A WEEK ago today yet another Northern Ireland family was grappling with the devastating loss of a loved one from the relentless Covid-19.
Samantha Willis died in ICU at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry where she had spent 16 days receiving the best care her medical team could give.
The 35-year-old was a mother-of-four, but never got to hold her newborn baby girl Eviegrace who was delivered during her time in hospital.
Despite still struggling himself to reconcile a future so different from the “40 or more years together” they had planned, her widower has been trying to save other lives.
The data will record Samantha Willis as `one of the unvaccinated’, but her tragedy illustrates that behind these alarming statistics is a person with a complex story.
Josh Willis explained in the early stages of her pregnancy the public health advice had been against vaccination for expectant mothers.
That advice changed when Samantha was 28 weeks pregnant, but by then the couple thought it was safe to continue with the status quo.
They were not vaccine refuseniks - Josh was double-jabbed – but, having made it so far, decided Samantha would wait until after the baby was born.
I know four women with `lockdown babies’ who did not get the vaccine.
That is to say I do not know a single pregnant woman who has had the vaccine.
All nursing mothers, they have not got it since either.
I didn’t judge a single one of them, even though my own phone had barely stopped pinging from the text message inviting me for a vaccine before I was dialling the number for an appointment.
I’ve also been forwarding details of vaccination extensions to each family member as they became eligible – the feeling of relief when the last (so far) got their jabs is indescribable.
But I sat silent when pregnant and breastfeeding friends told me they hadn’t accepted vaccinations.
Some were unsure how strong the changed “advice” to them was, having trusted the earlier warning not to receive it.
Overriding acceptance which you have come to after hours of worry and heart-searching is not easy.
Yes, we have all had to do it time and time again during this pandemic.
Many of us obediently eschewed face masks in the early months, convinced by assurances it would increase spread by encouraging people to touch their faces more frequently.
Those same people have been diligently wearing one since it became mandatory, now being told it protects them and others.
However, pregnant women were among the group being told the side-effects of available vaccines were potentially more risky than the virus itself.
They are among those now being implored to have that same vaccine.
Eighteen months after the pandemic began, health chiefs are battling to reach 99 per cent vaccination coverage. Unlike other parts of the world, we have the drugs to achieve it.
But we also have confusion, we have fear and we have complacency.
From what I have seen confusion and fear have been most prevalent among pregnant women.
Pregnancy is a time when the weight of responsibility you feel for another life is almost unbearable.
You worry about what damage might be done by an unthinking sip, by an unknowing bite, after lifting an unexpected weight. All your focus is on a safe delivery.
“We were so close to the end and we had been so careful,” Josh Willis said in what he hopes is a salutary warning to others.
He has learned first hand that Covid-19 is a rapacious force. One which is going to take every medical and scientific weapon in the world’s arsenal to survive.
The Willis family has selflessly offered their grief to help thousands of people they do not know and will probably never meet.
“I hope our story can help, that we can make Samantha proud, that we can save even one person.”
Without a doubt it will.
