Louisiana medical doctors combat surge in COVID sufferers and misinformation over vaccines: “Now we have two pandemics”
Intensive Care Items in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are in want of extra wards after being full of coronavirus sufferers. As of Tuesday morning, the Baton Rouge Normal Medical Heart had 180 COVID sufferers and greater than 70 of them had been within the intensive care unit. They’re working seven expanded COVID wards, and medical doctors say the hospital might have two extra by the tip of the week.
Karri Oakes and her husband Jeffrey are each within the ICU with COVID-19. The couple has been married for 27 years and has caught COVID-19 twice. They weren’t hospitalized final time, and the couple mentioned they needed to attend to get vaccinated.
“We thought that the truth that we had it final 12 months would give us some extra safety this 12 months,” Jeffrey advised CBS Information’ lead nationwide correspondent David Begnaud.
“The Delta variant is basically, actually nasty. And anybody who thinks that they will simply come by this, they’re improper,” Karri added.
Dr. Chris Thomas’s ICU is filled with sufferers just like the Oakes. Some are scared or regretful, like 42-year-old Ronald Banks, who has a three-month-old at residence however is now hospitalized with COVID.
“I used to be laying on my kitchen flooring. And I could not breathe. I noticed I ought to have gotten that vaccine,” Banks mentioned.
Extra COVID sufferers are anticipated to reach over the following few days, and nearly all of them will in all probability be unvaccinated. This frustrates well being staff who imagine they’re combating the pandemic in addition to the misinformation being put on the market about COVID vaccines.
“Now we have two pandemics. Now we have a pandemic of a Delta virus that is ravaging our neighborhood. And we have now a pandemic of misinformation. These persons are good, they’re making what I believe they imagine are sound choices because it pertains to the vaccine,” mentioned Dr. Thomas, a important care specialist at Baton Rouge Normal. “And I am not annoyed with them anymore. I am simply annoyed that we have to the purpose the place we permit misinformation to equal medical science. They are not the identical. We’re shedding the battle of misinformation. And it is essential to win that battle.”
It is a battle Thomas and his colleagues are attempting to win by constructing rapport with sufferers even because the battle towards COVID continues with no sign of ending.
“We took an oath. We mentioned we had been going to assist individuals. They should get residence. So that you come right here on daily basis to get them to their houses as a lot as doable,” Thomas mentioned.
Throughout Louisiana, the variety of hospitalized COVID sufferers is now at an all-time excessive. Thomas advised Begnaud he is personally struggling extra with this surge, not simply because the Delta variant is so difficult but in addition as a result of he is seeing youthful sufferers.
