As U.S. health workers begin queuing for their first coronavirus vaccines on Dec. 14, Esmeralda Campos-Loredo has already fought for oxygen.
The 49-year-old nursing assistant and mother of two had breathing problems just days ago. When the first of her co-workers received shots, she was shaking in a tent in the parking lot of a Los Angeles hospital because there were no medical beds available. When she gasped for air, she had to wait all day for relief because there was a critical shortage of oxygen tanks.
Campos-Laredo passed away on December 18 at Covid-19. saved their lives.
“I told her to stay in there because they were releasing the vaccine,” her daughter Joana Campos said. “But it was just a little too late.”
In California, which became the center of the national coronavirus boom after Thanksgiving, 40% of all deaths occurred in health care facilities after the vaccine was distributed among medical staff.
Bar chart indicating the reported deaths of health workers in California.
An analysis by the Guardian / KHN database Lost on the Frontline indicates that at least one in eight health workers lost in the pandemic died after the vaccine became available. Unlike California, many states do not require thorough reporting on the deaths of nurses, physicians, first responders, and other medical personnel. The analysis did not include federally reported deaths where the name was not released, and there may be a number of recent deaths that have not yet been detected by the Guardian / KHN.
The vaccine is now widely available to health workers across the country and since mid-January, Covid-19 cases have been declining in the US.
Sasha Cuttler, a nurse in San Francisco, collected health care data for one of California’s nursing unions. Cuttler was concerned and discouraged to see that the number of deaths was still increasing weeks after the vaccination became widely available. “We can prevent it. We just need the means to do that, ”Cuttler said. He noted that some years after the pandemic, some hospitals still did not have adequate protective equipment and staff. “We do not want to be heroes and martyrs in healthcare. We want a safe workplace. ‘
Barbara Clayborne, a nurse in Stockton, became ill the week her colleagues began receiving their first doses of the vaccine.
A union activist who has worked at St Joseph’s Medical Center for 22 years picked up Clayborne last summer to ask for more help for the beleagured nurses treating Covid-19 patients.
Although she worked at a relatively low-risk postpartum ward, she pleaded for her colleagues in the intensive care unit, many of whom were overwhelmed by the number of patients for whom they were responsible.
“We know what it’s like to work a full 12-hour shift and not be able to drink water or sit down or go to the bathroom,” Clayborne told the Stockton Record in August. “It was chaos.”
Mid-December, Clayborne, who had asthma, was exposed to a patient who had not yet been diagnosed with Covid-19, her daughter Ariel Bryant said. She passed away on January 8th.
“She was the best mother and grandmother – and she was a great role model for me,” said Bryant, who became a nurse herself. Bryant works in an intensive care unit in Southern California – as the same kind of nurse who fought so hard to protect her mother.
If the vaccine had come just a few days earlier, it could have saved Tennessee Fire Chief Ronald “Ronnie” Spitzer and Timothy Phillips, from his department.
Spitzer and his crew from the Rocky Top Fire Department were called to a medical emergency on Dec. 11, but only later was the patient tested positive for Covid-19. Spitzer, 65, and the firefighter who accompanied him came down with the virus. A few days later, Phillips also became ill.
According to Police Chief Jim Shetterly, Spitzer, a 47-year veteran, had already been admitted to the hospital when his associates received their first doses of vaccination. Spitzer died on January 13 and Phillips, 54, died a few days later.
Tennessee does not publish statistics on deaths in health care works, but 10 of 22 deaths in health care works in Tennessee identified by the Guardian / KHN have occurred since vaccination in December.
Shetterly said his city of 1,800 was devastated by the losses. “Everyone knows everyone here. It is tragic when it hits the country. But if it is in your city, it really hits, ”he said.
Gerard Brogan, director of nursing practice at National Nurses United, said many hospitals have not done enough planning to be ready for the recent training, which puts exhausted health workers at extra risk.
“When there are more patients in, there is more chaos in the hospitals, and it is harder for workers to be safe,” he said. During the recent boom, ‘nurses broke down due to the influx of patients and the emotional and physical toll that workers demanded’.
Even after all health workers have been vaccinated, health care administrators will have to watch over the safety of employees.
He said preparations for recovery, extra safety equipment, staffing plans and facilities such as rooms with negative pressure to prevent the spread of disease in hospitals should be a regular part of the preparation for future pandemics.
KHN reporters Shoshana Dubnow and Christina Jewett contributed to this report