JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's take an in-depth
look now at the human effects
of the latest surge in COVID.

Louisiana has the nation's
highest per capita infections,

driven in large part by the extremely
contagious Delta variant. At the same

time, Louisiana also has one of the
country's lowest vaccination rates.

This week, Governor John Bel
Edwards reimposed a statewide mask
mandate for all indoor settings.

William Brangham and our team were given
special access to one hospital, Baton

Rouge General, as staff there
try to save lives and to convince
more people to get vaccinated.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE, Baton Rouge
General Hospital: So, we have got

59-ish, fixing to be 60 ICU patients.
Of those, 47 are COVID-positive.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Each morning at Baton
Rouge General Hospital begins like this.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: Yesterday
was incredibly busy. We went
from 39 to 47 COVID ICU patients.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Dr. Stephen
Brierre, the chief of critical care,

briefs the hospital's division
chiefs on the latest COVID numbers.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: 1-R saying that --
and this is ugly. I hate to talk about it.

We need to expand the morgue.

You seem to be having
some trouble with that.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right after, Dr.
Brierre is back upstairs in the ICU.

Just over a month ago, there were
10 COVID patients in the hospital.

The day we visited, there were
129. It's a surge that's caught
Dr. Brierre somewhat by surprise.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: I thought
we were close to done. I knew
Delta was going to be a little

bit of a surge, especially in Louisiana,
given our low vaccination rates. But I

had no idea that the impact
would be almost as severe as
the first surge that we saw.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: More than 60
percent of people in Louisiana
are not fully vaccinated,

and that's overwhelmingly who's
ending up in this hospital with COVID.

Of those 129 hospitalized COVID patients,
nearly 90 percent are unvaccinated.

And doctors here believe, in part
because of the Delta variant,

patients may be getting sicker faster.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: We're
certainly seeing a group of people,
not all of them, but a group

of them in the ICU who rapidly
deteriorate. So, people that we
would have thought we would have

been able to support without a ventilator
for a week or two to get them through it,

we're running to the bedside to intubate
them 24, 48 hours into the hospital...

(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That fast?

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: Yes, sir.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Seeing this
large number of unvaccinated
people coming through your doors,

is that frustrating to you? And
is it just -- you just think,

that's just the way our society
is? Like, how do you square that?

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: I try
not to dwell on it too much.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Why not?

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE:
Because it does frustrate.

There is a little bit of we
shot ourselves in our foot.

I'm not mad at people who
didn't vaccinate. And I
understand a lot of it. I mean,

there was so much misinformation out
there. And the country is so polarized,

ROBERT WILSON, COVID Patient:
Until it affects you personally,
you don't know. Now I know.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In one of those
in-demand hospital beds is Robert Wilson,

a 49-year-old who contracted the virus
last month. He wasn't vaccinated.

ROBERT WILSON: It wasn't
political. It just - - I didn't
figure I was going to need it,

because nobody really knows
the long term of this vaccine,
and people are scared of it.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, that was your
concern? That you might take the shot,

and it might harm you long-term?

ROBERT WILSON: Down the road,
we don't know. And that's most
people's experience that I know.

But if it combats this, I'm
going to get it, this go-round.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Because
of his brush with the virus,

Wilson says his family is
planning to get vaccinated too.

Thirty-two-year-old Jordan Miller
is an ICU nurse. She's been
here through the whole pandemic.

And she says, for her, this is the worst
yet. Staff are tired, burned out. They're

working overtime. And she says too many
people don't take the virus seriously.

JORDAN MILLER, Nurse, Baton Rouge
General Hospital: It's something

that could have been prevented.
And that's what's so hard.

And because these people
are younger and healthier,

it hits even harder. You know, I
had a 34-year-old patient that I
was talking to, communicating with,

having a discussion about his
family, and then, within four
hours, he coded and died,

34 years old, no medical history.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Unvaccinated?

While the unvaccinated are the lion's
share of hospitalizations and deaths

here and nationwide,
that's not true for all.

RITA EAMES, COVID Patient: I had
my vaccine in January and February,

and I just started feeling
bad a couple of weeks ago.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Seventy-year-old
Rita Eames says she did
everything she was asked to do

to avoid COVID, including getting
her and her family vaccinated.

Nevertheless, she developed a rare
breakthrough case a couple of weeks ago.

RITA EAMES: I think my odds are much
better than me not having any vaccine.

If I had to do it all over again,
I would do it all over again.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: So what
could we have done as a population

to decrease her risk of being
in an ICU for her fifth day now?
And what we could have done is,

the rest of us could have been vaccinated,
because we know, if we're vaccinated, we

decrease the probability of catching
it ourselves and transmitting
it to someone like Ms. Eames.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Louisiana's
low vaccination rate applies
to medical staff as well.

At Baton Rouge General, about half the
hospital staff haven't taken the vaccine.

One of them is surgical tech
Ashley Lanoux. She spent much

of last year recovering from breast
cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.

ASHLEY LANOUX, Surgical Technologist,
Baton Rouge General Hospital: I was very

unsure about it just because
it was thrown out so quick.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You mean they
developed the vaccine so quickly.

ASHLEY LANOUX: Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And
that made you nervous.

ASHLEY LANOUX: Mm-hmm. Yes. I
mean, it was - - it felt very
rushed. Like, why -- why did

you all of a sudden come up
with a vaccine so quickly for
something that just came around?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well, they would say
it's because over 600,000 Americans died,

and we have got to stop those deaths.

That doesn't persuade you?

ASHLEY LANOUX: No.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

Then, two weeks ago, Lanoux got
COVID, and ended up at urgent
care, needing an infusion

of monoclonal antibodies. That
experience pushed her closer to
getting the vaccine, but not fully.

ASHLEY LANOUX: I'm on the yes
side, but I'm not 100 percent yet.
I mean, there's a lot of people

even around here that have
questions about it and the
uncertainty just with the employees.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This week,
another major hospital in Baton
Rouge, Our Lady of the Lake,

said it would now require its
employees to get vaccinated.

Baton Rouge General says it's
not quite ready for that step.

DR. DAWN MARCELLE, Baton Rouge
Regional Medical Director: I do
think that mandating vaccines

would be helpful when it comes to
increasing the vaccination rate.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Pediatrician Dr.
Dawn Marcelle is the public health

director for the region that includes
Baton Rouge. She works with hospitals,

clinics, the National Guard
and many others to increase
COVID testing and vaccination.

She says, in addition to more mandates,
this surge in cases and deaths

is already motivating some
to change their minds about
getting the shooting. The state

saw a fourfold increase in first
doses received in the six weeks
from mid-June to late July.

DR. DAWN MARCELLE: We have seen increased
traffic at our parish health units across

the state. People are calling now
like they were at the very beginning
of vaccine availability. So,

we are seeing a definite uptick
in interest in vaccines and
people getting vaccinated.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Back on the ICU
floor, staff have already built

two additional units and
are planning on a third.

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: You're
already down to 80 percent

oxygen, and I'm going to
decrease it some more.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Dr. Brierre,
nurse Miller and the other
staff are stressed out and

stretched thin, just hoping more people
will hear their pleas to get vaccinated.

Do you think, if I come back here
six months from now, we're going
to still be having this debate?

DR. STEPHEN BRIERRE: I didn't think
we'd be here today six months ago,

when we knew that a vaccine was fixing
to be available to us. So I don't know.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The COVID
surge here isn't expected
to peak until mid-September.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William
Brangham in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.