Time for vaccine requirements, tests for football games

[AU9377 4,971]

13 minutes ago, SLAG-91 said:

Yeah, this was one of those "You serious, Clark?" moments for me...I mean, viruses are damned good at adapting to their environment, but they aren't quite sentient.

I just don't see the two as comparable when it comes to control measures.    I would have no problem with people needing to be vaccinated in order to attend games this fall.  Will it be perfect?  No, but the fact that it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it isn't a good idea.  After all, students are required to be vaccinated, unless they have a exemption.  That has been the case for decades.  If it convinces some unvaccinated to go get their vaccinations, it will have been worthwhile.

[AU9377 4,971]

19 hours ago, abw0004 said:

My guess is it will most likely be an app showing you have been vaccinated or not like a few states are doing.  Season tickets have already gone out so fans will be in the stadium.  Last year they called it before tickets went out.  Either way, I am excited to be back in the stadium.

This does belong in the politics section however.

Yes, even though this should be the least political discussion people have.  Unfortunately, like most things, right wing media and the politicians they groom use this issue to harden their base and make controversial things that should be anything but.

[W.E.D 11,070]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

I'm not trying to get into a back and forth, but this is inaccurate. The difference lies in the viral load. Those that are vaccinated will reach a transferable level more slowly, but also may be asymptomatic and not know they are an incubator. The main thing that the vaccine does is provide a reduction of deaths and hospitalization for the more susceptible 

Sent this post to a PhD virologist with the CDC and he just said interesting.  Laughed hard at the idea the the vaccine doesn't limit spread

Surprisingly enough, similarly said don't have discussions with people I'll equipped to discuss this matter. So I guess no need for a back and forth. 

Edited August 14, 2021 by W.E.D

[SLAG-91 1,483]

18 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

I just don't see the two as comparable when it comes to control measures.    I would have no problem with people needing to be vaccinated in order to attend games this fall.  Will it be perfect?  No, but the fact that it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it isn't a good idea.  After all, students are required to be vaccinated, unless they have a exemption.  That has been the case for decades.  If it convinces some unvaccinated to go get their vaccinations, it will have been worthwhile.

I was referring more to the inconsistency of thought with the perceived risk of spread at the time of the article (June 2020) with people in large gatherings. If you've got a lot of people in a small space, the virus doesn't know the reason for the gathering.

[bigbird 60,567]

24 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Sent this post to a PhD virologist with the CDC and he just said interesting.  Laughed hard at the idea the the vaccine doesn't limit spread

Surprisingly enough, similarly said don't have discussions with people I'll equipped to discuss this matter. So I guess no need for a back and forth. 

What are your degrees in? Don't wade into water you have to ask help in.

 

It does slow the virus in that it takes longer to build the necessary viral load. Not because people are no longer able to spread it. Also while the viral load is increasing, most are asymptomatic not knowing that they will need spreading it.

[W.E.D 11,070]

1 minute ago, bigbird said:

What are your degrees in? Don't wade into water you have to ask help in.

I'm educated enough to understand vaccines reduce spread.

Im guessing his education Trump's yours, so that's enough for me. I'm not stubborn enough to listen to experts

Edited August 14, 2021 by W.E.D

[bigbird 60,567]

7 hours ago, W.E.D said:

I'm educated enough to understand vaccines reduce spread.

Im guessing his education Trump's yours, so that's enough for me. I'm not stubborn enough to listen to experts

So you admit you have no expertise and rely on others to tell you what to do. Got it.

 

I'll take my multiple immunology, virology, microbiology, cell and molecular biology courses and degrees to guide me. 

Don't reply, your have proven your depth in this matter.

[W.E.D 11,070]

8 minutes ago, bigbird said:

So you admit you have no expertise and rely on others to tell you what to do. Got it.

 

I'll take my immunology, virology, cell and molecular biology courses and degrees to guide me. 

Don't reply, your have proven your depth in this matter.

