KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) — Kansas City’s COVID-19 vaccination rate Tuesday afternoon continues to sit below 50%; 47.9% of people in the city have gotten at least their first dose.
Doctors KCTV5 spoke with today said the Delta variant is sending more young and healthy people to the ER, most of them unvaccinated.
“Certainly the sickest people are almost all unvaccinated,” said Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Joel McKinsey.
Antwaun Dunnigan is among the unvaccinated.
“You don’t realize the situation until it happens in your own home,” Dunnigan said.
For him, the scariest part of his diagnosis was not being able to breathe.
“As the oxygen level is still dropping, as you are supposed to be breathing in the air you’re supposed to get the oxygen with, that’s a scary thing,” Dunnigan said. “You’re breathing — my body is doing what it should to breathe back and forth — but my oxygen level is still dropping.”
Dunnigan said he believed his faith would protect him. He now realizes the severity of COVID-19.
“When it happens in your home and it hits home and it’s at your front door,” Dunnigan said, “then that’s when you really realize, ‘This is really real.’”
He believes he’s still alive right now because God wanted to keep him here.
Dunnigan does plan to get the vaccine in the future.
Dr. McKinsey said they advise survivors to get a shot a few months after they’re released.
“It’s definitely beneficial to be vaccinated after having COVID because it is possible, although uncommon, to get COVID a second time,” McKinsey said.
Dunnigan told KCTV5 he finally has the stamina to play with his kids again, which is something he missed while in the hospital.
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