DALLAS — Exactly a year ago, Teresa Mata admits she was a little nervous.
“I [was] seeing a lot of people sick, so I said I want it. I do,” she said.
Mata, who cleaned the ER at time, had shown up to work a little early Dec. 14, 2020, and ended up first in line at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.
She became the first person in Texas to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“This morning I got out of bed I was thinking about that, and I can’t believe it,” she said. “Wow, one year.”
Dr. Brad Sellers is the medical director in the ER and lost both patients and co-workers to COVID. He was fourth in line for a dose of relief and hope.
“That was my biggest fear, that I was going to die from COVID taking care of a patient who was very sick,” he said. “Getting a vaccine that we knew would save our lives was an amazing feeling.”
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A couple days later, the first shipment arrived at Cook Children’s in Forth Worth. Dr. Suzanne Whitworth is the infectious diseases medical director. She remembers staff filming the arrival of the doses and was one of the first to be vaccinated at the hospital.
“We were just beside ourselves, we were so happy,” she said. “This was just the sign that we were going be able to get past this.”
Staff there could be vaccinated, but eligibility for 12 to 17-year-olds only started this summer and last month for 5 to 11-year-olds.
“This has been a really long year,” Whitworth said. “I feel this sadness when we have a really sick teenager in the hospital who could’ve been vaccinated but wasn’t.”
In a year, U.S. COVID-19 cases have tripled from 16.7 million cases a year ago to 50 million now, and 200,000 unvaccinated Americans have died.
“I’m not sure we’ve had any COVID disease in the hospital in a vaccinated teenager,” Whitworth said.
Fears of serious vaccine side effects have been clearly disproven and health officials found unvaccinated Texans died this year at 40 times the rate of those vaccinated.
“I think it got turned into a little bit of a political issue, instead of turning it into a health issue,” Sellers said. “I’m sad for those people who have chosen not to get it for reasons of false information.”
At least 76% of eligible Americans and 70% of eligible Texans have received at least one dose, but the long lines and heavy demand have faded. Now, cases are again on the rise.
“We have everything in place to deal with that initial surge, but our staff is exhausted and taking care of another group of people who may not be vaccinated currently is going to be – is just going to take another hit on us,” Sellers said.
“So often I’ll hear people say, ‘we just haven’t gotten around to it’ or ‘we just still had some questions about it’,” Whitworth said.
Vaccines provide the same hope and relief they did a year ago, but the loss of life is now much more tragic.
“Please, take the shot,” Mata said. “We need to stop this pandemic.”