Pregnant Unvaccinated Nurse Dies From COVID-19, Husband Urges Pregnant Women to Get Vaccinated

The woman was 32-years-old and was roughly seven months pregnant with her and her husband's second child. She worked as a nurse in Florida and lived in Alabama.

August 25, 2021

The husband of a pregnant, unvaccinated woman who died after battling COVID-19 is now calling for other expectant mothers to get their shots.

Haley Richardson, 32, died on Aug. 20 after being admitted to an Alabama hospital (and eventually an ICU) earlier this month. A friend of the family, identified in Dennis Pillion’s AL.com report as Jason Whatley, said Richardson—who worked as a registered nurse at a hospital in Pensacola, Florida—had been in the hospital for around four days when she was informed that she would be losing the baby.

“She continued to get worse and worse,” Whatley said of Richardson, who was “about six months pregnant” with a second child when she initially tested positive for COVID-19 in July. She had no preexisting conditions.

The woman’s husband, Jordan Richardson, told reporter Meaghan Mackey in a report from regional outlet WKRG they had decided against the vaccination due to concerns over pregnancy-related side effects. However, there is no evidence the vaccine has any such impact. Alabama, notoriously, has the lowest vaccinate rate in the U.S.

“I think she would have advocated for it though, knowing this would be the outcome,” the husband told Mackey.

By the time Richardson was admitted to the hospital, she is said to have been roughly seven months pregnant. On Aug. 18, the baby is reported to have passed. Just two days later, Richardson died.

“Here in the dark, in the wee hours of the morning, it is so easy to pretend that all of this was just a nightmare or that I’m just here in this hospital bed due to my own issues with Covid,” Haley Richardson wrote in a Facebook post dated Aug. 9. “Not for anything being wrong with my sweet baby girl whom I thought I was protecting in my own womb. I know the prognosis and I know the reality.”

Earlier this month, the CDC urged pregnant women to get vaccinated, noting that the vaccines are indeed safe and effective.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, meanwhile, is now predicting a more uniformly post-pandemic possibility nationwide by next spring if enough people get vaccinated. So, if you’re not among the nearly 52 percent of the total U.S. population that’s already been fully vaccinated, go ahead and fix that.