to succumb to the virus. In June, however, Hartle ended up in the hospital emergency room and was hospitalized for a week with Covid.
Even after her discharge, the nurse, who was a triathlete before contracting the disease, continues to recover and easily gets tired even when speaking. “It’s okay to have a little doubt and to be a little worried [com a vacina]. Even if you think, like me, that you won’t get very sick, it can happen. [O vírus] exists and can be avoided. It just takes a little courage to face [a vacinação]He told one of the Utah newspapers.
Also opposed to the vaccine, Russell Taylor, 42, explained what made him change his mind. “I was one of those skeptical Americans who didn’t know who to trust,” he says, sitting in a hospital chair, in a video titled “Why I’m getting the vaccine.” “My niece works here. She went home and counted [dos pacientes com a doença]. But the cork doesn’t really fall off because it’s not you. When it’s with you, it’s completely different.
Diagnosed with double pneumonia from Covid, Taylor stops speaking several times to get some air in a device. He says the experience was as close to death as it has ever been and that as soon as he comes out he wants to be vaccinated and his whole family is doing the same. The video is a campaign by the network of hospitals where he has been hospitalized for three weeks.
Some patients, however, do not have this second chance. In Las Vegas, a 39-year-old man with five children texted his partner while he was in his hospital bed. “My God. This is terrible. I should have been vaccinated.
Jessica du Preez delivered the message from her fiancé, Michael Freedy, during an interview with a local TV station. She said the two preferred to wait around a year to monitor the long-term effects of the vaccine.
In an online crowdfunding campaign, in which she asked for help paying the bills so she couldn’t keep the house alone while in hospital, Jessica gave a detailed account of what happened to Mike.
The family took a vacation to San Diego, and when he returned he thought his symptoms were the result of heat stroke. When he began to “feel overwhelmed by the pain in which he was in pain and was so afraid,” unable to breathe or stand, they began a pilgrimage to the hospital emergency room until they discover double pneumonia.
During his stay, Mike was unable to sleep or eat and was transferred to a better equipped hospital. Unable to visit him, Jessica – who passed the Covid test, with a negative result – reports the anguish of texting her and not getting a response. “Nobody gives us good news,” she wrote.
The last time they spoke, she says she begged him to fight for her life. “He said he was fighting and he loves me, I said I love him and I asked please, fight and come home with me.”
After a few days, Jessica added an addendum at the end of the story: “The love of my life, my rock, my everything, the father of my babies is no longer with us. I don’t know what do.”