TAMPA, FL — When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs square off in Super Bowl LV, among those in the stands of Raymond James Stadium will be thousands of front-line health care workers who have been working in risking throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
Of the 25,000 fans allowed to attend the game in person, about 7,500 of those in attendance will be vaccinated health care workers. Among them is a 26-year-old registered nurse and lifelong Hillsborough County resident who never imagined when she decided to attend nursing school that, just a few years later, she’d be caring for patients during a global pandemic.
A nurse at AdventHealth Tampa hospital Paulina Rivera of Plant City is the daughter of Mexican immigrants Martha and Marcial Rivera, and the first in her family to attend college.
Rivera began working at AdventHealth Tampa about three years ago and, throughout the coronavirus pandemic,