There are just too many covid patients and not enough care to go around.
Hospitals across the state are reporting numbers that are pushing them to the edge. UPMC facilities are reporting that they are at or over capacity. Allegheny Health Network is similarly taxed. Excela is shifting or canceling nonemergency surgeries.
It isn’t only Southwestern Pennsylvania. An Associated Press report has Geisinger hospitals running at 110% capacity, with ER doctors making rounds in waiting rooms and covid patients on oxygen in the hallways.
This isn’t because there is no vaccine. It’s been a year since the first and second vaccines were released. It’s been four months since Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot received full approval. The number of people who could get the shot slowly was expanded in phases. Teenagers were given the OK. Now kids as young as 5 can be vaccinated.
And yet UPMC spokeswoman Susan Manko says 75% of covid patients are unvaccinated.
In December 2020, we took the unusual step of printing our editorial on the front page. We encouraged people to step up and get the shot for all of the important reasons. For loved ones and neighbors and the economy.
A year later, too many people haven’t done so. A year later, there is one more point to underscore.
Do it for yourself.
People don’t always know when they will end up in a hospital. There are car crashes and people who fall off a ladder while hanging Christmas lights. Kids get hurt playing hockey. Even if there wasn’t a pandemic, it still is flu season. And let’s not forget that babies often refuse to be scheduled.
Hospitals are something we all depend on being there when we need them. There is no substitute for a hospital bed when you break your leg. Urgent care can’t handle an appendectomy.
Vaccination helps make sure those beds stay free for the unexpected.
So if you don’t want to get the shot to help the economy recover or to help schools make plans without having to consider quarantine and testing, think of your own needs.
Get the shot so that if you need a hospital bed, there is a bed there for you. Because right now, that might not be the case.
