Mendocino County doctors beg local residents to get COVID-19 shots in ‘dire situation’

Mendocino County physicians and medical workers Monday issued an alarming public letter urging residents to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19, because they said infected patients are overwhelming local hospitals, filling emergency rooms and intensive-care units in a “dire situation.”

Dr. Andrew Coren, the county’s health officer, said that while he did not sign the letter published online on the open Medium platform, he supported its goal of encouraging more people to get inoculated. Roughly 64% of eligible residents in the county are fully vaccinated.

The 66 health care professionals, noted they are vaccinated and said the “data and the science are clear: the vaccine is safe and highly effective in preventing severe COVID-19 illness and COVID-related deaths.”

The letter came just six hours before county health officials reported three more coronavirus-related deaths, bringing to 64 the pandemic’s death toll in the county since March 2020.

The fatalities included an 85-year-old Willits man, a 68-year-old Covelo woman and a 51-year-old Willits woman. All three were unvaccinated, health officials said.

In their letter, the physicians and medical workers described the deadly summer virus surge as “unrelenting” and “difficult to control.” They wrote that the vast majority of patients being hospitalized are unvaccinated and that hospitals are having trouble making space for nonpandemic patients.

“Our emergency departments are overflowing. Our hospitals are full. Our ICUs are full,” they wrote. “We struggle to find hospital beds even for the patients who are coming to the emergency department with strokes, heart attacks, or appendicitis.”

Adventist Health, which operates Mendocino Coast, Howard Memorial and Ukiah Valley hospitals, could not be reached for comment Monday.

As of Sunday, there were 34 COVID-19 patients in Mendocino County hospitals, 10 of them in intensive care, according to the state’s website tracking coronavirus hospitalizations. There are only three ICU beds available countywide, according to the website.

The county averages nearly a startling 46 new daily virus infections per 100,000 residents, according to the county’s public health data. The county has logged 5,689 confirmed cases since the pandemic started.

In their letter, the health care providers said hospitals are struggling to transfer patients to other Northern California medical centers. Medical staff, the letter said, “have become used to hearing the phrase ‘There are no hospital beds in all of Northern California.’ We repeat this sentence to our patients, to their worried family members.

“Never before have we seen such a surge of sick, young patients with COVID-19, and never before has our medical system faced such a challenge,” according to the letter. “We can all do our part in this dire situation by getting vaccinated.”

The Mendocino County physicians, in their letter, addressed vaccine hesitancy and resistance. “Rumors and misinformation are circulating about the vaccine,” they wrote. “Please talk with us, or your primary care provider, about the COVID-19 vaccine.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.