Despite being a front-line health care worker and witnessing firsthand the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, registered nurse Deborah Torres was concerned about getting vaccinated for the virus.

“I wanted to see how my other coworkers that were working and getting vaccinated did,” she said.

Torres waited a month after it became available, then got the Moderna shot, which she says caused some physical side effects.

“I got the chills, nausea, dizziness,” she said. “I had a fever, and I was very fatigued and that lasted for an entire day.”

Torres works at a major hospital in Southern California, where many of her coworkers are still reluctant to get vaccinated

“It’s not that they’re anti-vaccine, it’s just that they’re hesitant right now because it’s new,” she said.

A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation in partnership with The Washington Post found 48% of front-line health care workers are unvaccinated, which is concerning for some medical experts.

“It’s also a patient safety issue. If you get vaccinated, you’re much less likely to give COVID in the workplace,” said William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease specialist with Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a consultant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Schaffner understands the concerns health care workers have about getting vaccinated, but says when they don’t, it could increase transmission rates and also impact others’ decisions.

“If the nurses don’t get vaccinated and people ask them and they discover that the nurses are weary, of course, because nurses are trusted, the neighbors and friends will be weary of getting vaccinated also,” he said.

While Torres did get vaccinated, she still supports her coworkers that haven’t

“I don’t have any judgment towards them, and I don’t think any differently of them,” she said.

Robert Taub is a Type 2 diabetic who had one big problem when the pandemic hit: access to in-person medical care.

“My doctors were offering Zoom conferences,” he said. "But they can’t take my blood over a Zoom meeting."

Taub had to delay seeing his doctor for six months and as a result, his health suffered.

"Everything that could be bad and wrong was just that,” he said.

Taub is like many Americans who did not get medical care during the start of the pandemic and even after.

"Unfortunately, we’re seeing very concerning indications that people are still delaying reconnecting with their doctor a year into this pandemic," said Donald Llyod-Jones, MD., who is president-elect with the American Heart Association and a cardiologist at Northwestern University.

He says a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows nearly 27% of Americans recently reported delaying or not getting medical care.

“We’re seeing this happen in all segments of the population,” he said. "But it’s particularly concerning, I think, among communities of color and in rural areas where access to health care already was somewhat tenuous."

Llyod-Jones says delaying checkups can take a toll on people’s health physically and mentally, adding that it also puts some people at higher risk for severe complications of COVID-19 infection.

“If you get it, it’s more likely that you will be hospitalized or that you’ll have severe long-standing complications if you have one of these chronic underlying conditions," he said.

When Taub eventually saw a doctor, he says it was the worst blood work of his life.

“My triglycerides were so high, they thought the test was wrong,” he said.

After getting the medical attention he needed, however, this Type 2 diabetic is better, managing his chronic condition one day at a time.

“My numbers are back down low again, and I’ve lost 11 pounds,” he said. “I’m on the right track home.”