Herald has been with March of Dimes Canada for almost seven years now. He’s a Support Services Attendant in Toronto, and he's one of the thousands of Canadians who contracted COVID-19.

His symptoms began with a slight fever. He attributed it to an infected boil and asked his doctor for antibiotics, but his wife suggested he get tested for COVID. Much to Herald's surprise, it came back positive.

That same day, his fever rose. He developed a cough, chills and abdominal pain, and started to vomit. Then his wife developed symptoms, and so did their kids. The entire family was diagnosed with a COVID-19 variant and told to isolate for 14 days. For the first three days, everyone just lay in bed.

“It was hard. My wife and I had it the worst. We have no family here in Canada to help, and we still had to take care of the kids.”

The fifth and sixth days were the most difficult for Herald - his oxygen level was low, and his fever was high. His wife told him later that he was talking nonsense, like he was hallucinating.

“It was scary because I thought I was going to die,” he says. Fortunately, he started to improve and the whole family recovered.

“It's a miracle that I survived COVID-19. I was just lucky.”

That experience was fresh in Herald's mind when his supervisor called offering him a chance to be vaccinated. Herald was nervous at first - it's a new vaccine, as he points out, and there's a lot of information out there on the internet. But after a conversation with his doctor, he decided to go ahead. The process was quick and efficient, and he had no side-effects other than a sore arm.

“When I see my family in that situation, I want to protect them,” he says. “Especially my wife - she has high blood pressure. So, if I don't protect myself, it's a risk to them.”

Herald also encouraged his co-workers to get vaccinated as soon as they could.

“It's a serious disease. You don't know if you'll survive,” he says. “Once you've had COVID, you'll take the vaccine.”