The wife of a Florida mayor says COVID-19 has killed six of her loved ones in just three weeks.
Wilson, an aide to Palm Beach County commissioner Melissa McKinlay, had gone door-to-door in Belle Glade educating locals about the coronavirus vaccine earlier this summer. So the loss of her family members to the virus is particularly difficult.
“I was in their ears almost every day. ‘You’ve just got to do this,’ " Wilson toldThe Palm Beach Poston Tuesday. “I’m beating myself up. Should I have pushed harder?”
There, they hit a snag. “We were checking other hospitals and there was not a single bed available in Palm Beach County. They had to transport him to a hospital an hour and a half away,” Wilson said.
Moreland was eventually taken to Lakeside Medical Center for treatment but ultimately died.
The next day, one of Wilson’s cousins died in the hospital as well. She lost three more cousins within the next two weeks.
“You can’t grieve the death of one because then the next day or two someone else has passed away, so it’s been really hard to comprehend and try to figure this all out,” Wilson told the station.
Now, the vaccine advocate has an urgent message for those who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I need for everybody to hear this message,” she said. “Don’t trade places with me and my family.”
Vaccine.Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty
Wilson isn’t the only one that wants to relay the message to those who have yet to be inoculated. “My family that was dying on their death bed, they also wanted me to let people know to get vaccinated,” she noted.
“They were just scared,” Wilson confessed to CNN.
McKinley hopes the community will not only listen to Wilson’s story, but also act for the sake of their own loved ones.
Wilson simply is hopeful that her story will help save at least one person. “We are at a critical time. People are dying.”
So far, Wilson appears to have already changed a few minds. “I think I have now convinced ten members of my family to get a vaccine,” she told CNN.
source: people.com
