Unvaccinated COVID-19 hospital cases are surging, says Henry Ford Health System

FOX 2 - Health care workers with Henry Ford Health System are seeing the surge first-hand. More people are being hospitalized for COVID-19 -- and the patients are nearly all unvaccinated.

More than 80 patients across the health system hospitalized is four times higher than the cases the system had on July 19. Officials there are making a special appeal to parents.

"We are aware of reports nationally that children hospitalized with Covid are rising. If your children are 12 and older and haven't been vaccinated yet, the time to do so is now," said Tisa Johnson-Hooper, M.D., Interim Chair of Pediatrics HFHS.

Henry Ford recommending *publicly* students are socially distanced at school, mask up, stay home if they're sick, and as you heard get vaccinated if they're 12 and older.

"The more people we can get vaccinated the better we'll be able to fight our way out of this pandemic," she said. "I would recommend schools encourage them to have mask mandates."

Frontline nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers… have been at this for well over a year, dealing with an unprecedented global pandemic.

"Let's not make a mistake in thinking that they're not exhausted, that this isn't incredibly stressful for them, and that they're emotionally taxed. Because they are seeing a rise that causes that pit in Every stomach," said Bob Riney, President of Healthcare Operations HFHS.

The two requests are the same they've been for a while now - get vaccinated and mask up.

"The Delta variant is very contagious and it's really just requiring that we step up our collective diligence once again." Riney said.