“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late,” an Alabama doctor wrote on her Facebook page on Sunday, July 18, 2021, as the Delta variant sweeps through low-vaccination states. (See story here.)
Last week, Americans were dying from Covid-19 at an average rate of 260 people per day. (See story here.) Many of the victims are now young people, who are less likely to be vaccinated, and more likely to unsafely congregate.
The Delta variant is much more transmissible than previous Covid-19 strains, making it so contagious that yesterday a Mayo Clinic expert warned that “every” person who isn’t immune will get infected (see story here); but vaccines are effective against it. In Colorado, where 70% of adults are vaccinated, 96% of new hospitalizations and deaths are unvaccinated people (see story here). The situation is similar across the United States.
As of Wednesday, July 21, 2021, only about half the U.S. population is vaccinated and many people still resist getting the shots like this fool, because they lack common sense and are swayed by the false anti-vaccine propaganda being pushed by Republican politicians, Fox News, and conservative blogs.
The notion that getting vaccinated against a highly contagious and deadly disease could become politically contentious is mind-numbing. But then, a lot about our politics these days is just plain crazy.
Photo: A Covid-19 patient on a ventilator; he probably won’t survive
