Missouri couple regrets skipping vaccine after COVID-19 hospitalization

(NewsNation Now) — After spending five days in a hospital battling COVID-19, a Missouri couple is urging others to get vaccinated.

Louie Michael has been documenting his recovery on social media.

“I’ve been out of the hospital now about 15 days maybe,” Michael said in one of his recent videos. “Boy does COVID give you a ride. COVID is a weapon. COVID is nasty. I don’t care what variant you get.”

Michael said his wife, Pattie, went into respiratory failure. He ended up taking an ambulance to the hospital the next day.

“Of course, all of us guys we think we’re tough, and women too, but you know, we think we can fight anything and we’re going to be okay,” Michael told NewsNationNow.com “I wish if I could go back in time, I would have got the vaccination and I know Pattie would too just simply to minimize our suffering that we’re going through right now.”

Right now, COVID-19 cases are rising in Missouri. In the state, 45.4% of people have received at least one vaccine shot. The national average is 55.6%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We weren’t anti vaxxers,” Michael said. “We’ve always vaccinated our children. We believe in them.”

Michael says his wife has had some health issues, so she was waiting for the right time to get the vaccine.

“When she knows her body’s up to par for it,” Michael said.

He waited.

“I was just sitting on the fence waiting on her and waiting on time and thought ‘well, we’ll see what it does to everybody’,” Michael said. “I’m tough and I can conquer anything.”

He does not want to conquer COVID-19 again.

“If you’re not vaccinated, I would recommend doing that as soon as you can because you don’t want to go through any of this,” Michael said.

He plans to go get vaccinated as soon as his doctor gives the go-ahead.

See Michael’s full interview in the player above.