Freeman gives COVID-19 update at Friday news conference

Freeman President and CEO Paula Baker gave an update on COVID-19 at Freeman today at a late morning news conference.

“We have almost 60 patients with about eight on ventilators,” Baker said. “There have been 15 deaths in the last week among unvaccinated patients and 24 deaths in the last 15 days.”

Freeman COVID unit medical director Dr. Robert McNab says more and more patients under the age of 60 are being hospitalized. He says only three vaccinated patients have died. He says all of those had significant co-morbidities.

Baker said Freeman had received a number of random calls from people opposing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Even so, Baker said Freeman does not plan to change its message public about the value of the vaccine in preventing the virus and saving lives.