Unvaccinated Texas mom and dad on ventilators beg their 4 kids to get COVID shots
It’s likely too late for Lydia Rodriguez to get vaccinated - she and her husband, Lawrence, are breathing with the help of machines in a Texas intensive care unit - but their four children, she hopes, will get the shots.
“One of the last things she said before being intubated was to make sure her kids get vaccinated,” Rodriguez’ cousin Dottie Jones said in a Facebook post.
Lydia and Lawrence Rodriguez, of La Marque, were admitted to a hospital three weeks ago, ill with COVID-19, KTRK reported. Despite constant medical care, the virus has continued ravaging their bodies.
“We’ve been told they are very, very, very, very sick is what the doctor told us,” Jones told the TV station. “And if they do survive, it’s going to be a long, long road.”
Jones is asking for prayers, words of encouragement, any and all help that friends can spare for her cousin and family. She’s taken in their kids for the time being, Jones said, and on top of the emotional toll, the household and medical bills are “becoming overwhelming.”
But this all could have been avoided, Jones said.
“My 42 yo cousin didn’t believe in the vaccine. Now she and her husband are in the ICU on vents fighting for their lives with this delta variant while their 4 children are at home,” Jones said on Facebook.
“The vaccine works and this delta variant is brutal. You don’t want to end up like them I promise.”
As contagious as chicken pox, the delta variant is rapidly spreading across the United States, spurring a significant increase in cases in recent weeks, McClatchy News reported. In late July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the delta variant accounted for 83 percent of those cases.
While there are breakthrough cases, cases of vaccinated people catching coronavirus, these are rare, and experts say the COVID vaccines remain highly effective, McClatchy reported.
“I just am tired of the anti-vax rhetoric that is causing so many, like my cousin and her family, to not get vaccinated,” Jones told KTRK.
She hopes others will learn from her family and avoid becoming a cautionary tale themselves.
“Our hearts are just broken,” Jones said. “We hurt for the kids. We hurt for (their parents) and we just want them better and home.”
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