California woman urges others to get vaccinated after losing husband to COVID

SACRAMENTO (KGO) -- After losing her husband to COVID, Sacramento resident Mia Ponte Vinnard has a message for those who are hesitant about getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there and we just wanted to see how it affected people before we decided to get it," Vinnard said. "But we didn't do it in time--we didn't think about it until it was too late at that point."

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She and her husband Brad Vinnard hesitated to get vaccinated, because the issue had been so politicized.

"One of his last posts on Facebook was 'please go get vaccinated, this is nothing nice,'" Vinnard said. "And then he asked me, 'honey, please go tell our friends to go get vaccinated. Show them the picture of me in here and tell them they don't want to be where I'm at right now."

68-year-old Brad Vinnard died on Saturday. He was a salesman and an avid motorcyclist.

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Vinnard believes her husband caught COVID-19 while at a party. She also caught the virus from him. She says she plans on getting vaccinated in 90 days, the recommended timeline for those who have recovered from the virus.

After the loss of her husband, Vinnard's mission is to continue to sway others to get the COVID vaccine, the way she wished someone would have persuaded her. She said she had already changed some minds.

"We have a large community of fellow biker people and now they realize that it's really real," she said. "It really has left a huge void in our life, and we won't ever forget him and I want to keep his memory alive by keeping people alive. That's my message."

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