It’s been a year since many grandparents haven't been able to hug or kiss their grandchildren after social distancing rules were put in place to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
Now that the vaccine is out, one South Florida family has reunited.
October 2019 was one of the last times Sesha and Vijaya Komanduri got to be close to their grandchildren before the pandemic.
“Oh, it has been horrendous,” Sesha Komanduri said.
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As COVID-19 started to spread, they took the advice of medical professionals to stay home in their bubble.
“If we went and saw them, we had to stand 20 feet outside their front door and they would come to the front door and say, ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ for a few minutes. That’s about all we had to contact,” Sesha Komanduri said.
Sesha Komanduri told NBC 6 that on Feb. 3, both he and his wife got their second vaccine shot, and Sunday they got to hug their grandchildren.
“I was waiting for that for the last one year,” Vijaya Komanduri said. “It was a great feeling. It was unbelievable.”
Their son, Dr. Krishna Komanduri, tweeted about the moment.
“I had been looking forward to that moment for a long time and it was really beautiful,” Komanduri said.
He is a physician scientist and said he understands how frustrating the pandemic can be for families, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
“The fact that we have a vaccine that works as well as it does, it’s really a miracle of modern science, and people should embrace it,” he said. “These are safe vaccines, and after you get the vaccine, it’s very unlikely you’ll be hospitalized for getting seriously ill.”
Sesha Komanduri is thankful.
“Hopefully the vaccine’s been working really well for all the people, and in our case, we are very, very happy that we have the vaccine,” he said.
