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Coronavirus in Texas

“Tired of putting bodies in body bags,” this Austin ICU nurse scaled back her hours in the hospital

Sheyla Moraes, an intensive care nurse, says this latest surge of the coronavirus pandemic is particularly draining because it was preventable. Listen in the weekend edition of The Brief podcast.

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Sheyla Moraes, an ICU nurse in Central Texas, in South Austin on Aug. 11, 2021.
Credit: Sophie Park/The Texas Tribune

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Like thousands of health care workers across the state, Sheyla Moraes — an intensive care nurse in Austin — is tired of seeing so much death as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite her yearslong passion for helping the sickest patients, she’s turned down bonuses and other incentives to take additional shifts. In fact, she's scaled back to working just a single ICU shift per week.

And this latest surge is the most frustrating yet for Moraes and her colleagues in the medical community, who say the current plight was preventable because of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Listen in the weekend edition of The Brief podcast.

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