With the vaccine becoming more and more available to the general public, several parents have had the opportunity to receive the vaccine in the past month. Currently, they are among the 1.5 percent of Americans who have been vaccinated.

As an employee of Shawnee Mission Hospital Advent Health, Christine White, mother of 2020 graduate Chloe White and sophomore Caroline White, has received both shots for the vaccine. According to White, the process requires filling out general health paperwork, followed by the shot, and 15 minutes of observations to make sure there is no allergic reaction to the vaccination. 

“You have to sit here for… 15 minutes to make sure you don’t have any reaction and then leave,” White said. “There’s a questionnaire that comes to me on my phone every day for five days to kind of see how you’re feeling and if you have any symptoms.”

Another one of those parents who has received the vaccine is Sam Khoury, the father of junior Emma Khoury. As a healthcare provider, Khoury received his first shot on Dec. 17 and his second shot on Jan. 7. Khoury said that his first shot went without any symptoms. However, he followed by saying that the second shot gave him a few symptoms and noted that others he has talked to had the same reaction.

“I got [the second shot] at about nine o’clock in the morning and at about 9 o’clock in the evening, which is about 12 hours later, I had a headache, a fever, body ache, a little fatigue, and that lasted pretty much throughout the night until the morning time where everything subsided, except for a little bit of fatigue.” 

White said having some sort of immunity to the COVID-19 does not mean that her mindset has changed on safety procedures like social distancing.

“The shot we know for sure is effective at preventing severe illness. We don’t have good data yet to know [if] it prevents infection at all,” White said. “Just because I have had the shot, doesn’t mean I’m not potentially walking around with a very mild case of COVID.”

Khoury agreed with White’s assessment of staying socially distanced and being careful, regardless of the new immunity the coronavirus vaccine brings.

“In the hospital, I wear a mask and a shield and I will still continue to do that, not for my own protection, but for everybody else’s protection,” Khoury said