Doctors from all three Lexington hospitals urge vaccinations amid COVID-19 surge

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department reported 201 new cases of COVID-19 in its latest update.

The seven-day rolling average is now up to 179 cases per day.

As hospital beds continue to quickly fill, doctors from all three of the city’s came together Thursday to urge people to get the vaccine.

Doctors from UK, CHI Saint Joseph Health, and Baptist Health talked about how their facilties are holding up under the rising COVID-19 numbers. They started by asking people who need to be tested for COVID-19 to go somewhere other than the ER.

“ERs need to be reserved for people with shortness of breath and chest pain,” said Dr. Roger Humphries, UK HealthCare.

Right now, UK has 72 Covid inpatient. Seven of those are children.

All three hospitals told us the people they are seeing are skewing younger, largely because the older population tends to be more vaccinated.

“We have people in their 30s on a ventilator,” said Dr. David Dougherty, Baptist Health Lexington.

They also said that vaccine is the only way they see out of the current mess.

“We will not be able to control this with just masking and distancing. We have to vaccinate. And the vaccine at this point is not experimental,” said Dr. Dan Rodrigue, CHI Saint Joseph Health.

With billions of people having had the vaccination around the world, they tell me the fact they’re still fighting misinformation is frustrating.

Baptist Health also told us they are scaling back elective procedures to focus on urgent care.

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