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Feeling overworked and underappreciated, hospital workers throughout the state seem both puzzled and frustrated by an increasingly indifferent public.

Time was when doctors, nurses and other workers were routinely hailed as heroes for their work in trenches and on the front lines of the pandemic.

Time was, as a story in The News & Observer reminded us on Monday, when fighter jets from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base soared over several hospitals in star-spangled tributes.

Time was when there was applause and cheers and words of encouragement and support in bold letters on hand-made signs.

As for today? You’re more likely to see mask and vaccination protests.

Where did all the love go?

It’s not as if hospital staffs are expecting daily parades, but they do sense a change in the public’s mood.

So, Cone Health, whose intensive care unit had reached 95% capacity on Tuesday, released video footage of its COVID ward on Monday to remind us of the stakes.

There was the steady symphony of beeps from electronic monitors. The squeak of latex gloves being slipped over bare fingers and palms. Staffers in head-to-toe protective clothing, including headgear that resembled either welders’ face shields or astronaut helmets.

And then there were the patients, two of whom looked into the camera and warned us not to be like them.

Latrell Brown, a recent Moses Cone patient, had not been vaccinated, a choice he came to regret when he contracted the virus.

“You can walk past somebody and they look perfectly fine and it can happen right there,” Brown said in the video. “You can get it just like that, without knowing.”

Tony Rodriguez also had not been vaccinated when he became sick.

“It’s not some fever,” he said from his bed, with eyes that seemed sad and pained. “It’s not the flu. It’s different.”

As for the public’s mood, it seems different as well.

“Last year, everyone had a single vision that we as a society are all going to rally together and beat COVID. It’s not that way now,” Dr. David Kirk, a critical care specialist at WakeMed, told The News & Observer.

“Nobody’s donating food. Nobody’s sending kind words. It’s not that our teams necessarily need that praise all the time. But I just think it’s incredibly hard for our staff to continue to battle day after day after day and to feel that society and our community around us doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

And if you think it doesn’t matter ...

Meka Douthit EL, a director of nursing at Cone Health and president-elect of the N.C. Nurses Association, told The News & Observer that nurses try hard to encourage and support one another. “But when it comes from an outside source, a note that you get or a recognition, it just means so much more. Because you’re like, ‘Hey, I’m seen. They see me. They see what I’m putting into this every day.’ ”

Some of the public disconnect is understandable. We all are weary of the virus.

But the more we try to pretend that it is gone, when it isn’t, or that COVID isn’t real, when it is, we only prolong our frustration — and a public health threat.

And yet the denial persists.

There is some good news: Vaccinations at Cone continue to rise, with 419 doses administered last week. But for every step forward, how many steps back?

On Monday night, the Union County Board of Education halted its contact tracing and most of its COVID quarantine procedures, prompting a swift rebuke from the N.C. Association of Educators. Also on Monday, the Harnett County school district voted to make masks optional for students and employees.

More districts could follow, given a new state law that requires school boards to renew mask mandates monthly, setting up potential confrontations with vocal mask opponents.

Usually, in this part of a COVID-related editorial, we quote, chapter and verse, grim statistics that confirm the staying power of COVID — deaths, hospitalizations, total number of cases, etc. But you already know the score: It’s not good.

So what’s the best way to show hospital workers you appreciate them?

Lessen their workload.

“I’ve talked to some who say they don’t want meals, they don’t want those small tokens of support, that that’s actually sort of insensitive at this point and tone deaf,” Julia Wacker, who heads the charitable foundation of the N.C. Healthcare Association, told The News & Observer. “They want people to get vaccinated. That’s it. That’s all they want.”

In other words, get your shots. Wear your mask.

Don’t tell them you care. Show them.