The truth about COVID-19 and vaccines

Stop making COVID seem like it’s not a big deal

Megan Valadez / Asst. Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

My family of six and I, including two high risk parents and an 82-year-old grandmother, contracted the COVID-19 Omicron variant, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted. We were considered breakthrough cases. 

I think it is important to note that the Delta and Omicron variants are not going to be the last variant we see. 

It seems as if our country learned nothing after the Delta variant when it comes to testing efficiency. 

Testing needs to be easier and more accessible. We should have been prepared for testing surges when the Omicron variant hit, but unfortunately, we were not. 

We were able to dodge COVID for over two years because we took every single precaution possible, despite my parents having to work in person. 

Everything precaution, from weekly testing to wiping down anything we bought from the grocery store, to washing any article of clothing that was worn outside the house and not seeing anyone outside of our immediate family was exercised in our household. 

We had no idea the journey we would embark on over the next week. 

It all started when it took us over two hours of online research just to find a PCR testing site that would take all six of us. That testing site was almost an hour away. 

Throughout the week that my family had COVID, we ended up getting tested five different times, at three different testing sites. 

Over the course of three days, I spent a total of ten hours waiting in line to get tested. My parents missed multiple hours of work and my siblings and I missed days of school. 

According to the New York Times, around 500,000 California residents tested positive for COVID-19 the week of Jan. 2, 2022. That same week, around 4-5 million Californians got tested. 

The reason I include this information is to show just how many people needed to be tested, which most likely resulted in millions of people waiting in long lines, or waiting multiple days for PCR results. 

I found myself imagining what it would be like to be in the shoes of millions of people who waited in line like my family and me. I thought about what would happen if my mom’s boss wasn’t so understanding to give her the paid time off to test multiple times. 

I imagined what it would be like to lose my job because I had to wait long, treacherous hours in a line just to get tested. I didn’t even want to imagine what it would be like to lose a week’s pay because you got the virus that was spreading a mile a minute; unable to provide necessities for your family. 

We should not have people waiting to get tested for hours in the freezing cold temperatures of New York City. People should not have to take a whole day off of work just to wait in line. I should not have spent over two hours on the internet in hopes of finding a test. I should not have to drive an hour away just to get tested. And I should not have to wait three to five days for my results to come back. 

We need to think about the endless repercussions of COVID, and not just the possibility of having long-term COVID or lasting symptoms. 

We need to think about the millions of people who have lost their jobs because they spent too much time waiting in line for a test or recovering from COVID. We must think about the people who were forced to go to work while they were infected, possibly spreading the virus to more people. Once again, capitalism prevails. 

I think a lot about the hypotheticals and what-ifs. But my biggest question was: What if my parents and grandmother were not vaccinated and boosted? We let COVID run its course through our house because we all knew we had mild symptoms. Not everyone is lucky enough to do that. I was lucky enough to see that despite my grandmother and parents being high risk, that their symptoms were fairly minimal. Not all high risk people are afforded that. 

According to the official California state government website, from Jan. 17 to Jan. 23 of 2022, unvaccinated people were 5.9 times more likely to get COVID-19 than people who received their booster dose and 11.4 times more likely to be hospitalized. From Jan. 10  to Jan. 16 of 2022, unvaccinated people were 21.8 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than people who received their booster dose.

Getting COVID is not as easy as people make it out to be, especially when your whole family gets it at once. 

It was impossible to find testing within an adequate distance, we wasted hours of our days waiting in line to get tested, and we could not prevent the entire household from getting COVID due to simply not having enough rooms for us to quarantine in.

Stop making COVID seem like it’s not a big deal, because it is. 

It was the hardest week of my life and I am grateful that my whole family was okay. If my grandmother and parents were not vaccinated and boosted, they probably would not have survived. I would not be writing this article because I would still be grieving the loss of my family members after their funerals. My siblings and I would be parentless and I would have to be their main caregiver. Life can change in the blink of an eye.

Think about my story, and the stories of the millions of lives that were flipped upside-down after they lost a loved one due to COVID-19. 

Remember this story the next time you tell someone COVID isn’t a big deal. 

Stop being selfish and get vaccinated if you qualify.