AP Photo/Ivan Valencia
Dying covid patients are begging for the vaccine when it is already “too late,” an Alabama doctor said on social media in a post that has gone viral and may be changing minds.
Dr. Brytney Combia of Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham wrote in a Facebook post, “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.”
Only about 34.8 percent of people aged between 18 and 64 years old in Alabama have been fully vaccinated, the lowest in the U.S., despite three types of freely available vaccines.
Covid-19 case numbers and hospitalizations are surging in Alabama and around the U.S. despite about 70-percent overall adult vaccination rates due to the more contagious delta variant and the unvaccinated.
The covid delta variant, with origins traced to India, is spreading fast in the U.S. and could put the brakes on the country’s planned escape route out of the pandemic.
Of all her patients being treated for COVID-19-related illnesses, only one person had been vaccinated, Dr. Combia said. That patient needed oxygen but is expected to fully recover.
However, some of the unvaccinated are dying, which is why she took to Facebook to share her story and encourage anyone who is hesitant to get the vaccine.
Data on race and ethnicity of vaccine recipients in Alabama is very limited, but current figures show white people are getting vaccinated at nearly two times the rate of Black people.
Overall, white people comprise 68 percent of the state’s population and account for nearly 80 percent of all vaccinations. Black people represent 26.6 percent of the population and 17.6 percent have been vaccinated.
Close to 70 percent of the adult population in the U.S. has received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine. But just 9 percent Black people, who represent 13 percent of the total population, have been vaccinated.
