They realised they were wrong too late: The anti-vaxxers making the best case for the Covid shot

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Blake Bargatze was planning to wait a few years before getting one of the available Covid-19 vaccines.

The 24-year-old’s hesitancy, mother Cheryl Bargatze Nuclo told The Independent, was based on him thinking he had time to see how the vaccine worked for others before getting it himself. He made this decision despite the rest of his family receiving one.

On 27 March, Mr Bargatze attended an indoor concert in Florida, where it is believed he contracted Covid-19.

His months-long hospital battle with Covid-19 has since resulted in the 24-year-old receiving a double lung transplant, and he is now telling his story in an effort to convince other people to get a vaccine.

“He made a poor choice, in my mind, during this time in our country,” Ms Nuclo said. “He wasn’t doing anything bad. He went to a concert and got sick, and he’s more than paid the price for it.”

“It’s just been horrific, and he doesn’t want anybody else to go through the pain of what we’ve been going through,” she added.

When Mr Bargatze’s symptoms first started, they mirrored those of a sinus infection. Although the 24-year-old vaped, he was otherwise in good health, so it came as a surprise when his oxygen levels plummeted and he was hospitalised in April.

“When he got sick, did I ever think he’d be having to have a transplant? No, not in the beginning. But then there was one point where I thought I’d be planning his funeral,” Ms Nuclo said.

Mr Bargatze was first hospitalised in Florida before his health became so dire that his family transferred him to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, so he could be placed on ECMO – a machine that allows a patient’s heart and lungs to rest by pumping and oxygenating the blood outside the body.

Soon it became clear the best chance of survival would be for him to receive a lung transplant, and he was moved to University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore to be placed on the transplant list.

He received a double lung transplant in June and has been on the road to recovery since.

“Three days before he had his transplant, they gave him the first dose [of the vaccine],” Ms Nuclo said, adding that her son pressed doctors to receive it as soon as he was allowed.

On the day Ms Nuclo spoke to The Independent, Mr Bargatze stood up from his hospital bed with the assistance of three people – making it the first time he’s stood up since becoming hospitalised from the virus 14 weeks earlier.

“His goal is to be able to walk by his birthday, which is 9 August,” she said.

Mr Bargatze was transferred to an inpatient acute care rehab facility in Maryland at the end of July, according to the family’s GoFundMe page, which was created to assist with the hefty hospital bills they’ve acquired during this battle with Covid-19.

While at the facility, he will take part in physical therapy and occupational therapy to help him transition back to normal life.

“Blake is a totally changed person and you can see the change in him,” Ms Nuclo said. “He is out of the norm, we’re not saying everybody’s going to end up with a double lung transplant, but you just don’t ever know.”

“He just doesn’t want anybody else to go through it or have their family go through what we’ve been through, and we’re still not through it,” she added. “We’re going to have a whole new norm for life for us.”

Reports of people regretting not receiving one of the available Covid-19 vaccines in the United States have surged in recent months amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Unvaccinated individuals who contracted Covid-19, as well as their loved ones, have issued warnings about the potential risk others could face if they make a similar choice in not receiving the vaccine.

Michele Preissler of Pasadena, Maryland, was among the loved ones now issuing a warning to the unvaccinated after her husband, Darryl, lost his battle to Covid-19 on 22 May.

The family believes that the 63-year-old, who was a grandfather and owned his own carpentry business, contracted the virus after he attended a wedding in April where other close family members later tested positive for Covid-19.

Mr Preissler was hospitalised at the end of April due to low oxygen levels, and his wife described the battle during his hospitalisation as a “roller-coaster ride from hell”.

“This is what Covid does. It makes you really sick and then you’ll get a little better and then you get sick again,” she told The Independent. “It’s like going up and down every day. I didn’t know what to expect.”

She received the vaccine because of her job as a hospital worker, but her husband decided to hold off on getting the jab.

“He wasn’t crazy about getting it and to be honest with you, I wasn’t either,” Mrs Preissler said. She decided to get the vaccine because her work is with immunocompromised cancer patients, so she wanted to protect those around her.

“I think it was going to be like this: I would have made the appointment or found where he should go … and he would’ve gone. That’s what I should’ve done instead of throwing it in his court and leaving it up to him to figure out,” she added.

