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INDIANAPOLIS — Nurses and doctors are reaching their breaking point at Indiana hospitals as more Hoosiers are seeking treatment for the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Dr. Jerome Adams now works at Eskenazi Hospital as an anesthesiologist. The former surgeon general and Indiana state health commissioner told WISH-TV that the likelihood of more shutdowns is increasing as more people are getting severely sick with the Delta variant.

“I think the likelihood is high because we haven’t reached the peak of this Delta wave,” Adams said. “At the end of the day, it’s not government saying that schools are shutting down, schools are shutting down in our communities because half the students are out with COVID because the teachers are out.”

Indiana saw its highest number of Hoosiers in the hospital with COVID on Thursday since late January. There are 1,654 Hoosiers in the hospital dealing with COVID symptoms related to the Delta variant.

He said the nurses and doctors he works with are getting frustrated because most of the patients they see coming in with COVID are unvaccinated.

“Nurses, in particular, are at a breaking point,” he said again. “Because before they did what they had to do knowing there wasn’t a vaccine available, knowing there wasn’t enough PPE out there.”

Adams said the frustrating thing now is that he says the tools are there now for people to overcome this virus without complications, but too many Hoosiers are choosing not to use them.

“As we get caught up in these culture wars, the Delta variant doesn’t care if you want to wear a mask or not or get vaccinated or not,” said Adams.

A little over 3 million Hoosiers are fully vaccinated now. That is still a little less than half of all eligible Hoosiers. At just over 8,000 people a day, the state’s 7-day vaccination rate has also slowed to its lowest rate since the vaccines were first made available.