Might want to freshen up on those courses. As a fellow biology major, it doesn't sound like you learned well. 

Vaccines limit the spread, period. Your idea that they don't is pretty damning on your degrees. 

Arguing against that point, which was all I stated in this thread is bad. 

 

I'm well aware people are more educated than me. Might as well ask Public health professionals and a MD

Edited August 14, 2021 by W.E.D

[aubiefifty 16,811]

4 minutes ago, bigbird said:

So you admit you have no expertise and rely on others to tell you what to do. Got it.

 

I'll take my immunology, virology, cell and molecular biology courses and degrees to guide me. 

Don't reply, your have proven your depth in this matter.

he just goes on and on bird. pages of him back and forth with  people asking to take it elsewhere. then you get a smart ass reply. the thing with arguments you are seldom going to change anyones mind so it makes me wonder if that is the true intent here.

[bigbird 60,567]

2 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Might want to freshen up on those courses. As a fellow biology major, it doesn't sound like you learned well. 

Vaccines limit the spread, period. Your idea that they don't is pretty damning on your degrees. 

Arguing against that point, which was all I stated in this thread is bad

Comprehension hard...

 

I never said it didn't limit it. In fact, I said it did slow the rate. Try harder 

 

 

Here, try again...

It does slow the virus in that it takes longer to build the necessary viral load. Not because people are no longer able to spread it. Also while the viral load is increasing, most are asymptomatic not knowing that they will need spreading it.

[W.E.D 11,070]

Just now, bigbird said:

Comprehension hard...

Maybe read my post better. 

Arguing against my comment that being around 40k unvaccinated ppl is more of a risk than being around 40k vaccinated ppl is more risk for the former makes no sense. 

90%+ of the delta infections are from unvaccinated people. Being around 40k of either category... I'm going to be much safer full of 40k vaccinated folks. 

Thaty originally cment which you took exception to. 

Yes, a vaccinated person can spread Covid. Yes, they can contract it. 

[AU9377 4,971]

The vaccine provides multiple benefits, the most important of which is the reduction in serious illness and death.

[Eagle-1 3,821]

Here's an opinion from a different PHD, but she doesn't agree with the increasing popular narrative, so I guess she's a heretic right?

 

[bigbird 60,567]

51 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Maybe read my post better. 

Arguing against my comment that being around 40k unvaccinated ppl is more of a risk than being around 40k vaccinated ppl is more risk for the former makes no sense. 

90%+ of the delta infections are from unvaccinated people. Being around 40k of either category... I'm going to be much safer full of 40k vaccinated folks. 

Thaty originally cment which you took exception to. 

Yes, a vaccinated person can spread Covid. Yes, they can contract it. 

As if that's what I was saying.. like I said, comprehension hard

[AU9377 4,971]

4 hours ago, Eagle-1 said:

Here's an opinion from a different PHD, but she doesn't agree with the increasing popular narrative, so I guess she's a heretic right?

 

If that is even real, she completely blew her credibility when she pushed hydroxychloroquine.  Several clinical trials have been conducted, with at least three of them being halted due to the prevalence of adverse conditions brought on by its use.  They all admit that there could be some modest benefit from the treatment, but that it was so insignificant as to not warrant the risk to the patient, particularly due to increased heart rates and other cardio concerns.  Beyond any debate concerning the drug, no M.D. can make the case that it is currently the best option, given the advent of other forms of therapy, specifically the use of mononeuclonal antibodies.

As for her replication claim, she is talking about Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), which is when the antibodies generated during an immune response recognize and bind to a pathogen, but they are unable to prevent infection.  There is evidence that this is not happening.  In fact, the vaccines were developed with preventing that in mind.   If that was happening, we would see the highest rates of transmission and hospitalization in the most vaccinated parts of the country.  To the contrary, what we are seeing is a vast increase in the least vaccinated areas of the country and modest increases in more vaccinated areas.