There were ups and downs in Mr Preissler’s hospital stay, including days when the couple thought his health was improving. But then doctors informed the couple that he needed to be sedated and intubated in an effort to get oxygen into his body.

“He kept saying no because he was scared,” Mrs Preissler said about being intubated. “He said, ‘I’m going to die … I’m going to make you a widow at 60 years old.’ And he did.”

Mr Preissler died on 22 May after suffering a watershed stroke. The couple were supposed to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary later this year.

“I have to figure out what to do, make a new path, make a new name, make a new life,” she said. “It’s awful, it’s terrible. You’ve lived with the person for all that time and then they’re gone. I miss him so much.”

By sharing his story, Mrs Preissler hopes it will encourage at least one other person to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Maybe this will change their mind. Maybe this will save a life,” she said. “And if I can save one, great. My husband would want [the vaccine]. I’ve known that man since I was 23 years old. I’m sure he was regretting not getting it.”

The United States entered the summer months with optimism – as infections, hospitalisations, and death rates all decreased with more people getting vaccinated.

But the rise of the highly contagious Delta variant has caused a recent surge, and now the country is averaging nearly 80,000 new cases per day.

While vaccines have proven to be effective against the variants, health experts have warned the pandemic is far from over. Unvaccinated individuals are driving the increase in cases, hospitalisations and deaths across the country, specifically in under-vaccinated areas.

The rise in the Delta variant encouraged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to update its guidance by asking everyone to wear masks indoors. This update came as a study found the Delta variant was as dangerous as chickenpox, and one infected individual could likely spread it to eight or nine other people.

“Everybody’s acting like it’s over, but it’s not over. It’s still out there,” Mrs Preissler said. “I was hesitant. I understand. But look at your pros and cons, why would you want to roll the dice?”

A silver lining to the Delta variant spike has been the increased vaccination numbers the country has recorded in recent weeks.

The CDC reported on Sunday that 816,203 additional doses were administered, which made it the fifth straight day that the agency recorded more than 700,000 jabs put into arms in a single day.

All 50 states have reported rising vaccination rates and there was a 73 per cent increase nationwide of those receiving their first dose, according to a data analysis by ABC News.

Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Oklahoma were the five states that have recorded the most substantial increase in vaccinations, and they were also some of the states most hit by a rise in infection rates. In Louisiana, which has the nation’s highest infection rate, people receiving the first dose of the vaccine has increased by 333 per cent.

“This increase in vaccination rates in states that have been lagging is a positive trend. Americans are seeing the risk and impact of being unvaccinated and responding with action. And that’s what it’s going to take to get us out of this pandemic,” White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said on Monday at a press briefing.

Maureen Miller, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University, has divided the remaining unvaccinated into four groups. “Anti-Vaxxers, those who continue to lack access to vaccines, younger people with different priorities than vaccination, and those who are truly hesitant,” she told The Independent.

Anti-vaxxers, she said, are not where health experts and government officials should focus their vaccination efforts.

“I don’t think resources should be targeted in that direction right now because they are a minority,” Ms Miller said. “I think probably one of the easiest groups right now for vaccine campaigns are those who lack access, and they’re arguably the most vulnerable.”

The epidemiologist credited hyper-local initiatives in communities as one reason why vaccination rates have increased in recent weeks. Other factors could be people’s fear of the Delta variant, increased government incentives, and individuals seeing those close to them contract the virus.

“Certainly I think the impact of people very sick or dying and imploring their family members to get vaccinated is having some impact, but I think that’s happening on a very personal level,” she said. “You, yourself, have to know somebody who’s seriously ill or who died before you’re going to get it together and get vaccinated. I don’t think it’s having as big an impact as it needs to have.”

Increased vaccination rates won’t make an impact on the current surge of the Delta variant, though.

“Because the Delta variant is so much more transmissible, the originally discussed 70 per cent vaccination threshold is no longer viable. It’s now between 85 to 95 per cent,” Ms Miller said.

“This is hugely transmissible,” she added. “It’s in line with chickenpox, measles, the most transmissible airborne infections that exist. So that means a lot of people have to be vaccinated globally to get this under control.”