Dying COVID-19 Patients Beg Doctor For Vaccine: 'It's Too Late'

A doctor in Alabama urged Americans to get vaccinated, revealing that some COVID-19 patients begged the doctors to give them a shot of the coronavirus vaccine as they struggled to stay alive.

Dr. Brytney Cobia took to Facebook on Sunday to call for vaccine skeptics to get vaccinated as COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the United States. In her post, she detailed her firsthand accounts of treating coronavirus patients who were in critical condition.

“I'm admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they're intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I'm sorry, but it's too late. A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,” she wrote.

The post, which has been shared more than 7,500 times, also detailed the interactions she has had with people who lost their families to COVID-19.

“They cry. And they tell me they didn't know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought it was 'just the flu',” she continued.

Only 38% of Alabama’s population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, making it the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the country. As of Tuesday, only 31% have been fully vaccinated, as reported by NBC News. Only 56% of the U.S. population have received at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, with only 48% fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Coronavirus cases are also rapidly surging across several states in the South, including Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennesee. Health experts attribute the increase in new cases to the more contagious Delta variant, which is at least 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, and vaccine hesitancy.

More than 97% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 and 99.5% of coronavirus-related deaths involve unvaccinated people.

"This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, according to The New York Times. “Do it for yourself, your family and for your community. And please do it to protect your young children who right now can’t get vaccinated themselves.”