CHICAGO – In a temporary vaccination center in a Chicago hospital with safety nets, a patient service aid leads an elderly woman with a cane to a curtain cage.
“Here you have to sit here,” Trenese Bland says helpfully, preparing the woman for a shot that provides protection against the virus that has plagued their black community. But the assistant doubts whether she should get her own vaccination.
“It’s not something I trust right now,” says Bland, 50, who worries about how quickly COVID-19 vaccines have been developed. “It’s not something I want in me.”
Only 37% of the 600 doctors, nurses and support staff at Roseland Community Hospital have been vaccinated, although it is the turn of healthcare workers first. Much endurance comes from the mostly black, working-class neighborhoods around the hospital, areas severely affected by the virus but still plagued by vaccine.
The resistance confuses Dr. Tunji Ladipo, an emergency physician who has seen the disease devastate countless patients and their families, and regularly works side by side with unvaccinated colleagues.
” Why do people working in the health sector not trust science? I do not understand it, ‘he said.
Health experts stressed the safety of the vaccines, noting that their development was extremely rapid, but based on years of previous research and that those used in the US showed no signs of serious side effects in studies of tens of thousands of people. not. But a history of abuse has contributed to distrust in the medical institution among some black Americans.
In a recent poll by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 57% of Black Americans said they had received at least one shot or were planning to be vaccinated, compared to 68% of white Americans.
Black Americans surveyed by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases cited reasons for vaccination hesitation that reflect those of Roseland employees.
The hospital without frills, five storeys of red brick, opened its doors nearly a century ago in Chicago’s far South Side. Adjacent to a strip shop, a car parts store and a gas station, the backyard is a residential street characterized by houses and three apartment buildings.
Doctors, nurses and staff are almost all black, just like the patients.
It would be hard to imagine people being unaware of the incredible inequalities in health that plague the city’s black community and others across the country.
Black people make up 30% of the Chicago population, but early in the pandemic, more than half of COVID-19 deaths. This gap has narrowed, although disease differences state that the risk persists, including high rates of high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. It is more likely that black people have jobs that offer no health insurance, or that it is the luxury of working safely at home in a pandemic.
South Side neighborhoods have lagged behind richer whites by getting COVID-19 test sites, and recent city data shows that COVID-19 vaccinations in Black and Latino residents are far behind white residents.
Without enough people among hospital workers, Roseland offered some of his doses to the police and bus drivers. Hospital representatives are looking for ways to raise awareness and increase their vaccination rates – posters, stickers and education sessions.
They even revered. Jesse Jackson recently brought in a veteran civic leader to get his first recording on camera.
“African Americans were the first victims of the crisis, and may not be the last time to seek help,” Jackson said before his vaccination.
Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, a U.S. government scientist who helped develop Moderna’s vaccine, accompanied Jackson. She acknowledged “centuries of medical injustice” against black Americans, but said COVID-19 vaccines were the result of years of thorough investigation. According to her, trust in the vaccines is needed to save lives.
Rhonda Jones, a 50-year-old nurse at the hospital, has treated many patients with severe COVID-19, a family member has died from it and her mother and cousin have been infected and recovered, but she is still holding out.
The vaccines “come out just too fast” and have not been adequately tested, she said. She does not rule out being vaccinated, but not soon.
‘I always tell my patients, just because a doctor orders your medication, you have to ask for it; you’re not taking it just because, ” Jones said. “Kindergarten teachers have always told us, if in doubt, look at it,”
Early in the pandemic, the hospital’s cafeteria closed for two months when a worker became infected there. Yet hospital administrator Elio Montenegro said “every person said, ‘No, I’m not getting it’ when he asked if staff in the cafeteria should be vaccinated.”
Adam Lane, a cook, said he did not trust the US government. He believes political pressure has driven vaccines to market and fears that those given in black communities are different and riskier than those offered to whites.
‘I’m tired of the COVID. “I think we all want it to be over,” Lane said. “But I do not want to lose my soul for a quick vaccine.”
Dr. Rita McGuire, an obstetrician and infection control specialist at Roseland, says combating misinformation and mistrust about vaccinations is a daily struggle. Many workers’ have not forgotten the studies where they used us as experiments, ” McGuire said, including the infamous Tuskegee study of black patients with syphilis.
Many are also worried about serious side effects of the vaccine, but it is extremely rare, McGuire said.
Some say they will wait until spring or summer to be vaccinated. With infection rates still high and the emergence of more contagious virus variants, ” it’s too late, ” McGuire said.
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Follow AP Medical author Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Division receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.