Florida ICU Medical Director Tears Up on CNN About Losing Covid Patients: ‘We’re Tired of Seeing People Die and Suffer Because They Did Not Take a Vaccine’

A Florida ICU Medical Director teared up on Sunday as he described to CNN’s Pamela Brown how hard it was for medical staff to see the devastating effects that Covid-19 was having on their unvaccinated friends, colleagues, and patients.

“We’re frustrated because we’re tired of seeing people die and suffer because they did not take a vaccine,” Dr. Ahmed Elhaddad said. “The vaccine has been available since December 14th. And it’s readily available. Over 350 million doses have been given in the United States. And we’re tired of telling the families that their loved ones are not going to make it.”

“I recently had a patient that’s 37 years old, has two kids, and she was not vaccinated,” he added. “And she had to FaceTime her kids for the last time before she had, you know, a tragic end.”

Brown responded, “That could have been me if I wasn’t vaccinated.”

“I mean, that is the scary thing,” she continued. “And I think that is the important point is that at this point in the pandemic, if you are not vaccinated, you could be that person you just described.”

Elhaddad then emphasized how much of a toll the more contagious Delta variant has taken.

“Well, this variant is eating away at the lungs,” he said. “It’s causing collapse of the lung. It’s causing air to escape and surround the heart and compress the heart. And we’re seeing the patients die faster with this variant.”

“The only thing that we see that is preventing death is a vaccine,” he added.

Cases have risen exponentially in Florida in recent months, and Palm Beach County where Jupiter is located is no exception. According to the New York Times, the county reported 8,608 new cases for the week — up from 3,981 the week of July 23 and 100 cases the week of June 3.

Asked by Brown whether he has sympathy for unvaccinated people sick with Covid-19, Elhaddad said he does but taking the vaccine was “a simple thing they could have done.”

“We do not have a single patient in the ICU that has been vaccinated, and we have not had a single patient that had the vaccine that has died,” he said.

Elhaddad later teared up while discussing the emotional toll of having to tell so many families that their loved one wouldn’t make it, noting that he has lost several friends to the virus himself.

“It’s even harder when it’s your friends,” he said. “I have a patient now that’s the father of one of my son’s classmates. And he’s not expected to make it. He was not vaccinated. And I also have an ICU nurse that just delivered a baby and didn’t take the vaccine because she didn’t know if it was safe or not.”

“And it’s not her fault, it’s not anyone’s fault,” he continued. “We just urge people to take the vaccine because we don’t want to lose anybody else.”

Watch above, via CNN.

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