[Eagle-1 3,821]

34 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

If that is even real, she completely blew her credibility when she pushed hydroxychloroquine.  Several clinical trials have been conducted, with at least three of them being halted due to the prevalence of adverse conditions brought on by its use.  They all admit that there could be some modest benefit from the treatment, but that it was so insignificant as to not warrant the risk to the patient, particularly due to increased heart rates and other cardio concerns.  Beyond any debate concerning the drug, no M.D. can make the case that it is currently the best option, given the advent of other forms of therapy, specifically the use of mononeuclonal antibodies.

As for her replication claim, she is talking about Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), which is when the antibodies generated during an immune response recognize and bind to a pathogen, but they are unable to prevent infection.  There is evidence that this is not happening.  In fact, the vaccines were developed with preventing that in mind.   If that was happening, we would see the highest rates of transmission and hospitalization in the most vaccinated parts of the country.  To the contrary, what we are seeing is a vast increase in the least vaccinated areas of the country and modest increases in more vaccinated areas.

I don't believe the claim that it's more rampant among the least vaccinated part of the country. I have a friend who works in healthcare who told me she is seeing just as many infections among the vaxxed, or unvaxxed.

You do what you want buddy, but leave me out of it. 

Just a little reminder to you that three of the four of the manufacturers, of the ( vaccine) you have so much confidence in, have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in the past 30 odd years from lawsuits they have lost because prior medicines they have brought to market have killed thousands. 

There's something you can have fun researching.

You want to argue about the stupid masks next?

Edited August 14, 2021 by Eagle-1

[homersapien 11,388]

On 8/13/2021 at 2:39 PM, C'viewTiger said:

I have a friend here in NW FL who’s a nurse. She is saying that 80% of the those currently hospitalized are fully vaccinated.  

That's known as "anecdotal evidence", which is pretty much worthless. I don't believe it for a second.

 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/vast-majority-icu-patients-covid-19-unvaccinated-abc/story?id=79128401

Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC News survey finds

Hospitals report few fully vaccinated people are sick with COVID-19 in the ICU.

With the country in the midst of a new nationwide resurgence of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, misinformation about the effectiveness of the vaccines has been proliferating on social media, with increased attention falling on the rare number of vaccinated people ending up in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, according to dozens of hospitals across the nation surveyed by ABC News, very few fully vaccinated people are actually ending up severely ill and in the ICU with COVID-19.

And experts say that those that do, tend to be frail or have conditions that interfere with the vaccine's effectiveness at producing protection.

ABC News contacted 50 hospitals in 17 states, and asked them to share data on their ICU wards' current COVID-19 patients, including their vaccination status. In the surveyed hospitals, ABC News found that the overwhelming majority of COVID-19 patients currently being treated in ICUs were unvaccinated.

Of the 271 total COVID patients in the surveyed ICUs, 255 patients, or approximately 94%, were unvaccinated against COVID-19 in ABC News' snapshot in time.

Further, of the 16 vaccinated individuals receiving care in the ICU, almost all suffered from comorbidities and other health problems, such as cancer or weakened immune systems. ABC News only heard of one otherwise healthy and fully vaccinated individual, with no reported underlying conditions, who was in the ICU.

According to the CDC, "vaccine breakthrough cases are expected," and, as a result, "there will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from COVID-19." But data about ICU patients' vaccination status is not regularly reported or readily available on the federal or state level.

"The current surge of COVID-19 is driven by those who have elected not to be immunized. We will continue to see the lopsided impact of COVID among the unvaccinated, as they represent the vast majority of severe illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths," said ABC News contributor Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital.

The hospital sampling also appears to be reflective of a national trend. According to the White House COVID-19 Task Force, severe breakthrough infections remain uncommon, and nearly all of the patients who are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 -- 97% -- are unvaccinated.

Dr. Lew Kaplan, past president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, said that the ABC News survey data "provides crystal clear guidance regarding the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant -- that vaccines work."

