From those who have stayed inside for a year to those who haven’t seen their children, Americans tell us what vaccination means to them
On 13 March last year, Ignacia Fulcher went into quarantine. She wore only N95 masks, ordered groceries online, and had no in-person contact with friends. All of this was necessary to keep her high-risk family of five – who, between them, suffer from moderate asthma, sickle-cell anemia, type 1 diabetes, and medicine allergies – from potentially catching Covid-19. Rules that some might label excessive became normal for people like Fulcher, who never once broke her family’s agreed-upon guidelines in a year.
So when she received her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine earlier this month, Fulcher, a 28-year-old commerce editor, felt an immediate sense of relief. “It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I still have to be careful – not to be dramatic, but now knowing that I most likely won’t die after going to the grocery store or nail salon is reassuring.”
