It's been more than 18 months since the first cases of COVID-19 landed in Missouri. Many frontline health workers have battled the coronavirus battle every day for more than a year.
For those seeing the worst the pandemic has to offer, the toll has been tremendous.
Heidi Lucas of the Missouri Nurses Association said as the likelihood of a vaccine approached, spirits were beginning to rise. "And then just to see we've not had the numbers of people taking the vaccine as we would have thought... that really has shattered a lot of our nurses," Lucas said.
Lucas described the desperation she hears in patients' voices when they're hospitalized with COVID-19. "They're getting ready to hook somebody up to a ventilator, people are begging for the vaccine . . . and it's too late. Our nurses have to tell them, 'I'm sorry, I can't give it to you.'"
She said the trauma the nurses experience from this will have far-reaching and lasting effects.
- Heidi Lucas, state director, Missouri Nurses Association
- Trina Teacutter, nursing supervisor, Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services