Grace Victory is awake and on the road to recovery.
The YouTuber woke up on Monday after three months in a medically induced coma due to severe COVID-19 illness. Victory was put in the coma one day after giving birth to her son, whose birth was induced two months early as his mom dealt with the virus.
"I'm awake," the British vlogger tweeted, and then added on Instagram: "Baby boy is at home thriving with his daddy," her boyfriend Lee "LPW" Williams.
Her announcement on Twitter and Instagram brought thousands of celebratory comments from friends and fans who were thrilled to hear that Victory had woken up.
Victory was severely ill after contracting COVID-19 in mid-December, her family wrote in an update posted to her Instagram on Dec. 28.
"Grace developed COVID-19 two weeks ago and although her symptoms were mild at first, they worsened as the days went on," her family said. "Which meant they had to deliver the baby as soon as possible, as she was just too unwell to carry on with the pregnancy."
After giving birth prematurely on Dec. 24, Victory's COVID-19 symptoms worsened.
"Grace was admitted to intensive care on Christmas Day due to issues with her breathing and therefore they had to make the decision of placing her into an induced coma, to give her body the rest it needs, in order to recover," they explained. "She's currently stable but please keep her in your thoughts and prayers."
Pregnant people are at a higher risk of severe COVID-19 illness and 70 percent more likely to die from the virus than non-pregnant people, a recent study from the Centers from Disease Control found. However, the overall risk of severe illness or death is still low, as pregnant people are typically young and healthy enough to carry a child, which gives them better outcomes against the virus. Of the 23,434 pregnant women who tested positive for COVID-19 that were studied, 34 died, a death rate of 0.2. For the other, nonpregnant women, the death rate was 0.1.
But because of the elevated risk, U.S. doctors are encouraging pregnant people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and several states have included pregnancy as a high-risk condition that necessitates earlier access to the vaccine. Though pregnant people were not intentionally included in COVID-19 vaccine trials, several women in Pfizer's trials became pregnant with no adverse outcomes from the vaccine. The pharmaceutical company has since begun a trial focused on testing their vaccine on pregnant women, with results coming in the next few months.
Source: Read Full Article