HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Mercedes Rosario, 30, was skeptical for months about the Covid-19 vaccine, and may not have rolled up her sleeve at all to be vaccinated.
Then she learned she wouldn’t be able to go to her 5-year-old daughter’s dance rehearsals unless she showed a Covid-19 vaccination card to enter the dance studio.
“That changed my mind,” she said. “I want to be there for my daughter and watch her performances, so I got vaccinated. She’s my only child.”
Rosario, a hairdresser, got her second dose of the Moderna vaccine at the University of Guam Calvo Field House on Friday, weeks before the dance studio’s planned major show that will include her daughter, she said.
Moving the needle on Covid-19 vaccine uptake has taken many conversations with hesitant residents.
The vaccine debate has nearly divided the community and, as recently as Saturday, dozens of residents held the latest rally protesting the government’s vaccine mandates. Monday marked the deadline for employees of restaurants, bars, dance studios, gyms and other covered private sector establishments to be vaccinated. Otherwise, these employees must be tested weekly.
For the kids and grandkids
For some families, the vaccine has brought them closer together.
Katherine Hermal said she decided to get vaccinated mostly for the sake of her 10-month-old grandchild.
And it wasn’t only Katherine who was vaccinated last week, but also her third oldest child and her spouse, who got the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
A utility worker, Hermal said she planned on getting the vaccine for quite a while but she was busy at work. The inclement weather last week gave her an unexpected break from work and time to get vaccinated with her family.
Evelyn Celis, 51, said she’s scared of needles and that’s the reason she didn’t want to get vaccinated, even after several months had passed since the availability of the vaccine.
But when one of her daughters recently gave birth, she said she had to face her fear so she could be around her youngest grandchild.
“I did it for my kids and my grandkids,” she said, after getting her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. With her to get the vaccine were her two daughters. They also brought with them the newborn and a 2-year-old.
One of Celis’ daughters, Eviann Palacios, 17, will be back to face-to-face learning this week.
“I am excited to go back to school but I’m also nervous. I hope I don’t catch it (the virus),” she said.
And then there were the constant pleas from loved ones.
“My mother always has a way of making you do things,” Renee Fejeran, 35, said. “She just keeps nagging me about getting the vaccine. I really didn’t want it because I don’t trust the vaccine.”
In the end, Fejeran got her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week, she said.
“I still don’t want it, but my mother, she doesn’t stop. I know she’s looking out for me,” Fejeran said.
Vaccination slowdown
The rush of highly motivated people flocking to mass vaccination sites is long over, and the rate of vaccinations has slowed.
The ongoing surges in new daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths have brought more people to the vaccination sites, but the lines weren’t as long as they were during the initial months of the vaccines’ availability.
Medical experts, government officials and employers have weighed in on the importance of becoming vaccinated, but families, in the end, are the ones bringing the remaining vaccine holdouts to the vaccination sites.
Some 18,000 Guam residents who are eligible to get the Covid-19 vaccine have not been vaccinated, for a number of reasons. But Guam has among the highest vaccination rates in the nation. Guam’s vaccination rate has hit nearly 87% among vaccine-eligible individuals, or those at least 12 years old.
‘Better safe than sorry’
Angelo Pangelinan, 24, said he had doubts about the vaccines because they are “fairly new,” so he didn’t plan on getting vaccinated.
But he’s about to start a new job as an auto mechanic, and his employer is requiring Covid-19 vaccinations among existing and new employees for a safer workplace, he said.
“I am supporting my 5-year-old daughter, so having a full-time job allows me to do that. If that requires me getting vaccinated so I can be in this job and support my daughter, so be it,” Pangelinan said after getting his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
He said, despite not being vaccinated for months, he kept his distance, watched his hygiene and wore a mask to protect himself from the virus.
“Better safe than sorry,” said Vekina Ichihara, 23, after getting her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. “The chance of getting hospitalized if you catch it is lower than when you’re not vaccinated. You don’t want to end up at the hospital. You don’t want your family to worry.”
Evelyn Celis, 51, left, with her daughter Eviann Palacios, 17, and granddaughter Sienna May Temb, 2, gather for a photo after three adult members of the family received their Covid-19 vaccinations at the University of Guam Calvo Field House in Mangilao on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. Nearly 87% of vaccine-eligible residents in Guam have been fully vaccinated, leaving some 18,000 residents at least 12 years old who are not vaccinated.
