Dr. Brytney Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama, explained on Facebook on July 19 how unvaccinated COVID patients beg her for the vaccine, but she has to explain to the science deniers how it is too late:
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.
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. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was “just the flu.” But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t.
AL.com notes how Alabama is last in the country in vaccinations despite the vaccine being widely available:
Three COVID-19 vaccines have been widely available in Alabama for months now, yet the state is last in the nation in vaccination rate, with only 33.7 percent of the population fully vaccinated. COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations are surging yet again due to the more contagious Delta variant of the virus and Alabama’s low vaccination rate.
(Sources: Brytney Cobia/Facebook, AL.com)