Dr. Robert Martinez: It is disheartening to see so many people not taking the Covid vaccine

EDINBURG, Texas - The chief medical officer for DHR Health says it is “very disheartening” to see a large number of people not take the Covid-19 vaccine.Dr. Robert Martinez gave an in-depth interview on how his hospital is coping with the latest surge in Covid-related cases. He said DHR is not faced with the “wartime medicine” situation it saw in the summer of 2020. Nonetheless, things are still bad.“We want to make sure, No. 1, that everybody knows what a big issue we are currently in and understand the full impact of what is going on in the Rio Grande Valley right now. We are starting to see a significant resurgence, unfortunately, of Covid-19 and in particular the delta variant among a few others. Particularly in people that didn’t take advantage of the vaccine that we know works so well,” Martinez said.“Despite everybody’s efforts and our efforts in particular, and now a lot of people are administering the vaccine, and despite how good the vaccine is, people just for whatever reason refuse to take the vaccine. It is very disheartening to me, myself and my staff, no doubt.”DHR Health is the largest state-approved hub for administering the Covid-19 vaccine south of San Antonio. It has so far administered 250,000 doses.“We were begging for this vaccine months ago, a year ago. People would have done anything for it, I think, and they were doing anything for it, in fact. And now it is sitting around and going to waste. There has been a decent amount of spoilage, I understand, and that is very disheartening.”Editor's Note: Here is Part One of a two-part series.Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.