Covid: Woman urges people to get jabbed after unvaccinated partner dies with virus

Martin Mulcahy died in hospital and will be buried on Thursday – two days before Christmas

Mulcahy is pictured with some of his children (Tracey Lea)

A mother-of-seven is urging people who are still unvaccinated against Covid to go out and get jabbed after her partner died with the virus.

Tracey Lea, 45, said she “wouldn’t want anyone to go through the same tragedy” her family has, after her partner Martin Mulcahy died earlier this month with coronavirus having put off getting his jabs because “life” got in the way.

Mulcahy, a 50-year-old security guard from Nuneaton, tested positive for Covid following his wife and children – aged between nine and 25 – catching the virus in late October.

The family came out of isolation on 13 November, but Mulcahy was admitted to hospital the same day due to falling oxygen levels.

He was taken by ambulance to the George Eliot hospital, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where he was placed on a ventilator – but sadly he died on 5 December.

Ms Lea, who reportedly “didn’t believe in the vaccine at first”, said she has now arranged to get fully vaccinated because she has “witnessed the devastating effects [of not doing so] first hand”.

She also lost her mother – who died before the vaccine rollout had begun – to the virus last year, with Mulcahy’s funeral scheduled to take place on Thursday, two days before Christmas and exactly a year and a day after Ms Lea’s mother’s service.

After being admitted to the intensive care unit, Ms Lea said her partner seemed to improve but then suffered a collapsed lung and “deteriorated very, very quickly”.

She told the BBC: “By the Friday evening he was put on a ventilator and I went to see him on the Saturday and they did say it wasn’t looking very good, and on Sunday at about 6pm, I had a phone call to say his health had deteriorated very, very quickly and the ventilator was going to be turned off that day.”

The children were in shock, she said, because they thought their father was coming home but he “just got worse”.

Mulcahy was not against vaccines, “he just never got round to doing it”, she added.

In a separate interview, Ms Lea said it was hard trying to find time to go and get the vaccine – especially considering the couple shared “three kids with autism” – but that now she considered it a “priority”.

She described her partner, who she planned to marry next year, as being the “best father to our seven children” and the “most caring man on the planet” as she urged people to get vaccinated.

“I am unsure whether Martin had contracted Delta or Omicron, but it has spurred me to get the first dose of my vaccine,” she told the MailOnline after her partner of more than 20 years died.

“[And] I will make sure every one of our children has it. If Martin had been jabbed, he may still be with us today.”