Hospitals' COVID-19 Plea To Northeast Ohioans: 'Get Vaccinated'

CLEVELAND — It's a simple yet urgent plea that has grown all too familiar over the past year, "Please, get vaccinated."

Those are the words of the Cleveland Clinic and they're being echoed by hospitals and hospital systems across northern Ohio and the entire Buckeye State. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise. According to the state health department, Ohio is averaging more than 8,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, to go along with 325 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 33 ICU admissions.

The vast majority of badly sickened people — approximately 95 percent, the state health department said — are unvaccinated.

"There are more COVID-19 patients in our hospitals than ever before — the overwhelming majority of which are unvaccinated," University Hospitals said on Friday. Their health care providers are also urging potential future patients to get vaccinated, or to get boosted, to prevent a trip to the intensive care unit.

The Cleveland Clinic's message was even simpler. "We have a plea. Please, get vaccinated. The science is clear. Vaccines save lives."

MetroHealth offered their own take, "We’re experiencing an all-time high number in COVID-19 hospitalizations and test positivity rates since this pandemic began nearly two years ago. This bears repeating and retweeting: Please get vaccinated and boosted, wear masks in public and socially distance."

Why are three of the state's largest hospital systems begging Ohioans to get vaccinated? Because conditions in their hospitals are quickly becoming untenable.

Staffing shortages have become a persistent problem throughout the state. The Cleveland Clinic said many of its staff are working "around-the-clock" to save lives, but that can lead to burn out and exhaustion.

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As of Monday morning, nearly 4,700 Ohioans were hospitalized due to COVID-19, according to the Ohio Hospital Association. That's means one out of every four hospitalized patients in Ohio is COVID-19 positive.

The situation is even more dire in intensive care units, where 1,176 Ohioans are currently being treated for COVID-19. That's one out of every three ICU patients, according to the Ohio Hospital Association.

Both hospital systems and the Ohio Department of Health are worried that the delta variant and omicron variant could drive independent COVID-19 surges that push the state's case load to unseen levels.

"Please get the COVID-19 vaccine or your booster if you haven't already," the Cleveland Clinic urged.