Amber Stevens West.Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty
Amber Stevens Westis sharing her experience with vaccines and COVID-19.
The actress and mom of two revealed in a March of Dimes “Healthy Moms, Strong Babies” webinar on Thursday that both she and her older daughter,Ava, tested positive for COVID-19 — but, she says, she experienced only a mild case because she was fully up to date on both her booster and vaccine shots.
“The booster is something we all should be getting,” urged West, 35, “because the efficacy of the first shot we got is now diminished and so we want to continue to protect ourselves.”
She added that she also wanted “to protect my newborn. She will be getting antibodies that aren’t as strong as when I got the shot, but still there’s something that she will be consuming through my breast milk.”
West is married toAndrew J. West, with whom she shares 3-year-old Ava and 5-month-oldWinona. TheRun the Worldstar said she and her husband both have the booster, which also helps protect Ava, who is not yet eligible for a vaccine.
“I’m just really grateful that it all exists … because we got COVID last week,” she said. “Because we were vaccinated, we felt more comfortable kind of going out into the world and doing things, so I don’t know for sure if this is where we got it, but we did go to Disneyland.”
Amber said she was at the amusement park with “the most people we had been around in a long time and it was quite crowded, so it’s likely that that’s where we picked it up.”
Amber Stevens West/Instagram
“We’re perfectly healthy. We’re not going to the hospital. We’re fine, we’re moving through this. And I think that’s the whole point,” she added.
“That’s why everyone needs to get their shots and their boosters,” she noted, “because this virus is still out there and it’s still affecting all of us in our lives, but if we all get this vaccine and we stop filling up hospital beds, and we can be healthy, then we can move back into our normal lives again.”
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC)recommendspregnant people receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and the agency states that pregnant people may receive the booster, as well.
“Evidence about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy has been growing. These data suggest that the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine outweigh any known or potential risks of vaccination during pregnancy,” the CDC states on their website. “There is currently no evidence that any vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, cause fertility problems in women or men.”
Breakthrough cases— COVID-19 infections that occur in people who have been fully vaccinated against the virus — are possible and expected, as the vaccines are not 100% effective in preventing infections. Still, vaccinated people who test positive will likely be asymptomatic or experience a far milder illness than if they were not vaccinated. The majority of deaths from COVID-19 — around 98 to 99% —are in unvaccinated people.
source: people.com
