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TGH seeing more young unvaccinated people in ICU

According to doctors at Tampa General, 90 percent of the patients in the ICU are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

TAMPA, Fla. — Doctors at Tampa General Hospital have been seeing some very sick COVID-19 patients who have been delaying getting medical attention. 

They say what's really concerning is that 90 percent of the patients in intensive care are not vaccinated. TGH’s Director of Inpatient COVID Care says young people mistakenly think the odds are low that they'll get infected.

“You know one in a hundred seems like low odds until it’s you,” Dr. Andrew Myers said.

While many of the initial cases were older adults, many recent cases have been young people.

“We do see patients who come in. We’ve had teenagers. We had a really nice pregnant lady who came in, 19, a couple of weeks ago and you know was almost had to be incubated so (she) came in really, really sick,” Myers said.

Right now, the CDC’s data shows Florida's seven-day moving average is 1,377 cases, so the virus is still circulating. Florida leads the nation in terms of the daily average. 

“Even if it doesn’t affect you, which that’s like rolling the dice, you don’t know if it will affect you or not,  but even if it doesn’t affect you, it affects your peers, it affects your family, it affects your grandparents, it affects people that you work with ‘cause you can still be a vector even if you personally don’t get sick," Myers said.

He adds if you haven't been vaccinated, you need to be masking up and using all those mitigation efforts to stay safe.

According to the Florida Department of Health, this was the breakdown of who has been vaccinated by age group in Florida as of June 17, 2021:

  • Total: 19,119,043  |  56% of population
  • 12-19: 1,972,084  |  26%
  • 20-29: 2,744,987  |  35%
  • 30-39: 2,784,698  |  42%
  • 40-49: 2,669,253  |  52%
  • 50-59: 2,925,172  |  62%
  • 60-64: 1,438,783  |  72%
  • 65+: 4,584,066     |  83%

TGH was one of the first hospitals in Florida to give COVID-19 vaccines.

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