News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
A consortium of ten Middle Tennessee hospitals joined together Friday to ask local residents to get vaccinated against COVID.
The consortium includes Cookeville Regional, Ascension St Thomas in both White and Dekalb Counties. The open letter, quote begs Middle Tennessee residents to get COVID vaccines. Hospitalizations in Middle Tennessee are escalating at a rate that threatens to overwhelm the healthcare system.
Across the consortium’s health systems, more than 90 percent of people who are hospitalized from COVID are unvaccinated.
According to the letter, hospitals have had many patients in ICUs, with machines keeping them alive, who wished they had gotten the vaccine. However, the group said that at that point it’s just too late.
“They, along with their families, are living with regret. Our caregivers are growing more and more saddened and frustrated that simple steps that could greatly reduce the loss of life are not being embraced.”
Nearly all of those patients could be safely at home with their friends and family right now if they had chosen to get the vaccine.
We are all ready to put the pandemic behind us, but unfortunately, we are unable to move forward. Rather than COVID rates dropping as the vaccine became more readily available, we are moving in the opposite direction.
