An Alabama physician is urging the public to get vaccinated before it’s too late.
Dr. Brytney Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, made her case via Facebook on Sunday, detailing some of the interactions she had with those dying from COVID-19. Cobia said there have been multiple instances in which one of her patients had begged for the vaccine while fighting for their lives in the hospital; however, she’s been forced to deny the request in some of these cases, as it was simply too late to be effective.
“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” the doctor wrote. “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. A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same. They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political ...”
According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 49 precent of Americans ages 12 and over are fully vaccinated. Alabama has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, as only 33.7 percent of adults within the state are fully vaccinated. The CDC reports that 99 percent of COVID-19 deaths over the past few months were among individuals who had not received the available shots.
“There is a clear message that is coming through: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, said during a White House press briefing last week. “Our biggest concern is we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and sadly deaths among the unvaccinated.”
