June 23, 2021: Anti-Vaxxers Filling Hospital Beds

 

6/23/21: The Biden administration continues to push the vaccination program forward, but vaccine resisters balk for various reasons. 

Not least of which is ignorance. 

The seven-day average for deaths has declined to 300. The seven-day average for cases has dipped to 11,215. (By comparison, a little more than 100 Americans die every day in car wrecks.) 

So, wear your seat belts – and get a vaccination shot. (Also, don’t text and drive, since 1 in every 4 accidents today is caused by texting while half-paying attention to steering and braking.)

 

We know, of course, that many loyal Trumplicans are committed, convinced, anti-vaxxers and currently just about the only way to end up in a hospital with COVID-19 is to refuse to get a shot for protection. 

“Less than 1% of our hospitalized COVID patients are vaccinated," one infectious disease expert in Minnesota noted recently. At University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, only two in every one hundred patients admitted in the last month have been vaccinated. At Sanford Health, which runs hundreds of clinics in several states the rate “soars” to five in every hundred. 

 “Wyoming, Missouri, Arkansas and Idaho currently have the highest percentage of COVID-19 patients on average in their ICUs,” according to Yahoo News. Those states all have vaccinated less than 40% of their population.

 

At the height of the pandemic, North Shore University Hospital, on Long Island, had 600 coronavirus patients filling every available bed. This week doctors reported that there were only three patients – all unvaccinated – in ICU.

As NBC reports, many doctors have had similar experiences. Dr. Ken Lyn-Kew, at a hospital in Denver, agrees. “None of our ICU patients has been vaccinated,” he tells a reporter.

Dr. Josh Denson, a pulmonary medicine and critical care physician at Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans, is even more emphatic. “I haven't had anyone that’s been fully vaccinated become critically ill.”