MIDLAND, Texas — The machines helping people breathe, essentially their lifeline, are an ominous and constant tone throughout Midland Memorial Hospital and Medical Center Hospital.
A majority of the people there for treatment are those who made a decision not to get the COVID vaccine.
Those people now don't have a choice but to let a machine breathe for them. In this wave of the virus, those patients are not old.
“It’s been the second surge that we’ve seen younger people be more impacted by the virus and healthier people that are unvaccinated," Stephen Bowerman, MMH Chief Operating Officer, said. "Fewer issues, fewer boxes checked for other issues they might have...whether its overweight or diabetes we are definitely seeing them be impacted during this round.”
Five COVID patients died over the weekend at Midland Memorial.
Among them, the youngest yet, a 25-year-old.
A 29-year-old with no pre-existing conditions died of COVID at Medical Center last week.
"The sickest are getting younger, and the older are not," Russell Tippin, Medical Center Hospital CEO, said. "I know as the CEO of a hospital that's alarming and I know as a parent that is alarming."
Young and healthy, but that does not seem to matter if you are unvaccinated.
“We’ve had a vaccine available now for 9 months and only 40% of our community has chosen to take something that has proven to be a mitigating strategy to prevent them from being sick and getting hospitalized," Russell Meyers, Midland Health CEO, said.
Right now, Midland Memorial's youngest COVID patient is 19 years old.
Medical Center Hospital's youngest is 13 years old.
So far, only one person has died from the virus who was vaccinated, a woman in her 80s with preexisting conditions.
Data has shown a weaker immune response to the vaccine in that group of people.
The rest of the deaths: all unvaccinated.