Tenn – A Tennessee nurse pleads for Tennesseans to see the COVID-19 crisis through her eyes as the battle, she says, is “getting out of hand.”
That comes as Tennessee set two troubling new records Thursday — a record high positivity rate of almost 20 percent and a new daily record of 93 additional deaths just reported.
Nurse Emily Egan, who has worked in the COVID ICU unit at Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport for the past month, recorded the video diary shared by her employer, Ballad Health.
“Ok, I guess, where to start? We started this fight together. We started staying at home, not going out unnecessarily, as a community. I think that everybody did really well. They fought with us.”
Egan’s own COVID fatigue showed in her eyes.
“And now I guess they’re tired of it. I guess people are tired of being alone or in their homes and want to get out and be social again.
“We understand the importance of mental health, but the fight is getting out of hand.”
As COVID hospitalizations continue to skyrocket across the state of Tennessee, she has seen the faces behind the numbers,
“We’re losing more than we’re keeping,” Egan said.
“I’ve put an ungodly amount of people in body bags that I wasn’t prepared to do, that I wasn’t prepared to give up on a patient, but there was nothing else we could do – and we lost them.”