Fully vaccinated southwest flight attendant dies from COVID-19

A 36-year-old fully vaccinated Southwest Airlines flight attendant from New York has died after contracting COVID-19.

Las Vegas-based Maurice “Reggie” Shepperson tested positive for the virus in early July and succumbed to the disease Tuesday after being treated in a hospital for a month, a colleague and friend told USA Today.

He was on a ventilator before he died, according to his mother.

It was not immediately clear when he was vaccinated against COVID-19. The vaccines take three weeks after the second injection to become fully effective.

It was also not clear if the flight attendant had any pre-existing conditions.

A Southwest Airlines spokesperson confirmed to USA Today that a Las Vegas-based crew member died on Tuesday.

Serious infections of COVID-19 among those vaccinated are extremely rare, even though the highly contagious Delta variant has spread across the United States.

The latest figures released on the CDC’s website showed that only 8,054 – or 0.005% – of the 166 million Americans who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 had suffered serious infections resulting in hospitalization or death in the August 9.

The vast majority of those who became seriously ill (74%) were aged 65 or older, the data showed.

Shepperson’s mother Dawn Shepperson said her son’s death was “mind-boggling.”

“It hurt a lot because it was so fast,” she told USA Today.

“I haven’t even had time to really recognize what’s going on. It’s breathtaking, ”added the grieving mother. “It’s not true. It’s not true. It’s not true.”

Dawn Shepperson, who raised her son on her own after his father died as a baby, said she was “proud” to be Reggie’s mother.

“People that I don’t even know, once they found out that I’m Reggie’s mom, said, ‘Ma’am, you did a great job. He’s a good young man, ”she said, according to the media outlet. “As a mother, I feel so blessed and proud because all I wanted in life was to raise my son properly.”

Marcia Hildreth, another Southwest flight attendant, also told USA Today Shepperson received the nickname “Skittles” in 2014 because of her colorful outfit during flight attendant training.

Travis Pittman, another Las Vegas-based flight attendant for Southwest, described his colleague as “so nice” and “like a teddy bear.”

“That New York exterior can come off hard and stuff,” he told the store. “But he was like a teddy bear, so soft on the inside and very, very loving. It’s just a lot of fun to be with.

“We are heartbroken over the loss of our Southwest employee,” Southwest spokesperson Brandy King said in a statement to the publication.

“Out of respect for the family, we have no additional information to share.”