How California’s unvaccinated COVID patients are making health care worse for everyone

Time is tissue. As surgeons, we live by this fact across a range of diseases and injuries, including heart attack, stroke, diabetes and, in my specialty as a vascular surgeon, limb preservation versus limb loss.

The spike in COVID cases across California, dominated by the unvaccinated, is dramatically degrading the precious time health care providers have to treat the widest range of patients.

Time is not on our side.

Nearly 90% of current COVID hospitalizations are of unvaccinated patients, causing some hospitals to reach 100% bed capacity and even 140% in extreme cases. Doctors, nurses and other health care providers are providing urgent help to the critically ill, but the negative consequences are building. Patients are delaying other important surgical procedures, sometimes indefinitely.

I have colleagues in other states where most if not all non-emergent surgeries have to be canceled. In my career, I have spent a lot of my time in regions of the country where hospital care and surgical options are sparse. We call them “deserts,” and the people in these areas are at incredible risk.

In my own hospital system, the earlier shutdown of non-emergent surgical cases is an aftershock of managing COVID patients that will create a cascade of more medically complex patients who will be sicker when they finally receive treatment.

Overwhelmed by COVID cases and lacking hospital bed capacity, surgeons have had no other option but to postpone or cancel surgeries.

To be clear, it’s the right thing to do given the stress of the pandemic on the health care system. It ensures health care providers dealing with the surge have the resources they need. However, it also creates a secondary health care crisis.

Patients are also delaying routine doctor visits, which often include the kind of exchanges of insights that have been an essential part of treating patients. Screening is a significant part of successful patient outcomes.

This most acutely affects at-risk seniors who might feel most vulnerable to the virus and for whom quality time under expert medical care can make all the difference.

This is both devastating and avoidable. That’s why the time has never been more important for everyone to act with urgency to get vaccinated.

Countless people count on surgeons for our expertise, our precision and our commitment to care. Especially as a vascular surgeon, I have had continuing relationships with patients over years as part of larger teams helping them with their conditions, recovery and long-term care.

Patients’ trust in our ability and judgment is a critical factor, and surgeons across the country all agree: Get vaccinated.

If you are already vaccinated, please encourage your friends and family to get vaccinated. Know that doctors are in your corner, fighting for your health, when you have those conversations.

Let your loved ones know that increased protection against COVID is not the only benefit of vaccination. It also helps ensure that our hospitals restore their capacity to handle the widest range of emergencies, surgeries and patient needs. And it will help us resume the essential pattern of patient visits to doctors for evaluations, screenings, surgical consultations and overall care.

Increasing vaccination rates among Californians now will have a tremendous positive impact on creating the time necessary to have the best possible outcomes for your families — especially the senior citizens who matter to you — and your communities.

My surgical colleagues and I are in agreement that it has never been more pressing to get as many people vaccinated as possible.

This story was originally published October 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How California’s unvaccinated COVID patients are making health care worse for everyone."