A woman whose father died of COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated says his suffering would have been much worse if he had not gotten the shot.
When Patricio Elizondo,76, fell ill a week ago, his daughter Yvonne Rodriguez thought he was experiencing a flare-up of congestive heart failure or a recurring infection.
Rodriguez told Newsweek that her father visited doctors and hospitals a number of times before he was admitting because he was having difficulty breathing. A chest x-ray showed that he had caught COVID and it had damaged his lungs.
He died on Tuesday of lung complications related to COVID.
In addition to heart problems, Elizondo had diabetes, making him a greater risk of developing severe COVID-19. Because of this, Rodriguez said he was careful to take precautions, including staying indoors, wearing a mask and gloves.
She has no idea where he caught the virus.
Despite this, Rodriguez still believes in the vaccines.
“I saw my dad, how sick he was,” she told KSAT.com . “I can’t imagine how much more he would have suffered if he had not gotten the vaccine.”
According to Jan Patterson, an infectious disease specialist at UT Health, Rodriguez was right in her assessment, that her father would have suffered more if he had not been vaccinated.
Since no vaccine is 100 percent effective at preventing people from getting sick, breakthrough infections are expected. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “there is some evidence that vaccination may make illness less severe for those who are vaccinated and still get sick.”
According to a New York Times analysis, breakthrough infections account for between 0.1 percent and 5 percent of hospitalized people in 40 states and Washington D.C., and between 0.2 and 6 percent of those who have died.
