Hospitalized with COVID-19, once-hesitant Manitoba Mennonite woman urges others to get vaccines – CBC

Katharina Giesbrecht encourages others in her faith community to trust health-care professionals

Katharina Giesbrecht didn’t plan to get vaccinated. It took a terrifying brush with COVID-19 to convince the once-hesitant Mennonite woman to change her mind and book her jab.

“I was very against the vaccine for the longest time,” she said. “I said, ‘You know what, let’s just let God deal with it.… He knows what the next step is, whether we die or we don’t.'”

Giesbrecht is sharing her story in hopes of persuading vaccine-hesitant members of her faith community to reconsider — something that could be a challenge, given pockets of southern Manitoba, home to many Mennonites, have the lowest vaccination rates in the province.

As Giesbrecht grew ill in mid-May, for the first few days, she considered waiting it out alone at home. She didn’t initially believe she had COVID-19, in part because she says she adhered to masking and public health guidelines.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/southern-manitoba-winkler-covid-vaccine-hesitancy-1.6049024