After not getting the vaccine, a 28-year-old Florida man who died from COVID-19 shared that he wished he had in his final moments. Now, as an honor to him, his family turned his funeral into a vaccine and testing event as a way of helping their community against the deadly virus.
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Marquis Davis, a Florida business owner, and father, died from the virus on July 26. His wife, Charnese Davis, said that he was a loving husband and father who worked hard while caring and taking care of his siblings when his mother died in 2012, ABC News reported.
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Davis began to feel ill in late July. After testing positive for the virus a day later, he was quarantined at home. However, his condition progressively got worse as the virus took hold of him, his wife said.
"He was losing his breath just by getting up. I was like, this is not normal, you need extra help," Charnese Davis said to ABC News.
When he was taken to the hospital, he was put on an oxygen machine.
"He was there about six days, and then finally they said he's not going to make it," Charnese Davis said.
While he was hesitant to get the shot at first, Davis told his wife that he wanted to get it once he recovered.
"He was in the hospital. He said, 'Bae, I'm going to get the vaccine when I get out of here.' So he was going to get it. I was like, 'Good, I'm so happy you said that, but it's too late,'" Charnese Davis told WFTV.
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Currently, Florida is the 28th least vaccinated state in the country, with only 49.5% of its population being fully vaccinated. However, 59.4% of the nearly 21 million residents have received at least one shot.
With vaccinations sitting stagnant and the Delta variant being more transmissible than the original strain of the coronavirus, Florida's case rate has gone through the rough over the last seven days.
When Charnese Davis was approached by her church leaders at Faith Temple Chrisitan Center in Rockledge about offering vaccine and COVID-19 testing at his wake and memorial, she was on board.
"Now we're seeing things completely shift with this delta variant. [Marquis] was 28 years old, had the rest of his life in front of him, and because of COVID-19, specifically this delta variant, and he was not vaccinated, his life was cut short," Dr. R. Shaun Ferguson, the pastor of Faith Temple Christian Center, said to ABC News.
The church partnered with the state and offered the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines during the memorial and wake on Friday and Saturday. It was a simple decision for the church after seeing one of its members lose their life.
"Our position as a church is let's get this cut. Let's do this. I don't want to see another person lose their life, period," Ferguson said.
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The vaccination event was a message to the community about how dangerous the virus is, Charnese Davis said.
"He was so adamant about not getting it, everything we hear about the vaccine wasn't always perfect… It's a lot of younger adults my age who don't want to get it or they think it won't affect them," Charnese Davis said. "But, it does affect you. This could have been prevented, so let's get vaccinated so it doesn't happen to you."
Charnese Davis wants people to "at least have a fighting chance. Protect yourself. Protect your family." She added that the virus "is nothing to be to be playing around with."
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