PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — As ICU’s are filling up with COVID patients, there is again an urgent plea from those who work there to get vaccinated.

An ICU nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center tells KOIN 6 that their patients with COVID are unvaccinated. They recently had no COVID patients in the ICU but it is filling back up again.

“We were waiting for that shoe to drop and it dropped. We have them back in the ICU, all over the hospital, our numbers up 3 times in the last month. The patients are younger and getting sick very quickly,” said nurse Sabra Bederka.

Bederka said the way many people finally decide to get vaccinated these days is if they know someone who got really sick and was hospitalized or died.

She hopes more businesses will require masks or proof of vaccination to keep more people safe and convince them to get a shot.

Gov. Brown will meet on Friday with leaders in the counties that have low vaccination rates. The message will be, in essence, this is your last chance. Get those vaccination rates up, put some mask mandates in place or she will consider another statewide mask mandate.

“You wouldn’t go into a dining establishment in bare feet. They are asking you to put on a mask and they’re like, ‘I don’t want to wear a mask. I can’t breathe in it.’ Then it’s like you’re going be in the mask for 15 minutes, half-hour at the store,” Bederka said. “I work a 12 hour shift. I could be in a regular mask, N-95 powered air hoods. When they complain it’s uncomfortable for them I don’t have any sympathy for that.”