When health workers in the US began lining up for their first coronavirus vaccines on Dec. 14, Esmeralda Campos-Loredo was already fighting for oxygen.
The 49-year-old nursing assistant and mother of two had breathing problems a few days earlier. By the time the first of her colleagues got shots, she was shivering in a tent in the parking lot of a Los Angeles hospital because there were no medical beds available. When she gasped, she had to wait all day for relief as there was a critical shortage of oxygen tanks.
Campos-Laredo died on Dec. 18 of Covid-19, one of at least 400 health workers identified by the Guardian / KHN’s Lost in the frontline investigation who have died since the vaccine became available in mid-December, missing the protection that could have been saved their lives.
“I told her to hang there because they release the vaccine,” said her daughter Joana Campos. “But it was just a little too late.”
In California, which became the center of the national coronavirus outbreak after Thanksgiving, 40% of all deaths from health workers came after the vaccine was provided to medical personnel.
Bar chart showing the reported deaths of California health workers.
An analysis of the Guardian / KHN’s Lost on the Frontline database indicates that at least one in eight health workers lost in the pandemic died after the vaccine became available. Unlike California, many states do not require thorough reporting of the deaths of nurses, doctors, first responders, and other medical personnel. The analysis did not include any federally reported deaths where the name was not released and may be missing numerous recent deaths not yet discovered by the Guardian / KHN.
The vaccine is now widely available to health professionals across the country, and Covid-19 cases have been on a downward trend in the US since mid-January.
Sasha Cuttler, a nurse in San Francisco, collects health data for one of the nursing unions in California. Cuttler was alarmed and discouraged to see that the number of deaths was still rising weeks after the vaccination became widely available. “We can prevent this. We just need the resources to do it, ”said Cuttler, noting that nearly a year after the pandemic, some hospitals still lack adequate protective equipment and staff. “We don’t want to be heroes and martyrs in healthcare. We want a safe workplace. “
Barbara Clayborne, a nurse in Stockton, fell ill the week her colleagues received their first doses of the vaccine.
Clayborne, a union activist who had worked at the St. Joseph Medical Center for 22 years, made a plea last summer to demand more help for the beleaguered nurses treating Covid-19 patients.
Although she worked on what was considered a relatively low-risk postpartum care unit, she advocated for her colleagues in intensive care, many of whom were overwhelmed by the number of patients they were responsible for.
“We know what it’s like to work a full 12-hour shift and not be able to drink water or sit or go to the bathroom,” Clayborne told the Stockton Record in August. “It has been chaos.”
Half December Clayborne, who had asthma, was exposed to a patient who had not yet been diagnosed with Covid-19, her daughter Ariel Bryant said. She died on January 8.
“She was the best mother and grandmother – and she was a great role model to me,” said Bryant, who became a nurse herself. Bryant works in an intensive care unit in Southern California – the same type of nurse her mother fought so hard to protect.
If the vaccine had just arrived a few days earlier, it might have saved Tennessee fire chief Ronald “Ronnie” Spitzer and his department coordinator, Timothy Phillips.
Spitzer and his crew from the Rocky Top Fire Department were called up for a medical emergency on December 11, but were only later told that the patient had tested positive for Covid-19. Spitzer, 65, and the firefighter who accompanied him contracted the virus. A few days later, Phillips also fell ill.
Spitzer, a 47-year-old fire veteran, was already in hospital when his colleagues received their first doses of the vaccine in January, police chief Jim Shetterly said. Spitzer died on January 13, and Phillips, 54, died a few days later.
Tennessee doesn’t publish statistics on health worker deaths, but 10 of the 22 Tennessee health worker deaths identified by the Guardian / KHN have occurred since the vaccine’s introduction in December.
Shetterly said his city of 1,800 residents had been destroyed by the losses. “Everyone knows everyone here. It’s tragic when it hits the nation. But when it’s in your town, it really hits home, ”he said.
Gerard Brogan, director of National Nurses United’s nursing practice, said many hospitals had not put in adequate planning to be ready for the recent spikes, putting exhausted health workers at additional risk.
“When there are more patients, there is more chaos in the hospitals and it is more difficult for employees to be safe,” he said. During the recent wave, “we had nurses who broke down because of the influx of patients and the emotional and physical toll the workers took.”
Even after all health workers are vaccinated, he said, health administrators should remain vigilant about worker safety.
He said preparations for spans, additional safety equipment, contingency staffing plans, and facilities such as negative pressure rooms to prevent disease from spreading in hospitals should be a regular part of preparing for possible future pandemics.
KHN reporters Shoshana Dubnow and Christina Jewett contributed to this report