Not celebrating the 4th: the doctors and nurses reeling from new Covid cases, burnout and the prolonged stress of dealing with the pandemic.

Dr. Terrence Coulter, a critical care specialist at CoxHealth, said he and his colleagues were stunned to find themselves back in the trenches after the briefest of respites. “With everyone masked, you learn to read the emotions in your co-workers’ eyes,” he said. “They’re weary and they’re also disappointed that the country has started the end zone dance before we cross the goal line. The truth is we’re fumbling the ball before we even get there.”

America’s health care workers are in crisis, even in places that have had sharp declines in coronavirus infections and deaths. Battered and burned out, they feel unappreciated by a nation that lionized them as Covid heroes but often scoffed at mask mandates and refused to follow social distancing guidelines. Many of those same Americans are now ignoring their pleas to get vaccinated.

Doctors and nurses are also overworked, thanks to chronic staffing shortages made worse by a pandemic that drove thousands from the field. Many are struggling with depression and post-traumatic stress; others are mourning at least 3,600 colleagues who won’t be around for the celebrations.

“People don’t realize what it was like to be on the front lines and risking your own safety without adequate protective gear while dealing with so much death,” said Mary Turner, a registered nurse in Minneapolis who was unable to comfort her own father as he lay dying alone of Covid in a nursing home in the early days of the pandemic. A few months later, she found herself sobbing uncontrollably in a hospital room as she held up a phone so a man could say goodbye to his father. “A lot of us are still dealing with PTSD,” she said. ...

Dr. Clay Smith, an emergency room doctor who travels between two distant hospitals in South Dakota and Wyoming, said he worried about his children, who are both too young to get inoculated. “It’s really disconcerting to work in a community where people are doing so little to protect themselves and others from the virus,” Dr. Smith said.

With fewer than a third of adults in the counties served by the hospitals fully vaccinated, he has been treating a small but steady stream of Covid patients, some of whom insist the coronavirus is a hoax even as they struggle to breathe. “People think they are exercising their rights by refusing to get vaccinated, but in reality they’re exposing themselves and others to risk,” Dr. Smith said. ...

Deborah Burger, co-president of National Nurses United, a union that represents 170,000 registered nurses, said the revelries planned for the Fourth of July weekend felt ill-conceived and tone deaf, and not just because the pandemic continues to claim hundreds of lives a day. ...