On January 5, Hank Aaron, the legendary home boss, posted on Twitter that he had been vaccinated against the coronavirus at the Morehouse School of Medicine, along with other prominent civil rights activists in Atlanta who are 75 years or older and therefore part of the group that has the highest has priority to be vaccinated.
“I hope you do the same!” he wrote.
Seventeen days later, Mr. Aaron at 86 years old.
Anti-vaccine activists, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, seize his death to suggest – without evidence – that there could be a link.
“It was a mere coincidence,” said Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, the founding dean of Morehouse Medical School and secretary of health and human services in the George HW Bush administration, was vaccinated against him, who along with Mr. Aaron was vaccinated. He told the WSB TV station in Atlanta: “If you were to say, Hank was in a car before the day he died, and we’re trying to attribute his death to being in a car.
The Fulton County medical examiner also said there was nothing to suggest Aaron had an allergic or anaphylactic reaction related to the vaccine.
But the death of Mr. Aaron is caught in a whirlwind of misinformation and misunderstandings surrounding the coronavirus and society’s efforts to fight it. Skepticism about the vaccines has emerged as one of the latest forms of resistance facing health officials throughout the pandemic, as critics have removed the rules of social distance and covered their faces with masks.
Protesters forced Los Angeles authorities to close the entrance to Dodger Stadium, one of the largest vaccination sites in the country, on Saturday. About 50 protesters gathered there, and some held posters with ’99, 96% survival rate ‘and’ End the closure ‘.
Health officials say that so far, with more than 23 million doses administered in the United States, the two vaccines already approved for use appear to be fairly safe. There have been some serious allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, but it is treatable and is considered rare, and no deaths have been reported. The rate at which anaphylaxis has occurred so far – five cases per million doses of the vaccine by Pfizer and BioNTech, and 2.8 cases per million for the vaccine by Moderna – is in line with what is happening with other commonly used vaccines.
Tom Shimabukuro of the CDC said at a meeting of expert advisers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday: ‘Overall, the safety profiles of the Covid-19 vaccines are reassuring and consistent with the observation in the pre-authorization. clinical trials. “
He said the federal government had “implemented the most intensive and comprehensive vaccine safety monitoring program in history.”
Nevertheless, anti-vaccine activists have tried to undermine public confidence in the vaccines, by spreading social media unfounded reports of people dying or suffering drastic side effects.
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Answers to your vaccine questions
At present, more than 150 million people can be vaccinated – almost half of the population. But each state makes the final decision about who goes first. The country’s 21 million health workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to be eligible for anyone 65 and older and for adults of any age with medical conditions at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of Covid-19 . Adults in the general population are at the back of the queue. If federal and state health officials can clear up bottlenecks in the distribution of vaccines, everyone 16 years and older will be eligible as early as spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are underway. It can take months for a vaccine to be available to anyone under the age of 16. Visit your health website for recent information on vaccination policies in your area.
You do not have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you do not have insurance, you should still receive the vaccine free of charge. Congress passed this spring legislation that prohibits insurers from applying any cost sharing, such as a co-payment or deductible. It was based on additional protection that pharmacies, doctors and hospitals prevented from patients, including those who were not insured. Nevertheless, health experts are concerned that patients could end up in loopholes that make them vulnerable to surprising bills. This can happen to those who charge a doctor’s fee along with their vaccine, or Americans who have certain types of health coverage that do not fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine at a doctor’s office or an urgent clinic, talk to them about possible hidden charges. To make sure that you will not get a surprise bill, it is best to take your vaccination at a vaccination center or a local pharmacy as soon as the shots are more available.
It must be determined. It is possible that Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event, just like the flu shot. Or it could be that the benefits of the vaccine last longer than a year. We have to wait and see how durable the protection against the vaccines is. To determine this, researchers will be monitoring people who have been vaccinated to look for “breakthrough cases” – people who become ill despite being vaccinated with Covid-19. This is a sign of weakening of protection and will give researchers clues as to how long the vaccine will last. They will also monitor the levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of vaccines to determine if and when a booster shot is needed. It is possible that people need boosters every few months, once a year or only every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.
Polls have shown that public confidence in vaccines has generally stagnated in recent months, but that confidence among African Americans is lower than among other demographic groups, even though the virus has swept the community with a punitive rage.
Therefore, the Morehouse School of Medicine has pioneered civil rights leaders such as Mr. Aaron and Andrew Young, the former ambassador to the United Nations, come together to be vaccinated and lead by example.
“They marched to the ballot box to secure our rights,” Valerie Montgomery Rice, dean and president of the medical school, said in a statement. “And now they’re rolling up their sleeves to save lives.”