A COVID-19 delta variant survivor hopes his personal experience will convince others to roll up their sleeve and get vaccinated.
Mauricio Torres of San Francisco contracted COVID-19 in July. He says a week after catching the virus, he took a big turn for the worse.
"I couldn’t take a deep breath," he said. "I could just feel like my lungs and my back hurt really bad."
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Torres went to the hospital, where he was quickly admitted and diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia.
"I had a cough," he said. "I had a high fever, body aches, chills, pretty much the whole list."
Torres was told his doctors believe he caught the delta variant.
"I had a really high fever," he said. "They admitted me right away, isolated me. I was there for two days and then was able to leave."
Torres attributes his recovery to getting vaccinated back in May.
"My emergency room doctor said that if I hadn’t been vaccinated, my symptoms would be far worse or my outcome would have been far worse than what it was," he said.
San Francisco has been cases surge recently, but health officials say a high vaccination rate among residents has helped keep hospitalization and death rates down.
That's why Torres and health officials are begging those who haven't done so already to get vaccinated.
"I'm just very thankful to be alive and thankful that I got the vaccine," Torres said. "It’ll save your life. It really will."
