Nurse Cassandra Pateneaude treats a patient in the hallway of the Maine Medical Center emergency department. The Portland hospital and its affiliates have been pushed to the brink by a recent surge of COVID-19 patients, most of whom are unvaccinated. Credit: Courtesy of Maine Health

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Our local hospitals have been forced to care for hospitalized patients  in hallways and other unusual places for months now, due to the overwhelming number of COVID-19 infected patients they have been seeing. And it is getting worse, rather than better.  Last week, Northern Light Health (most of northern Maine’s health care providers and hospitals) reported the ratio of unvaccinated to vaccinated hospital admissions due to COVID to be three to one. The ratio for COVID-related ICU admissions and for COVID patients on ventilators was 10 to one, showing clearly how well the vaccines work in keeping people from getting seriously ill from COVID.

Even former President Donald Trump now advocates for everyone to get vaccinated against COVID. At a recent event, both he and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly announced they are fully vaccinated and boosted.

Bob Lodato

Internal medicine physician

Charleston