Michigan doctor doesn’t want ‘I told you so’ behavior as COVID hits the unvaccinated



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With unvaccinated patients accounting for nearly all recent COVID-19-related hospitalizations across the country, a Michigan doctor said the conversation about vaccines had become increasingly difficult to have in his intensive care unit.

“It’s a very delicate conversation to have. When someone is very sick, you definitely don’t want to have this ‘I told you so’ behavior,” said Dr Justin Skrzynski News week. “But it’s a conversation that almost always comes up.”

“I find people overall, they’re telling a story that exonerates them in terms of, you know, they had other things going on or they’re waiting for some kind of condition to happen,” he said. he declares. “It is very difficult for someone who is seriously ill with COVID to look back and say okay, this is definitely better than any theoretical or imagined risk the vaccine would have had.”

In an interview on Monday, Skrzynski, who has led the COVID-19 unit at Beaumont Health’s flagship hospital in Royal Oak since the start of the pandemic, said he never wanted to sound patronizing about vaccines, but that most of his patients often leave the hospital wishing they had received the vaccine before their infections.

“To be honest I would say the majority of people who get sick, and again not all of them get vaccinated, we see most of them regret it,” he said.

In Michigan, 97% of COVID-related hospitalizations are unvaccinated people and 99.5% of COVID-related deaths are unvaccinated individuals, a trend observed across states.

The rapid spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant has led to a new wave of hospitalizations for coronavirus, especially in states with low vaccination rates.

Justin Skrzynski Beaumont Health Michigan
As of Monday, 66.5% of Americans aged 12 and older had received at least one dose of the vaccine. Dr Justin Skrzynski of Beaumont Health.
Beaumont Health

Skrzynski warned that if Michigan had fallback measures to help prevent the spread of the virus during its spring surge, states now experiencing a peak may have even fewer ways to mitigate a strain that is more difficult to contain.

“The most immediately effective measures will remain masking and distancing,” he said. “Unfortunately, these are measures that a lot of people, at this point, are unwilling to go back.”

“If you really want to put out the fire, so to speak, the way to do it is to go back to mass distancing en masse,” he said.

While Michigan doesn’t see a peak in COVID as extreme as places like Arkansas or Florida, Skrzynski said hospital workers across the United States are bracing for the worst this fall.

“The entire medical community here, as a whole, is preparing for the next few months,” he said.

“With the uncertainty of the fall, there is a tremendous amount of attrition all over the healthcare system, including my hospital,” Skrzynski added. “For those who are left, who are still ready and able to fight this thing, the thought of going back to a situation – like in Michigan, our downfall push was awful – to think of going back to a situation like this- there a lot of people don’t have the energy for that. “

The COVID hospitalist urges people to get vaccinated, even those who have already contracted the virus, noting that a COVID hospitalization does not rule out future intensive care admissions.

“It’s not a zero percent chance of reinfection,” Skrzynski said. “We absolutely recommend continuing to get vaccinated after infection. It is much more comprehensive coverage. It is much more durable coverage and, as we understand, long lasting.”

Michigan Hospital Delta Surge COVID unvaccinated vaccine
“It is very difficult for someone who is seriously ill with COVID to look back and say well, this is definitely better than any theoretical or imagined risk the vaccine would have had,” Dr Skrzynski told Newsweek at About unvaccinated COVID patients. A volunteer pharmacist prepares doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a pop-up clinic in Detroit, Michigan, April 12.
Matthew Hatcher / Stringer

“The problem is, COVID is in people,” he said News week. “If you have all these unvaccinated people who are perpetuating this reservoir of COVID, then at any time you can seed vulnerable communities where people are not vaccinated, where you have people who are, say, transplant patients who cannot. not form an appropriate immune response. “

As of Monday, 66.5% of Americans aged 12 and older had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

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