Amarillo Health Experts: COVID-19 lung damage impacts unvaccinated more than vaccinated

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - There is a lot of information about the impacts of COVID-19 on your body and also how it affects your lungs.

Some local pulmonologists believe that the extent of lung damage is a result of whether you have received the vaccine.

“If you look at an x-ray of a patient that has COVID and is having acute respiratory destructions, ARDS, the lungs are basically full of white haziness instead of being the dark lungs that we can see on an x-ray,” said Dr. Javier Dieguez, M.D.

Lung x-rays of two COVID-19 patients show two different images; the black area in the lungs shows to be filled with air, on the other x-ray the white haze shows a lack of air.

Medical professionals say the difference in the two images is from a vaccinated patient, the other was from an unvaccinated patient.

“The vaccine what we’ve been seeing is protecting patients from ending up requiring on a ventilator, if you are vaccinated and for example with this Omicron variant patients are still going to get the virus and will have a sore throat, but the peace of mind is that the vaccine is preventing them from ending up in the hospital,” said Dr. Dieguez.

Dr. Dieguez believes that “The vaccine itself when it does protect you it is really giving you a 90 to 95 percent guarantee that you are not going to end up ventilated on a ventilator in the hospital.”

CDC (Centers for Disease Control) now admits there are no guarantees of not contracting COVID-19 after taking the vaccine, but it is believed that it can help lower hospitalization rates.

“The vaccine itself is saving lives, it’s not guaranteeing that you will not get the virus, but it is guaranteeing that if you get the virus, you’re probably going to be okay at home not ending up in the hospital,” said Dr. Dieguez.

Dr. Al-Nassir encourages the community to get the COVID-19 vaccine and booster.

“Try to get vaccinated if you’re not and try to get boosted if you have not yet done, we have seen a whole lot more people die from COVID than from the vaccine,” said Dr. Kalil Al-Nassir, M.D.

Dr. Dieguez said, “People that have immuno-suppression need to have a booster after 6 months because we don’t think that the vaccine itself was protecting them after 6 months.”

Although the virus has not slowed down, health-care providers are hopeful for the future.

“I think we all will pull through this, and we will do very well as a nation, we have we have done great in past times where we had to come together, but I think we are I think we are getting ahead of COVID and I think it’s going to be something of the past sometimes soon,” said Dr. Al-Nassir.

For more information on lung damage click here.

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