COVID-19 patients ‘begging’ to be vaccinated, nurse says

• Critical care patients at a Florida hospital are “begging” for immunization, a nurse told CNN.
• Almost all of the patients in the hospital’s intensive care units have yet to receive a vaccine, CNN reported.
• The nurse must often remind patients that the right time to get the vaccine is before they get sick, she said.

Intensive care unit (ICU) patients with COVID-19 at a Florida hospital are “begging” to be vaccinated, a nurse told CNN.

The anonymous nurse, who works at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla., Said patients, the overwhelming majority of whom are unvaccinated, are “bewildered” as to what they can do to stay alive.

“Every day… you get ready to incubate the ICU patient, which means putting them on a ventilator, and they say,“ If I get the vaccine now, can’t I use the ventilator? “” the nurse told CNN’s Randi Kaye.

She said she had to stress repeatedly that the right time to get the COVID-19 vaccine is before they get sick.

“They are desperate because they lack air, they cannot breathe, they are afraid, they feel like they are going to die,” the nurse continued. “They are just asking anything they can do to possibly prevent them from being put on a ventilator because once a patient is on a ventilator it is really hard to wean them.”

Read more: Don’t punish the vaccinated – make it harder to choose not to be vaccinated

Three patients told Randi Kaye they would get the vaccine if they survived their stay in intensive care, CNN reported.

“These are patients who chose not to get the vaccine but now desperately want it,” Kaye said.

The number of COVID-19 patients at Baptist Medical Center is increasing rapidly, according to CNN. There are currently 349 coronavirus patients, and 74 are in intensive care, the outlet reported.

About 44% of hospital patients are under 40 and stay in the hospital much longer because they are sicker, Kaye said.

An overwhelming majority (99.6%) have yet to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, CNN added.

Jacksonville, where the hospital is located, is one of Florida’s coronavirus hotspots, according to the New York Times.

Florida is facing a peak in COVID-19. More than 73,000 new cases have been reported this week, WFLA reported. The state now accounts for nearly a quarter of all new coronavirus cases reported in the United States, Insider’s Charles Davis reported.

The increase in hospitalizations in states like Florida could encourage some Americans to get vaccinated, Insider’s Aria Bendix said.