Officials at both CoxHealth and Mercy Springfield are reporting that the vast majority of their COVID patients this week were not vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The total number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in Springfield, Missouri rose to 160 on Wednesday, according to data from the Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s dashboard. Of those 160 patients, 68 were in critical care and 70 were from Greene County.
Sonya Kullman, spokesperson for Mercy Springfield, said Tuesday the health system had admitted two patients who had been fully vaccinated.
“Our doctors tell us these patients have multiple co-morbidities,” she said.
Doctors said they would expect to see more severe illness in those two patients if they were not vaccinated, according to Kullmann in an email to KSMU.
Kaitlyn McConnell, spokesperson for CoxHealth, said Wednesday the hospital is aware of two fully vaccinated patients who were admitted to a CoxHealth hospital with COVID pneumonia.
“One was extremely immunocompromised and would not have been expected to respond to any type of vaccine; that individual made a full recovery,” she told KSMU in an email. “Another patient had COVID pneumonia after [being] fully vaccinated, and is currently admitted.”
The vaccination rate remains below 38 percent in Greene County. Some counties in southwest Missouri have vaccination rates below 20 percent, including McDonald and Newton, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Dashboard.
