New ads feature unvaccinated Americans who got COVID-19

ATLANTA - Looking into the camera, Terrell describes being 76 days into his battle with COVID-19.

"By the grace of God, I'm still here," he tells the camera.

Another may, Kole, describes how he contracted the coronavirus two months ago.

"I haven't been the same man since," he says.

Both men are part of a hard-hitting new PSA campaign sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services, featuring personal stories of Americans who chose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and then contracted COVID-19.

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It is a story Cydney Tate, a 52-year-old firefighter and EMT from Fayetteville, knows well.

"I'm a firefighter and I'm 911, on the ambulance," Tate says. "So, I am around sick people. So, I should have been the first one in line."

Tate says she delayed getting vaccinated for several months, even as her paramedic partner urged her to get the shots.

She felt the vaccine was too new, too experimental.  

Tate was healthy and thought her body would be able to fight off the virus on its own if she did get infected.

"I was taking all of the vitamins," she says. "I was, like, 'I'm gonna be good.  My immune system is going to take care of me.'"

She contracted the virus in late May, days before she was scheduled to receive her first shot.

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Five days later, she says, she went into cardiac arrest.  

Tate was airlifted from Piedmont Fayette Hospital to Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, spending 6 weeks either in a hospital and a rehabilitation facility.  

"I had organ failure, machines beeping all the time, them coming to change out bags because my kidneys shut down," Tate says. "It was just overwhelming."

The HHS ad campaign focuses on the personal stories of three people who contracted COVID-19 after choosing not to get vaccinated.

Kaiser Permanente Georgia physician and epidemiologist Dr. Felipe Lobelo says the PSA campaign follows an effective CDC campaign that focused on former smokers now living with life-altering damage from smoking.

"Listen, we need to press different buttons right now at this stage of the pandemic," Lobelo says.

Federal health officials say about 68 million Americans who are eligible to be vaccinated have not had a shot.

Lobelo says there are still many who believe COVID-19 is just another viral infection their body can fight off.

"That's not the case," Dr. Lobelo says. "We now know, not just because of the number of people involved, the deaths, now at more than 700,000, the huge number of hospitalizations, but also long COVID.  About one-third of individuals that have COVID are going to have persistent symptoms, and those symptoms are often requiring medical attention."

Cydney Tate just returned to work as a firefighter at Lockheed, 4 and a half months after her infection.

She says she is on light duty, still struggling with the side effects of COVID-19, like shortness of breath and brain fog.

"I still have, like now, in this interview, I stutter," she says. "Sometimes, I lose my train of thought. I have some nerve issues."

Tate hopes the survivor stories featured in the HHS PSA campaign will convince others not to follow her lead.

"Do you really want to have your whole life changed, all because you made a bad decision," she asks. "That's pretty much what happened to me.  I mean my whole life is changed because I made a bad decision."

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