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(CNN) -
Dr. Jack Lyons recalls the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, when grateful communities banged on pots and pans to honor frontline healthcare workers.
But now, faced with hostility just for trying to save his patients' lives, he says those days are sadly behind him.
Lyons is one of many doctors and nurses facing the surge in COVID-19 cases that are flooding hospitals as the omicron variant rapidly spreads across the country.
Now, healthcare workers fighting on the front lines of the pandemic are also facing patients who dismiss them and even threaten them because of the way they are being treated for the virus.
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"People act like they can come to the hospital and request whatever therapy they want or, conversely, reject whatever therapy they want with the idea that somehow they can choose and direct their therapy. And that doesn't work." Lyons told CNN from the CentraCare hospital where he works in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
As the highly transmissible omicron variant, which became the dominant strain in the United States in a matter of weeks, increases the number of cases, a new wave of misinformation continues about the pandemic and the vaccines designed to end it.
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From unfounded conspiracy theories that vaccines contain microchips or alter people's DNA, to deliberate falsehoods about vaccine deaths and their side effects, the pandemic misinformation industry is thriving.
This dangerous misinformation also led to a series of lawsuits against hospitals demanding unproven medical treatments, such as ivermectin.
Health professionals report growing hostility between medical workers and patients and their families.
It's a constant dose of bullying and name calling.
"They insult your intelligence, they insult your ability and, most hurtful, they say that by not using these therapies you are intentionally trying to harm the people for whom we have given everything to save," Lyons said.
About 70% of Lyons ICU patients are ill with Covid-19, and almost all of them are not vaccinated.
Ivermectin is used to treat parasites such as roundworms and lice in humans and is also used by veterinarians to deworm large animals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned of a sharp increase in notifications of serious illnesses caused by the drug to poison centers.
"The most difficult experience we had is that of the family of a patient who, under a pseudonym, had made threats against the hospital," Lyons said.
"There was a reference to making sure the hospital was locked and we have people coming for you."
"I'm not sure how a person could take 'We're going to get to that, we're going to march on the hospital. We're going to get you' as something other than a death threat," he added.
Lyons knows that he meets people on their worst day.
As an intensive care physician, he and other healthcare workers have long experienced aggression from patients and their loved ones in the most desperate of circumstances.
But COVID-19 made those conversations even tougher, especially now that many of his patients are unvaccinated, distrustful of their experience, and demand alternative treatments fueled by misinformation.
"These are people who stand up for their loved ones who are on assisted breathing. And I have enormous sympathy," he said.
But he believes they were manipulated by misinformation and by other doctors promoting treatments that are not based on science, the most popular of which is ivermectin.
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"And those are the people I don't respect at all - the charlatans and the snake oil salesmen who sell this," Lyons continued.
"They are taking advantage of people's hope and trying to take advantage of desperate families who would do anything to bring their loved one home."
"It is painful, we are exhausted, we are tired ..."
Healthcare workers are so exhausted that they sometimes need the encouragement to simply walk from their cars to their workplace, according to Barbara Chapman, a nurse practitioner at the University of Texas at Tyler.
"It's like when a veteran comes back from the war, he may be out of the war, but he doesn't leave that war," Chapman told Laundress.
"It is a battlefield."
Last summer, Chapman helped launch a hotline that offers teachers and health workers mental health support.
A staggering number of healthcare workers - more than one in five - suffered from anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder during the pandemic, research published in March revealed.
Doctors and nurses across the country hoped that the availability of vaccines, the most effective tool for preventing serious diseases, would spell a gradual end to the horror.
Instead, misinformation has caused many to refuse to get vaccinated, causing hopes to be lost that the country will achieve herd immunity, the point where sufficient numbers of people are protected against a disease that cannot spread. among the population.
"We want to help people. And now that people are not getting vaccinated, they don't believe us," Chapman said.
"They are questioning our education and our training. It is hurtful, we are exhausted, we are tired, and that is why we have been morally hurt in this outbreak."
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An ER doctor who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation spoke of the immense frustration and exhaustion doctors feel when dealing with patients who demand unproven treatments but who continue to resist the vaccine.
"I mean, can you imagine a dentist having as many discussions about tooth brushing as we have about the covid-19 vaccine?" Said the doctor.
"There would be no fucking dentists."
There were more than 69,700 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals on Wednesday, a number that has been rising since it dropped to about 45,000 on Nov. 8, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
In the last week, the United States registered an average of 1,324 daily deaths from covid-19, 11% more than the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins.
Concern over a massive wave of health worker dropouts
At the beginning of the pandemic, health workers were willing to make life-changing sacrifices to help save lives in the midst of a world-changing pandemic.
Many rented apartments and lived separately from their families to care for their patients.
Residents organized parades to thank them for their work.
They reused PPE, canceled vacations, and worked long shifts for employers who don't always feel they value their safety.
But now, with the availability of vaccines that may be the only way to end the cycle of tragedy, many worry that unappreciated and constantly threatened health workers will finally say they are fed up.
A study led by the American Medical Association examining the relationship between "covid-related stress and the employment intentions of American healthcare workers" highlighted serious concern that the country may be on the brink of a " rotation wave "among the health sector.
The study revealed that 1 in 5 doctors and 2 in 5 nurses intend to leave their current practice within 2 years.
Even Lyons, who has worked at the same hospital since the start of the pandemic, says it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay optimistic.
"It's often heartbreaking. Sometimes it's demoralizing. We do our best to be hopeful," he says.
"But as the months go by and we get more and more fatigued and more and more my colleagues leave the profession. Every day it is more difficult."
Covid-19 United States