Vaccine Voices

From Brookings to Baker City, Oregonians are getting vaccinated to protect their families, their neighbors, and their communities. Hear stories from Oregonians on why they decided to get vaccinated and make your appointment today.

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Autumn, Central Point

I'm really excited to move on and to get back to normal and to see my kids doing the things that they love and to know that they can do that safely. I don't want to see my kid get sick. So I want to protect them and keep them healthy.

Barb, Roseburg

With this COVID, especially with this last strain that's going through right now, I got vaccinated as soon as I could. But I'm encouraging everyone I can to get vaccinated because it's really the only thing we have — I mean we do distancing, we wear masks, wash our hands, we do all of that stuff — but the vaccine is the one thing that will help our bodies to fight it off if we are exposed to it.

Beth, Gold Beach

I wanted to be a model for our unsheltered community members and it worked out fine. As soon as I got vaccinated, we held a vaccine clinic up here in Gold Beach, and our most consistent unsheltered community members were first in line to get their Moderna, and they came back for their second dose.

Matt, Ashland

The notion as a parent and the worry that something could happen bad to your child as a result of this was always kind of a lurking feeling in the kind of bottom of your stomach. And as I related earlier, that is the real reason why, when my kids got their first vaccine of the series it was a profound sigh of relief.

LeeAnn, Prineville

Two weeks to the day, my son got a fever after starting school. And I was like, "Oh man, this is it." So we all had to stay home, he had to get tested, the whole nine yards. And I was like, "This is how it feels." It's just so uncomfortable and you just don't know. Luckily he was negative and he was fine, but again that worry is always there with any sniffle, any fever, any like change. So now being vaccinated, it's a little bit more like, "Oh I have that sense of relief and I can go forward with one more step closer to getting to where we want to be again."

Rosemarie, Umatilla

The thing I'm looking most forward to is being able to see my family, being able to see my friends again and not feel any guilt. And not feel like, you know, I work directly with people with COVID-19 and I shouldn't be around anyone. I want to feel like I feel integrated again. I can't wait for everyone to feel safe and integrated with each other.

Tina, Trail

The church knew I was scared, they're all "Tina! Tina!" I was so scared.

And I didn't feel it! And then, that's it! And then I went and had my second one done, and I don't feel any different.

Loren, Brookings

Delta has hit us hard. Brookings and even Del Norte and Curry County, we had this little bubble over us for a long time. Maybe our ruralness, whatever, it protected us, from a lot of the waves, you know. But when Delta hit, it hit hard. Now we're getting family members that have passed away and we're hearing direct family members. And also on the flip side of that, you know it's hard to talk to people sometimes, but you know, "I'm coming in here because I promised my grandfather I would get vaccinated. And he just passed away from COVID two days ago, or yesterday, but I promised him."

Brett, Ashland

The COVID disease was something that turned like the world upside down. In the religious community we are grounded in being with each other, being in community, and singing, and laughing, and talking, and all of those things. But then COVID hit and all of the sudden all of the stuff that really was the dynamic of the community became dangerous.

Amanda, Eugene

We felt that the vaccines were rushed to solve a very important problem that we're trying to solve. And so we thought that it hadn't gone through the process that it needed to go through and so we kind of just, 'Well we'll wait it out and see.' But then when it came down to where the delta variant was definitely coming in our area, then it became more of an adamant, like we definitely need to do something about this. Even if there are side effects, getting sick from everything that I've read and seen, is so much worse than possible side effects of the vaccine.

Sheri, La Grande

I didn't want to really influence people either way, I didn't want somebody to say, well, "She said this and so." My thing was I'm getting the vaccine, I'm getting it because I want to protect other people. It has really little to do with me, because I'm a pretty healthy person, I don't get sick very often. But it had more to do with, I want my residents to get back to regular lives.

Steve, Winston

I decided as soon as I was eligible I would get vaccinated and I don't regret it. I had some questions about the vaccine. You know I read all kinds of different information. But I did a little bit of research and I discovered that it's new, it's a new process, but this is a new disease, this is a new virus. This is something we've not ever encountered before. And I felt like with my, I have some other health concerns as well. And I decided that the safest route would be for me to get vaccinated in order to protect my congregation, my community, and my family.

Tammy, Roseburg

So, it was kind of just a matter of that in the final analysis. I'm gonna step up, and I'm going to take this vaccine, I'm gonna walk into it, and the known risk, even though it is a small, a very small risk.

And I was able to make the choice to walk into that rather than wander around waiting for COVID to walk into me.

Scott, Warm Springs

With the vaccine, I’m really excited to go see my family, my friends. I want to go to Hawaii! Go see my friends. I just want do everything. It makes me feel like “oh I’m missing out,” and I feel like everyone else feels the same way. So I encourage everyone to get the vaccination … maybe we can enjoy giving each other a hug again giving each other a high-five, normal things, you know the things we take for granted.

Terri, Roseburg

At first, I thought there's no way I'm doing this, and then some of my friends began to get sick, and I thought, "This is real." And you know I kind of went along with the, "Well if just stay away from people and I'll be ok." Wrong. So I'm thinking OK, I can either run the risk of getting COVID, which is huge now, or I can take the vaccine, with the teeny chance that I'll have a side-effect.

Richard, Baker City

I think that the risks are super low, the benefits are super high. And being a business owner, there's risks in everything. You weigh those risks against the potential outcomes. And the benefits of this vaccine so much surpass the risk. For me, it's not even really a topic of conversation.

Laura, Shady Cove

I think the future for St. Martin's would include even more welcoming of the community to help heal. To help heal from the losses, the grief, the brokeness. To say to people you're not alone, and to be safe in doing so will mean the world to us.