"The Delta variant is really, really nasty. And anyone who thinks that they can just come through this, they're wrong," Karri added.
Dr. Chris Thomas's ICU is full of patients like the Oakes. Some are scared or regretful, like 42-year-old Ronald Banks, who has a three-month-old at home but is now hospitalized with COVID.
"I was laying on my kitchen floor. And I couldn't breathe. I realized I should have got that vaccine," Banks said.
More COVID patients are expected to arrive over the next few days, and almost all of them will probably be unvaccinated. This frustrates health workers who believe they are fighting the pandemic as well as the misinformation being put out there about COVID vaccines.
"We have two pandemics. We have a pandemic of a
Delta virus that's ravaging our community. And we have a pandemic of misinformation. These people are smart, they're making what I think they believe are sound decisions as it relates to the vaccine," said Dr. Thomas, a critical care specialist at Baton Rouge General. "And I'm not frustrated with them anymore. I'm just frustrated that we've got to the point where we allow misinformation to equal medical science. They're not the same. We're losing the battle of misinformation. And it's important to win that battle."
It's a battle Thomas and his colleagues are trying to win by building rapport with patients even as the war against COVID continues with no end in sight.
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