A funeral home in Callahan, Florida, has seen an uptick in COVID-19 related deaths amid the most recent surge of the virus.
A Florida funeral home has seen victims of COVID-19 make up over half of business for July. In this photo, medics transfer a patient on a stretcher from an ambulance outside of Emergency at Coral Gables Hospital where coronavirus patients are treated in Coral Gables near Miami, on August 16, 2021.In a rural stretch of northeastern Florida where barely half the people have gotten a coronavirus shot, Roger West had no problem telling others he was"adamantly anti-vaccination.
For the week ending July 29, the county of 89,000 logged 810 new cases of the coronavirus. At that time it was the highest rate in Florida, one of the epicenters of a nationwide spike in infections driven by the highly contagious delta variant. Dr. Phillips Cao, a family practitioner who treats patients at a University of Florida Health clinic in Callahan, said many older people in the area got coronavirus shots months ago, while younger adults put them off as infections declined sharply in the spring.
The spike in infections could be pushing more people to get shots. State health data shows that nearly 4,400 people got vaccinated in Nassau County in the three-week period ending Aug. 12 — enough to increase the county's total vaccinations by nearly 11 percent. "Some of them are kind of aggravated with me," she said."They say, 'Mama, if you get it, you might die,'" Sims said."I do trust the Lord to take care of me. If I die, it's my time."