This archive report was first published on 17 July 2021.
As of May 26, Arkansas was one of the states with the lowest vaccination rates in the US. The consequences of this are stark, with young, pregnant coronavirus patients increasingly ending up in intensive care.
Dr. Mette, a healthcare professional, has witnessed this firsthand. 'It’s really discouraging to see younger, sicker patients,' she said. 'We didn’t see this degree of illness earlier in the epidemic.'
At the hospital, four or five young, pregnant coronavirus patients were recently treated with ECMO, a machine that routes blood from the body and into equipment that adds oxygen, then pumps it back into the patient. This is considered a last resort after ventilators fail.
One such patient was Ashton Reed, 25, a coordinator in a county prosecutor’s office. She was about 30 weeks pregnant when she arrived at the hospital critically ill. To save her life, doctors delivered her baby girl by emergency cesarean section, then hooked her up to the ECMO machine.
Her husband later urged vaccination in a public service announcement, saying that she went from sinus trouble to life support in 10 days. 'I almost died,' she said. 'My thoughts have definitely changed on the vaccine.'
As a result of the surge in cases, the hospital had to reopen a coronavirus ward it had closed in late spring. On Monday, it reopened a second.
Many of the nurses there wore colorful stickers announcing they were vaccinated. However, some, like Ashley Ayers, 26, a traveling nurse from Dallas, did not. She worried that the shot might impair her fertility, despite there being no evidence of this.
David Deutscher, 49, one of her patients for nearly a week, is no longer a holdout. A heating and air conditioning specialist and Air Force veteran, he said he fought Covid for 10 days at home before he went to the hospital with a 105-degree fever.
