At a press conference on Monday, Dayton’s frontline healthcare workers urged people to go get vaccinated. They say they’re worried that the increasing number of cases will once again strain the healthcare system.
Lindsey Call is an ICU nurse at Miami Valley Hospital. She says that during the second wave of the pandemic last fall, she and her coworkers were performing CPR on four to five COVID patients every 12 hours.
“We are expecting a third wave, and we’re scared,” Call said.
The Delta variant is ten times more contagious than other kinds of COVID-19.
Jennifer Lutz is an Emergency Department Nurse at Mercy Health Hospital in Urbana. Lutz got COVID last year. She coughed up blood, and was on oxygen for over seven weeks. She says that could have been avoided if a vaccine had been available.
“It makes critical differences in people’s lives," Lutz said. "People don’t want to be as sick as I was.”
Healthcare workers and community leaders also urged people to go get fully vaccinated. They said people who have skipped the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines are still vulnerable to the virus. And they’re starting to show up in Dayton hospitals.