HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Angelica Antonio, 48, waited 15 months since the pandemic started to once again enjoy a meal at a restaurant, instead of ordering for takeout.
“It was a little bit weird dining-in again, trying to make sure we weren’t close to the groups next to us,” she said, eating out with family and friends for the first time on Sunday since March 2020. “But life returns to almost normal for us now.”
Antonio, of Mangilao, has been fully vaccinated since March, and the household just got its last member to also get vaccinated against Covid-19.
She brought her 15-year-old daughter Kayla to get her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Friday at the University of Guam Calvo Field House vaccination clinic that the Guam Army National Guard operates.
The family thought it’s best to get their daughter fully vaccinated before face-to-face classes start next month, and has been hoping that most at school would also be immunized by then.
“I feel safer from Covid-19 knowing I got vaccinated,” Kayla Antonio, an incoming junior student at George Washington High School, said.
The mother said she’s looking forward to Guam reaching herd immunity, and is proud to have her family counted towards that goal.
“I wish other families see the importance of getting vaccinated, to protect themselves and their family, and for Guam to return to normalcy,” she said.
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero’s goal is to immunize at least 80% or 96,031 of Guam’s estimated 120,039 adults, or those 18 years old and older, by the time Guam marks its 77th Liberation Day on July 21.
As of Friday, preliminary data showed that 90,942 or 75.76% of the island’s adults had been fully vaccinated, according to Krystal Paco-San Agustin, the governor’s director of communications.
This means about 5,000 more adults need to be fully vaccinated to reach that herd immunity goal. Fully vaccinated minors 12 to 15 years old are not included in the herd immunity count. But overall, more than 96,000 minors and adults have so far been vaccinated.
Laurie Aflague, 50, said she was initially hesitant about the vaccine that’s why she just got her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Friday, about five months since her husband, who works at the Port Authority of Guam, got his.
“I thought about family and friends, and what if there’s an emergency travel we need to make, it would be much easier to travel when you’re fully vaccinated because you don’t have to quarantine,” she said.
Her husband was by her side when she got her second dose.
“I want Guam to go back to where we were before Covid,” she said, and was happy that her family is helping to reach that goal.
What used to be a busy UOG vaccination clinic is now almost quiet during certain time slots, and GovGuam has been holding vaccinations at different locations to try to reach out to the harder-to-get populations.
Celebrating a normal Liberation Day
John Angoco, 20, got his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Friday, and will be considered fully vaccinated by the time he leaves for Washington State on July 22.
“It would be much easier and safer to travel when you’re fully vaccinated,” he said. He’s the last among six vaccine-eligible members of the household to get vaccinated.
A day before he leaves to pursue information technology studies and to work at the same time, he said he wants to celebrate Guam’s 77th Liberation Day with family and friends.
“I was hoping there’d be a parade this year. But we would still have barbecue with family and friends, and then we’d watch the fireworks,” Angoco, of Maina, said.
After more than a year of pandemic life, he’s learned that everyone should “cherish your loved ones always, and even the small moments.”
Lisa Ruiz, 57, said she’s happy to be able to take her 12-year-old grandson Isaiah to get his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Friday, weeks before the start of school.
“I want my grandkids and my family to be vaccinated. I know how important vaccination is in protecting people from illness or diseases,” the grandmother, who used to work for the Department of Public Health and Social Services, said. She retired from GovGuam in May, after 36 years of service.
Also with them was another of her grandson, who’s still too young to get vaccinated.
The grandmother also just learned about GovGuam’s Vax N’ Win vaccine incentives program, so she let her grandsons take a photo of a leaflet that shows how to enter her name in the raffle drawing that gives fully vaccinated adults a chance to win a new car worth nearly $20,000, $10,000 cash and other prizes.
“That would be nice to win something,” the grandmother said.
A Guam Army National Guard medic, Spc. Gideon Carreon, administers a Covid-19 vaccine during an outreach clinic at the University of Guam Calvo Field House on Friday.
Guam Army National Guard Medic SPC. Heather Nera prepares jabs of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to be administered at the University of Guam Calvo Field House on Friday.
