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Chang, who works in the banking industry, has been working from her home in Gardendale, Alabama, since last year and doesn’t really interact with anyone, she said. Chang said she felt safe.
But she has since changed her mind, highlighting, in part, the rise of the Delta variant and people who typically don’t wear masks in public.
“It’s got to the point where you turn around and people get sick, people I know get sick,” Chang said. “And there’s no way I can get sick with this baby coming.”
Alabama has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States: it is one of two states – the other being Mississippi – with less than 35% of the population fully vaccinated. But amid the rise in Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations, the state is reporting a slight increase in inoculations, and officials hope the trend continues in people like Chang.
As of Thursday, the 7-day average of vaccine doses administered per day in the state was around 13,301 doses, according to a CNN analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is up from the previous month, when the 7-day average of doses given each day was around 7,250 doses.
Alabama is one of a handful of states that are “now vaccinating people at a rate not seen since April,” White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said in a briefing Thursday.
UAB Hospital, the state’s largest, administered more than 3,000 injections per day in the spring. A month ago, it had fallen to about 80 a day, Vanessa Davis, the hospital’s injection clinic supervisor, told CNN. Over the past week, it has been slightly higher, around 200 a day, she said.
“(People) are getting vaccinated so they can feel normal again,” Davis said when asked what is changing people’s minds. Parents fear sending their children back to school this fall, and some are returning to work for the first time in a year. Others just want to travel again, or they are tired of feeling locked in the house, Davis said.
But they are also afraid.
“They told us that before they were pretty healthy and never got sick, and now they see people they know and love to get sick and hospitalized and sometimes die,” she said. at CNN. “And that scares them quite a bit. It’s that tipping point where they’re ultimately more afraid of the virus than the vaccine.”
This is true for Chang, who has been thinking about his 2-year-old daughter and unborn son. She had heard about the Delta variant and its transmissibility every time she listened to the news, she said. But it was her role as a mother that ultimately led her to make the decision.
“I wouldn’t forgive myself if I got so sick that I can’t take care of them,” she said.
Cases and hospitalizations are on the rise
Alabama, like much of the United States, is experiencing a wave of Covid-19 infections, driven in large part by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
The seven-day average of new cases Wednesday was about 2,622 reported cases per day, according to an analysis of Johns Hopkins data – a 131% increase from the 7-day average of new cases two weeks earlier.
Hospitalizations are increasing, according to data from Health and Social Services, with 1,965 hospitalizations reported Thursday, against 298 a month ago.
Davis, from UAB Hospital, said it was “frustrating” that the pace of vaccination was slow, despite the continuing threat from Covid-19. And she worries that things will get worse.
The pace hasn’t improved as much as she would like, but Davis is hopeful.
“I feel like right now we still have a lot of vaccine for patient demand that we have now,” Davis said. “I really wish we got to the point where we run out of vaccines because that means we’ve vaccinated a lot of people.”
In light of the wave, a group of Alabama hospital presidents, CEOs and other medical professionals issued a joint statement this week urging Alabamians to get vaccinated.
“We represent health care providers who have seen far too many of our citizens fall ill and die from this disease, including children,” the group wrote. “We join with all of you in wishing this was gone, but for this to happen it will be necessary for all of us. We respectfully ask those currently unvaccinated to reconsider their decision. The benefits of getting the FAR vaccine outweigh everything else. potential risk. “
Vaccinations are increasing across the country: In a tweet Thursday, White House data director Dr Cyrus Shahpar said more than 864,000 doses had been given of the previous day’s total, of which around 585,000 had been administered. people who received their first injection. This is the highest number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered – and new vaccinations – reported in a single day in more than a month, according to the White House.
“It can be a tipping point for those who have hesitated to say, ‘OK, it’s about time,’” Collins said. “I hope that is what happens. This is what desperately needs to happen if we are to put this Delta variant back in its place.”
What makes them change their mind
Chang’s husband, Joseph Millwood, works in health care and has had a long history of vaccinations. He knew the threat Covid-19 posed to his wife and urged her to get vaccinated.
Chang admitted that she was initially concerned about how this might affect her baby. “But then, watching people die,” she said, “I had to weigh my options.”
She was vaccinated after seeing her gynecologist, who told her it was strongly recommended that she get the vaccine. So, a day or two later, Chang was tested to make sure she was negative. As soon as she tested negative, she received the vaccine.
But for other people CNN spoke to in Birmingham, Alabama, it’s easier. Some, like Keith Snow, just want to get back to normal.
Speaking in front of the UAB hospital vaccination clinic and Bearing a sticker that read, “I got my Covid-19 vaccine,” Snow told CNN he “really didn’t want to get it at all” because he didn’t think he would get sick.
“But my wife and I are getting ready to travel,” he said, “so she told me we were going to need it for travel. So here I am.”
As a nurse, 23-year-old Casey Krzeczkowski had the opportunity to be vaccinated for a while, but she just received her second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine about a month ago. Now that she has it, she’s relieved, Krzeczkowski said, especially with the upsurge in infections and it is said that her hospital unit may be forced to treat coronavirus patients.
So why wait until now?
“I obviously knew this was going to protect us from Covid, but I just needed a little time to research and decide if it was best for me or not,” she said. She added that without a mask warrant, she felt that “if I was not going to wear my mask anymore, I should probably just protect myself.”
Ellyn Norris just received her first blow on Monday. The 20-year-old had Covid-19 but ultimately got the vaccine in part because she works in education with special needs children. She didn’t want to endanger her mother, a lung cancer survivor.
“When I got it, she was having chemo at the time, so I had to stay high up, completely away from her,” Norris said. “And then I thought, you know, if I got it again, I don’t even want to risk that.”
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