Relatives have spoken of their agony after their loved ones died from Covid weeks before they would be eligible for vaccines – with an Air Force veteran invited to her vaccination just before she died.
Since vaccines first became available in mid-December, more than 247,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the US.
Officials had warned it would take months to deliver enough vaccines to achieve immunity to the herd.
And since initial vaccine supplies were extremely limited and the virus spread rampant across the country during the winter, it was a sad reality that some would contract COVID-19 and die before they could be vaccinated.
After hoping for a COVID-19 immunization for months and then battling the disease for weeks after one never came, Air Force veteran Diane Drewes was on her last breath in an Ohio hospice center when the phone rang.
It was a counselor who called to schedule her first appointment for a coronavirus shot.
Pictured: Air Force veteran Diane Drewes, who died while waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine
Vaccinations are on the rise as more states qualify for more residents
Drewes’ daughter Laura Brown was stunned at the timing of the January call, but she didn’t lash out on the phone or even explain that her 75-year-old mother was about to die. It just didn’t make sense, she said.
“But me and my sister were upset that it was too late,” said Brown. “It seemed like the last insult.”
Surveys show that a large percentage of the American population is wary of vaccines, so it’s impossible to say exactly how many of the dead would have wanted a vaccination at all.
But Brown said her mother wanted one – desperately.
Other families have similar, painful stories of loved ones who became infected after staying safe for months and then died before they could receive a dose.
Charlotte Crawford, who has worked in the microbiology lab at Parkland Hospital in Dallas for 40 years, was fully immunized in January after receiving two doses of the Moderna vaccine because of her job.
Still, she then underwent the pain of watching her husband and two adult children contract and die COVID-19 before they could receive an injection.
Henry Royce Crawford, 65, had an appointment for a vaccination when he fell ill, his widow said. Their kids, Roycie Crawford, 33, and Natalia Crawford, 38, also wanted the shot, but had to find one more when they got sick and died, Crawford said.
Natalia Crawford died in Texas before she had the chance to receive a COVID-19 vaccine
Henry Royce Crawford died before receiving a vaccine. The 65-year-old had an appointment but fell ill, along with two of his children who also died, including Natalia Crawford
The days since their deaths in late February and early March seem a mess for Crawford; she’s still trying to figure out what happened, begging anyone who will listen to get a vaccine as soon as possible.
“All I know is that I did three funerals in three weeks,” said Crawford of Forney, Texas.
While more than 101 million people in the US have received at least one dose of vaccine, only 57 million have been fully vaccinated, or about 17.5% of the country’s population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now that doses are more widely available, withdrawals are accelerating. More than a dozen states have made the vaccine accessible to all adults amid an increase in the number of virus cases.
Only the Johnson & Johnson injection is completed after one dose, so the waiting time between the first and second injections of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines leaves a period of weeks in which a recipient remains vulnerable and subject to infection.
Waiting for a second shot turned out to be too long for Las Vegas’ Richard Rasmussen, daughter Julie Rasmussen said.
Richard Rasmussen, 73, was a fervent believer in wearing face masks for protection and received his first dose of Pfizer vaccine in early January. “He was very excited to get his vaccine,” she said.
Still, Rasmussen tested positive for the virus 10 days later and died on February 19 before receiving a second dose, Julie Rasmussen said. His latest drop was astonishing for his speed, she said.
Pictured: Julie Rasmussen and her father, Richard, who died awaiting his second dose
“And now I’m alone,” Rasmussen said in an email interview. ‘He was my best friend. We text every day, all day. I do not have brothers or sisters. Not a husband / boyfriend. He was single. I am all alone navigating the legal system and packing his house. ‘
On the same day Rasmussen died, Oklahoma City’s Deidre Love Sullens stood in the icy, snowy parking lot of a vaccination clinic amid grief over the loss of both her mother, Catherine Douglas, 65, and stepfather, Asa Bartlett Douglas, 58, to COVID-19 in a period of 16 days before they could shoot.
She and I saw the vaccine as the only life-changing factor that would allow us to see each other personally again. It was our goal.
“We all wanted to get the vaccine so that we could get back together so that my mother could play with my daughter again, so that maybe we could visit my grandmother in the nursing home and not be limited to window visits,” Sullens said in an interview. by email.
More than 101 million Americans have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. Pictured: A cancer patient in Louisville receives an injection
Still, vaccinations make up only 17.5 percent of the total US population
On that cold February day, with some doses left because bad weather prevented others from making appointments, an employee called Sullens to the clinic to get vaccinated. Sullens said she was overcome with tears and a “surreal feeling of disbelief” when she entered.
‘I thought,’ If only my parents could have lasted two months longer … they would have gotten the vaccine here too. They would still be alive. They would be here with me, ” she said.
Hope is emerging in the field of vaccination: About 3 million Americans are given a dose every day, according to the CDC.
Many states are also on track to make the vaccine available to all people 16 and older by the end of April, with Alabama being the most recent to follow suit.
Infections are not diminishing as expected, raising fears of another COVID-19 wave
On average, less than 1,000 people died every day in the past week
In addition, fully vaccinated Americans receive travel guidance, although the CDC still doesn’t recommend it.
But CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky recently admitted feeling an “ impending doom ” over the possible spate of new cases coming to the country.
Many states are also abolishing their COVID-19 restrictions, leading to calls that it is too early to ignore important security measures.
“I ask, I implore you, don’t give up on the progress we’ve all fought so hard for,” President Joe Biden said in the White House Friday, according to the New York Times.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been more than 30.6 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States.
Of those cases, 554,106 people died, making the United States one of the deadliest countries in the world for coronavirus victims.
There are more than 30.6 million cases of coronavirus in the US, with 554,106 deaths