Like COVID-19 Accelerating vaccinations in the United States, a hospital in hard-hit California says staff have achieved herd immunity. In December, when the pandemic in the state was at its peak, UC Davis Medical Center had 231 employees because of COVID-19.
On Wednesday that number was only 10.
So far, more than 56 million doses of vaccine have been administered in the US, although the nation is still a long way from the herd immunity that scientists say the country should be safe. At UC Davis, however, more than 90% of the workforce has gotten at least their first chance – and hit that threshold.
Chasity Whitmer, a UC Davis nurse, gave birth at the height of the pandemic. When the time came to get vaccinated, she told CBS News’ David Begnaud that she was hesitant.
“If I got the vaccine, would I get COVID? What would my side effects be? How long would it take? Whitmer wondered.
But with a husband who stays at home and takes care of the kids, Whitmer told CBS News what changed her mind.
“I was orienting a nurse in my ward and we had some sort of discussion,” she said. “What happens if we get COVID? We wouldn’t be able to work. We wouldn’t have an income, we wouldn’t have health insurance.
She and more than 90% of the staff at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento received at least one dose of the vaccine.
That number is 100% among the hospital’s emergency doctors, said Dr. Nate Kuppermann, director of the emergency department.
Kuppermann said vaccinating the majority of workers has changed his ability to man the emergency room and felt like “this pressure was being taken off our shoulders.”
“So before the vaccine came out, on any given day, we would have between 100 and 150 workers who were sick with COVID and called in sick and didn’t come in,” he said. And now I think it’s some numbers. I mean, there are less than ten. ”
It’s not just the UC Davis health system – within the University of California Health System, the number of cases among health professionals dropped from 431 per week to 171 per week. Because there is less absenteeism, the pressure on health workers has also decreased.
Anne Tompkins, director of interim Health Services employee, said the UC Davis data and people’s stories “are proof that the vaccine really works.”
“It’ll be fine,” she said.
As for Whitmer, the nurse has gone from a vaccine skeptic to an evangelizer – a few days after receiving her second dose, Whitmer’s husband, mother, three children, and grandmother all tested positive for COVID-19. Only she and her grandfather are not – and are the only two in the family who have been vaccinated.
“My husband was extremely ill with COVID pneumonia, was here in the emergency department for nine hours. My grandmother spent 25 days in the hospital with COVID pneumonia and is still recovering from oxygen,” Whitmer said. ‘It’s not nice to see your relatives sick. It is very scary to be a nurse, to see them getting sicker and sicker and whether to go to hospital or stay at home. ‘
Whitmer said the reliving made her emotional because she didn’t know if her husband “ would be one of those who would live or die.
A member of the CBS News team recording video at UC Davis said this was the quietest, quietest hospital he has visited in months.
And while the staff there are confident that they are all protected by the vaccine, they still mandate masks and social distancing at all times.