Furthermore, said Kaplan, the very fact that "the overwhelming majority of hospitalized critically ill patients with this viral variant are unvaccinated, should drive our nation to relentlessly pursue vaccination of every eligible individual."

"It is our duty and our privilege to save lives," Kaplan said. "The COVID-19 vaccine is staggeringly effective in helping us keep people at home and alive."

Front-line workers support the numbers

ABC News' findings are also supported by local data. In Springfield, Missouri, county health officials reported this week that since vaccines became available, 96.5% of those who have died of COVID in the community were not fully vaccinated.

Mercy Hospital nurse Emily McMichael said the county's findings are supported by what she's been seeing.

"These patients are a lot sicker and a lot younger than what we saw the last go around, so it's just really sad to see," McMichael said. "And a lot of the population is unvaccinated."

In Alabama, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the country, 94% of current COVID-19 hospitalized patients are unvaccinated according to state statistics -- and hospital admissions are six times higher than they were just a month ago, as health care workers report an influx of COVID-positive patients in need of care.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital has seen "an explosion of cases," with the number increasing tenfold in the last three weeks, according to Dr. Kierstin Kennedy, chief of hospital medicine.

The patients who are currently hospitalized, Kennedy said, are younger than those who were hospitalized during the last surge -- but unfortunately, they are just as sick. The vast majority of those patients are unvaccinated, she said.

Similarly, in Florida, state statistics show virus-related hospitalizations are nearly at their highest point since the onset of the pandemic, with more than 1,200 COVID-19 patients being admitted to the hospital every day.

"This is heartbreaking because all this could have been avoided; this is unnecessary human suffering that we are witnessing right now," said Dr. Seetha Lakshmi, medical director of the Global Emerging Diseases Institute at Tampa General Hospital, where she said "almost all" patients are currently unvaccinated.

Another Florida physician said he believes low vaccination rates are one of the driving factors behind the state's significant increase in COVID-19 patients.

"The vaccine is really protective in terms of being hospitalized or in terms of dying, and the people we're seeing that are sick, ending up on ventilators and ending up hospitalized, are unvaccinated patients," Dr. David Wein, emergency room physician at Tampa General, told ABC News.

Few severe hospitalizations for fully vaccinated individuals

Just a month ago, 37-year-old Amanda Spencer, an unvaccinated mother of two from Ohio, became infected with the virus while on a family vacation in Florida. She spent 16 days in a Florida hospital, 11 of them in a medically induced coma.

"I never dreamed that I would go through what I did, and that I would be that close to leaving my family," Spencer told ABC News.

Spencer said that prior to her illness, she had not necessarily been against getting the vaccine, but had found it difficult to make time to get the shot -- and to some extent had been afraid of the side effects.

However, her illness has shifted her perspective.

"Having gone through what I've gone through, I would have much rather gotten the vaccine, and maybe had a couple of side effects," said Spencer, adding she now plans to get the vaccine as soon as she is able. "Everybody has a right to decide what's best for them, but my advice is that if you have an underlying condition, whether it be asthma or any type of respiratory issue, I would definitely consider getting the vaccine."

Although patients with underlying conditions are typically at higher risk, Dr. Kennedy said that from what she has seen, "the patients that have comorbidities and are vaccinated are not getting sick enough to require intubation."

And several hospitals contacted by ABC News reported that often, vaccinated COVID-19 patients in the ICU are being hospitalized for reasons other than COVID-19.

"You may see COVID-vaccinated patients in the ICU, but many of them are not in the ICU for severe COVID," Dr. Jennifer Leonard, an ICU physician at Missouri's Barnes Jewish Hospital, told ABC News. "They have mild or asymptomatic COVID and they require an ICU bed for another disease or indication."

Overall, Kaplan said the ABC News survey data demonstrates that "even if you are vaccinated you can still become ill, but it is so much less common that the benefit of being vaccinated is vast. It is incredibly protective and it protects you, the people you love, and the people with whom you work."

