GREGG COUNTY, Texas — Local Gregg County leaders are trying to make sure their community is aware coronavirus is getting out of hand in the county.
From local hospitals to the county judge, they met at Maude-Cobb Convention Center to stress the importance of the vaccine.
"There are no beds available in our hospital. This is going to get worse before it gets better," CHRISTUS Good Shepherd CEO Todd Hancock said. "You can help in a way that that you might not have ever thought you could help by being vaccinated."
At Longview Regional Medical, 30 days ago they had eight in-house patients. Since there's been a nearly 600% increase in those same patients.
"In the last three months working in the ICU, I've taken care of one vaccinated patient," Dr. Glenn Genovese of Longview Regional Medical said.
Gregg County is vaccinated at just under 40% among those eligible. Significantly lower than the state average of 53%.
"The reason for the sounding of the alarm is the fact that both of our hospitals are starting to fill up with COVID-19 patients and the bottom line is almost 100% of them have not had the vaccine," Gregg County Judge Bill Stoudt said.
Emergency Physician Dr. John Dipasquale said there is significant strain being put on staff at CHRISTUS Good Shepherd. He added it will likely be just days that the situation becomes critical.
We're seeing a significant influx of COVID-19 patients, and it's a different demographic than we saw with our first two waves. It appears that this is a much younger population. This is a very aggressive bug and patients are becoming very sick.