Alabama doctor shares last moments of Covid patients and urges vaccination

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An Alabama doctor appealed on Facebook this week to Covid-19 skeptics to get vaccinated — unlike some of her patients who have paid the ultimate price.

Dr. Brittney Cuban’s enthusiastic and poised Facebook post from Sunday went viral on social media. The Birmingham doctor said people are listening to her firsthand accounts of treating critical patients who regret never having been vaccinated.

“I am hospitalizing healthy young people with a very serious infection from COVID. One of the last things they do before intubation is begging me to get vaccinated. I am holding their hand and telling them I am sorry, but it is too late,” she wrote.

Dr. Brittney Kobia is a hospital physician at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala. Courtesy of Dr. Brittney Cobia

“A few days later when I called the time of death, I hug their family members and tell them that the best way to honor their loved ones is to go for a vaccination and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

Cobia’s post has been shared nearly 4,000 times as of Wednesday afternoon.

She also wrote in the post about difficult interactions with people who have lost loved ones to the deadly disease.

They were crying. They told me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought they wouldn’t get sick because they had a certain blood type or skin colour. They thought it was ‘just the flu’, wrote Cuba.

But they were wrong. And they wanted to come back. But they can’t. So they thank me and go get the vaccine. And I return to my desk, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

Cobia declined an interview request on Wednesday, telling NBC News via text message that she was receiving “threatening messages.”

“I’m a little confused (i.e. a lot) and I just need to step back now,” Cobia said.

Kobia told AL.com that treating coronavirus patients, even those who chose not to get a vaccine, is straining her heart tendons.

“You kind of think about it, ‘Well, I wouldn’t feel bad for this guy, because he’s making his own decision,'” Cobia said.

“But then you actually see them, you see them head on, and that totally changes your perspective, because they’re still just someone who thinks they made the best possible decision using the information they had, all the misinformation out there,” she told the media.

Alabama has the lowest vaccination rates in the country. Only 38 percent of the state’s population had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine and only 31 percent had been vaccinated as of Tuesday, according to state statistics. Over the past two weeks, the average daily circulating number of new cases in Alabama has increased by 694, an increase of 573 percent.

But Alabama is far from alone. States in the South — including Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee — are re-emerging as Covid hot spots. Public health officials said the alarming increases were driven in large part by the type of delta that is highly contagious and the frequency of vaccinations.

Studies have shown that Covid-19 vaccines are effective against multiple variants, including the delta variant. A recent report from Public Health England, where the variant accounts for more than 90 percent of new cases, found two doses of the Pfizer vaccine to be 96 percent effective against hospitalization.

Antonio Planas

Antonio Planas is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

The Associated Press contributed.

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