Although the vaccine may not prevent 100% of illness, it lessens the impact for most, Kaplan said.

"Fully vaccinated individuals are less likely to become severely ill because they've prepared their immune system," he said.

Kennedy said that she combats vaccine hesitation by explaining to patients that, at this point, there are millions of people around the world who have received the vaccines, with minimal side effects. The long-term side effect of vaccination, she tells her patients, is that they are not dying from COVID-19.

And what about the commonly stated concern of people who are waiting to get the vaccine because they don't want to be guinea pigs?

Kennedy said she tells her patients that "if you don't want to be a guinea pig, then don't get COVID."

ABC News' Sony Salzman, Eric Strauss, Dr. Alexis E. Carrington, Dr. Chidimma J. Acholonu, Dr. Odelia Lewis, Dr. Priscilla Hanudel, and Dr. Jay Bhatt contributed to this report.

Edited August 14, 2021 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,388]

18 hours ago, bigbird said:

The vaccine won't stop any of that. Vaccinated people spread it just as easily, they just don't react the same once they have the virus.

What's the source of viruses that are infecting vaccinated people?  It's the unvaccinated.

Vaccinated people aren't infecting themselves without being exposed to another infected person - they aren't "autoinfectious".

That's why increasing vaccinations is so important. It's to reduce the infections of everyone in the country.

[homersapien 11,388]

8 hours ago, TigerTale said:

Over 1,000 health professionals sign a letter saying, Don't shut down protests using coronavirus concerns as an excuse | CNN

If it's OK to riot last summer prior to the vaccine, it's OK for fans to attend football games this Fall post vaccine.

First, that article was written over a year ago, which makes it very dated, i.e. the Delta mutant didn't exist.

Secondly - and much more importantly - it says nothing about violence in BLM protests, of which the majority - by far-were peaceful:

https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelmingly-peaceful-our-research-finds

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/16/this-summers-black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelming-peaceful-our-research-finds/

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/10/24/trump-claims-blm-protests-violent-but-majority-peaceful/3640564001/

Edited August 14, 2021 by homersapien

[bigbird 60,567]

11 minutes ago, homersapien said:

What's the source of viruses that are infecting vaccinated people?  It's the unvaccinated.

What a dumb premise.  You have no idea who is or isn't passing the virus on a daily basis.  Both the vaccinated and unvaccinated are spreading it.  Again, the vaccine doesn't stop the spread, it slows it and limits the mortality and hospitalization.

[homersapien 11,388]

21 minutes ago, bigbird said:

What a dumb premise.  You have no idea who is or isn't passing the virus.  Both the vaccinated and unvaccinated are spreading it.

Dumb premise?  Then what are you implying - vaccinated people are "auto-infectious"?  I'd like to see the evidence for that. I didn't make it clear, but I am referring to the origin of this current resurgence, which is obviously due to the large number of unvaccinated people.

With a large percentage of unvaccinated people in the population, common sense would tell you they are the primary source of infecting others - both vaccinated as well as unvaccinated. 

Granted, vaccinated people can then infect others as well, but it started with the large number of unvaccinated, and they are no doubt the primary reason for the resurgence.

Bottom line, the current resurgence is a result of the large number of unvaccinated people.  All of the data supports that.

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by homersapien

[bigbird 60,567]

8 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Dumb premise?  Then what are you implying - vaccinated people are "auto-infectious"? 

I'd like to see the evidence for that.

Yes, dumb.

 

10 vaccinated people in a room without mask or distancing. One has a high enough viral load to spread the virus.  How many do you think would be safe from infection?

It's not just the unvaccinated that can and do spread the virus. Your premise that only unvaccinated are infecting the vaccinated is just plain dumb.

[TigerTale 357]

18 minutes ago, homersapien said:

First, that article was written over a year ago, which makes it very dated, i.e. the Delta mutant didn't exist.

