An Iowa ER doctor gave a heartfelt message on Facebook live that has now gone viral and gained attention worldwide in publications like Europe's The Independent. His plea? Go get vaccinated against COVID-19. You can see his video from a recent Facebook live session below.

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The Marshalltown Doctor's plea is simple

Dr. Lance VanGundy, an ER doctor who works at the UnityPoint Health location in Marshalltown, told viewers he sometimes feels like the situation makes him feel "...like a third-world country sometimes." Referring to how many unvaccinated patients he is seeing who are dealing with severe COVID-19 health effects. VanGundy has a simple plea in his video: get the vaccine. In his video he states,

We are drowning in people who are dying with this illness ... This is bad

VanGundy also said he's seen many patients who have other severe health issues but cannot get an ICU spot because the beds are all filled with COVID patients. As far as why his patients are not getting vaccinated, VanGundy feels strongly it's due to the misinformation people have heard about the shots available. VanGundy made it clear in the video, he's never seen anything like this in his career.

In over 20 years of doing this I have never been this busy or this stressed or seen this many sick people.

 

According to the state's COVID-19 dashboard, positivity rates in Iowa are at 8.7% over the past 14 days, and there have been over 8,500 new cases in the past week. Iowa is now closing in on 500,000 positive cases since March 2020.

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