Claudia

I met Claudia at the Rochester Public Market, where she was selling honey that she and her boyfriend, Jason, had collected from local bees. Jason’s home is in the Brockport area, but they met in South Carolina.

Claudia, who is originally from Sweden, had been studying at a university in Spain, working toward a nursing degree (she eventually wants to be a midwife). She transferred halfway through her degree program to a college in South Carolina, and Jason is a wildland (traveling) firefighter who was on assignment in South Carolina. One of the things about Jason that interested Claudia when they met was that he was involved in beekeeping and honey production.

Claudia is the oldest of four siblings, and she’s the only one of her family in the U.S. “Some of them are in England, and most of them are in Sweden,” she said.

When she entered the U.S. on a student visa, Claudia had to get a series of vaccinations, including vaccines for mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, and more. Claudia isn’t opposed to vaccines, per se, but she has no interest in being vaccinated for covid-19 at this time. She knows that the FDA has approved the vaccines for emergency use, but covid-19 vaccines haven't yet been tested in long-term studies, which normally take many years.

Claudia said she’d seriously consider being vaccinated for covid-19 after more tests have been done over a longer period of time. “I'm the kind of person who likes to stand back and see how it goes,” she said. “I'm not the first one in line. And I'm a critical thinker. I like to ask questions, and I'm not like a lamb who follows the herd. I could be convinced otherwise, but not currently; I need more time.”

Her grandparents and father have been vaccinated, and she thinks they’ll be fine, but she doesn’t trust the government, and she would rather let nature take its course. If it’s in her destiny to get covid and die, then so be it, she said. She’d rather die of natural causes than be killed by an experimental vaccine, which hasn’t been thoroughly tested.

When I asked Claudia what she does for recreation, she said, “I would say that I'm an artist. I paint and I sing a lot; I'm just a very creative person.”

She recently performed at an open mic event. She used to write her own songs, but because she hasn’t performed in a while, she’s performing other people’s songs. She loves Lana Del Rey’s music, and at the open mic she sang a song by Lana Del Rey. She was accompanied “with some instruments.” She showed the players the chords and “we kind of winged it,” Claudia said. “It was a little chaotic, but it was fine.”

Thank you, Claudia!