Secondly - and much more importantly - it says nothing about violence in BLM protests, of which the majority - by far-were peaceful:

https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news-and-ideas/black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelmingly-peaceful-our-research-finds

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/16/this-summers-black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelming-peaceful-our-research-finds/

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/10/24/trump-claims-blm-protests-violent-but-majority-peaceful/3640564001/

[homersapien 11,388]

3 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Yes, dumb.

 

10 vaccinated people in a room without mask or distancing. One has a high enough viral load to spread the virus.  How many do you think would be safe from infection?

It's not just the unvaccinated that can and do spread the virus. Your premise that only unvaccinated are infecting the vaccinated is just plain dumb.

Bless your heart.

[bigbird 60,567]

41 minutes ago, homersapien said:

That's known as "anecdotal evidence", which is pretty much worthless. I don't believe it for a second.

 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/vast-majority-icu-patients-covid-19-unvaccinated-abc/story?id=79128401

Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC News survey finds

Hospitals report few fully vaccinated people are sick with COVID-19 in the ICU.

With the country in the midst of a new nationwide resurgence of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, misinformation about the effectiveness of the vaccines has been proliferating on social media, with increased attention falling on the rare number of vaccinated people ending up in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, according to dozens of hospitals across the nation surveyed by ABC News, very few fully vaccinated people are actually ending up severely ill and in the ICU with COVID-19.

And experts say that those that do, tend to be frail or have conditions that interfere with the vaccine's effectiveness at producing protection.

ABC News contacted 50 hospitals in 17 states, and asked them to share data on their ICU wards' current COVID-19 patients, including their vaccination status. In the surveyed hospitals, ABC News found that the overwhelming majority of COVID-19 patients currently being treated in ICUs were unvaccinated.

Of the 271 total COVID patients in the surveyed ICUs, 255 patients, or approximately 94%, were unvaccinated against COVID-19 in ABC News' snapshot in time.

Further, of the 16 vaccinated individuals receiving care in the ICU, almost all suffered from comorbidities and other health problems, such as cancer or weakened immune systems. ABC News only heard of one otherwise healthy and fully vaccinated individual, with no reported underlying conditions, who was in the ICU.

According to the CDC, "vaccine breakthrough cases are expected," and, as a result, "there will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from COVID-19." But data about ICU patients' vaccination status is not regularly reported or readily available on the federal or state level.

"The current surge of COVID-19 is driven by those who have elected not to be immunized. We will continue to see the lopsided impact of COVID among the unvaccinated, as they represent the vast majority of severe illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths," said ABC News contributor Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital.

The hospital sampling also appears to be reflective of a national trend. According to the White House COVID-19 Task Force, severe breakthrough infections remain uncommon, and nearly all of the patients who are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 -- 97% -- are unvaccinated.

Dr. Lew Kaplan, past president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, said that the ABC News survey data "provides crystal clear guidance regarding the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant -- that vaccines work."

Furthermore, said Kaplan, the very fact that "the overwhelming majority of hospitalized critically ill patients with this viral variant are unvaccinated, should drive our nation to relentlessly pursue vaccination of every eligible individual."

"It is our duty and our privilege to save lives," Kaplan said. "The COVID-19 vaccine is staggeringly effective in helping us keep people at home and alive."

Front-line workers support the numbers

ABC News' findings are also supported by local data. In Springfield, Missouri, county health officials reported this week that since vaccines became available, 96.5% of those who have died of COVID in the community were not fully vaccinated.

Mercy Hospital nurse Emily McMichael said the county's findings are supported by what she's been seeing.

"These patients are a lot sicker and a lot younger than what we saw the last go around, so it's just really sad to see," McMichael said. "And a lot of the population is unvaccinated."

In Alabama, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the country, 94% of current COVID-19 hospitalized patients are unvaccinated according to state statistics -- and hospital admissions are six times higher than they were just a month ago, as health care workers report an influx of COVID-positive patients in need of care.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital has seen "an explosion of cases," with the number increasing tenfold in the last three weeks, according to Dr. Kierstin Kennedy, chief of hospital medicine.

The patients who are currently hospitalized, Kennedy said, are younger than those who were hospitalized during the last surge -- but unfortunately, they are just as sick. The vast majority of those patients are unvaccinated, she said.

Similarly, in Florida, state statistics show virus-related hospitalizations are nearly at their highest point since the onset of the pandemic, with more than 1,200 COVID-19 patients being admitted to the hospital every day.

"This is heartbreaking because all this could have been avoided; this is unnecessary human suffering that we are witnessing right now," said Dr. Seetha Lakshmi, medical director of the Global Emerging Diseases Institute at Tampa General Hospital, where she said "almost all" patients are currently unvaccinated.

Another Florida physician said he believes low vaccination rates are one of the driving factors behind the state's significant increase in COVID-19 patients.

"The vaccine is really protective in terms of being hospitalized or in terms of dying, and the people we're seeing that are sick, ending up on ventilators and ending up hospitalized, are unvaccinated patients," Dr. David Wein, emergency room physician at Tampa General, told ABC News.

Few severe hospitalizations for fully vaccinated individuals

Just a month ago, 37-year-old Amanda Spencer, an unvaccinated mother of two from Ohio, became infected with the virus while on a family vacation in Florida. She spent 16 days in a Florida hospital, 11 of them in a medically induced coma.

"I never dreamed that I would go through what I did, and that I would be that close to leaving my family," Spencer told ABC News.

Spencer said that prior to her illness, she had not necessarily been against getting the vaccine, but had found it difficult to make time to get the shot -- and to some extent had been afraid of the side effects.

However, her illness has shifted her perspective.

"Having gone through what I've gone through, I would have much rather gotten the vaccine, and maybe had a couple of side effects," said Spencer, adding she now plans to get the vaccine as soon as she is able. "Everybody has a right to decide what's best for them, but my advice is that if you have an underlying condition, whether it be asthma or any type of respiratory issue, I would definitely consider getting the vaccine."

Although patients with underlying conditions are typically at higher risk, Dr. Kennedy said that from what she has seen, "the patients that have comorbidities and are vaccinated are not getting sick enough to require intubation."

And several hospitals contacted by ABC News reported that often, vaccinated COVID-19 patients in the ICU are being hospitalized for reasons other than COVID-19.

"You may see COVID-vaccinated patients in the ICU, but many of them are not in the ICU for severe COVID," Dr. Jennifer Leonard, an ICU physician at Missouri's Barnes Jewish Hospital, told ABC News. "They have mild or asymptomatic COVID and they require an ICU bed for another disease or indication."

Overall, Kaplan said the ABC News survey data demonstrates that "even if you are vaccinated you can still become ill, but it is so much less common that the benefit of being vaccinated is vast. It is incredibly protective and it protects you, the people you love, and the people with whom you work."

Although the vaccine may not prevent 100% of illness, it lessens the impact for most, Kaplan said.

"Fully vaccinated individuals are less likely to become severely ill because they've prepared their immune system," he said.

Kennedy said that she combats vaccine hesitation by explaining to patients that, at this point, there are millions of people around the world who have received the vaccines, with minimal side effects. The long-term side effect of vaccination, she tells her patients, is that they are not dying from COVID-19.

And what about the commonly stated concern of people who are waiting to get the vaccine because they don't want to be guinea pigs?

Kennedy said she tells her patients that "if you don't want to be a guinea pig, then don't get COVID."

ABC News' Sony Salzman, Eric Strauss, Dr. Alexis E. Carrington, Dr. Chidimma J. Acholonu, Dr. Odelia Lewis, Dr. Priscilla Hanudel, and Dr. Jay Bhatt contributed to this report.

Exactly, it lowers the mortality and hospitalization rates, not the contagiousness.