However, the study notes that adults with black and Latino are increasingly likely to say they will wait before being vaccinated as white adults. While confidence in vaccines has improved, people are worried about possible side effects, including getting Covid-19 out of a vaccine, as well as missing work, the study says.
CNN spoke to several coloreds who took the vaccine. They discussed why they did not hesitate to be vaccinated within a few weeks and the impact it had on their lives.
“Why not protect our culture?”
For Alejandra Tristan, the vaccine is like ‘extra safety’ against the virus for her constant medical treatments and doctor appointments.
The 23-year-old student at Mary Hardin-Baylor University in Central Texas suffers from multiple chronic conditions, including a connective tissue disorder and liver disease. Tristan is part of a clinical trial related to liver disease, and if she contracted Covid-19, it would significantly deter her progress.
“We (she and her family) wanted to make sure I was protected so that I no longer had to worry about anything else, beyond my already medical conditions,” Tristan said.
Last August, she had a medical emergency, but decided to stay home and seek a doctor instead of going to the emergency room for fear of being exposed to the virus.
“Now that I know I at least have the vaccine and that both my parents had the vaccine, I would (would) feel a little safer doing emergency treatment,” she said.
Tristan said she also wants to be vaccinated to help those close to her and others in the Latino community.
“We’re Latinos. We come from big families and big communities, and we help each other when we can,” Tristan said.
“The fact that some of us do not want to be vaccinated, it feels to me like it is against our culture. We were raised to help each other, whether you are family, friends, or distant relatives. Why not take the opportunity to help not only yourself but also your community? ‘She added.
He lost too many people to Covid-19
Singfield, a 68-year-old restaurant owner, said he had lost too many friends, neighbors and church members to the virus and that he had a ‘moral obligation’ to be vaccinated.
“The reason I got the vaccine is because I want to protect my wife,” Singfield said. “We were together for 44 years. I do not want to take it home for her. I also do not want to give it in my community. And I do not want anyone in my community to give it to me. ”
Singfield and his wife signed up online and received their first vaccine dose at the end of January and the second in February. He said he had no side effects.
But Singfield said he believed the shot had been adequately tested and would not harm the black people.
“We were not the guinea pigs this time,” Singfield said. “They’ve actually had people try the vaccine before.”
Singfield said he prays he can be an example to all black Americans and his neighbors in Albany.
Vaccination could help Latinos survive Covid-19, says farmer
Jose Ibarra and his grandchildren have only seen his 90-year-old mother from the other side of her house for months. He was afraid they might make her sick.
“We said goodbye from across the fence, but I could not cross,” said Ibarra, a 64-year-old man living on a small stock farm southwest of San Antonio, Texas.
Weeks after his son was able to secure vaccinations for him, his mother and some members of their family, Ibarra walked across the fence for the first time in almost a year.
“We said good morning to my mother and gave her a hug,” Ibarra said. “It felt really good.”
Since the pandemic began, Ibarra has said he feels vulnerable, even ‘naked’. After getting used to helping at his local church and regularly presenting himself to local groups, he does not dare talk to anyone outside his home to prevent him from contracting the virus.
He says he took all the measures because he heard how many Latinos, especially the elderly, were killed.
“The vaccine gives us confidence to know that we are going to survive it,” Ibarra said.
He was wary of the vaccine, but a call changed everything
Victor Green, assistant principal for Kalamazoo Public Safety in Michigan, wanted to see more research before someone injected him with the vaccine. Then a call for help made him change his mind.
Last year, two officers were called in to assist a woman who had Covid-19 and who was not responding. Green, 54, watched the call on police radio.
“I heard on the radio and they did everything in their power to take life-saving measures to bring that person back,” Green said. “The person eventually died … and at that moment I said I would take the vaccine.”
Green said he was afraid of what the vaccine would do to him, and he linked it to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. But he also could not forget the toll that the virus claimed.
A fan could not save a friend who was died in his 40s and another friend who contracted the virus and did not survive, he said.
“It was to the point that my wife and I were so scared to even look on social media for fear of who would be next,” he said. “We have some very good friends who had no symptoms or anything, and they are dead.”
After a recent Zoom call with his wife and their closest friends, Green said he was convincing others to get the vaccine. He was vaccinated and told them he had no side effects.
“My good friends say, ‘Yes, I think we’re going to do the vaccination,’ ‘he said.
She really wants the pandemic to end
Kate Sagara was just a few months away from graduation when the pandemic began. While finishing school, Covid-19 brought some aspects of her life to a standstill and forced many Asian Americans like her to live in fear.
Asian Americans were not only afraid of getting sick with Covid-19, Sagara says, they lose their homes, jobs, and they become the victims of widespread racism and triviality.
“My family and I at least want it to end just as badly as everyone else,” Sagara said.
Sagara, now a childminder in San Diego, California, was eligible and was recently vaccinated.
For her, receiving the Covid-19 vaccine is the best way she can help end the pandemic and hopefully reunite with family members she has not been able to see for more than a year.
“I just want to do what I can to speed up the process of being able to see my family and get back to everyday life,” Sagara said.
They wanted to preserve the Cherokee language
Turner, 64, grew up Cherokee at home with a family of 11 children. Until about the first or second grade, she did not even know English. And even then, she and the many other Cherokee students at her school would speak to each other in the language they knew best.
People like her are rare and she has seen firsthand how Covid-19 threatens her mother tongue. In January, Turner attends the funeral of her children’s father, who died of the virus, and the language fluently as she speaks herself.
Turner, who lives in Salina, Oklahoma, was grateful to receive an email informing her that she could receive the vaccine.
“We lost a lot of our fluent speakers because of the virus,” she said. “And I was ready. I said, ‘I’m standing in line.’ ‘
Ross, who is a Cherokee Nation translator, felt a responsibility to get the chance as soon as it became available.
“As a Cherokee speaker, there are probably less than 2,000 speakers left like me who live on earth,” he said. “They want to be able to keep us as long as possible because we try to help preserve our language for the little ones or for anyone who wants to learn.”
The 65-year-old, who lives in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, has been actively campaigning for the preservation of the language in which he grew up, including getting Cherokee on Microsoft Office programs and getting information on vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Make Cherokee available.
CNN’s Nicquel Terry Ellis, Adrienne Broaddus and Harmeet Kaur contributed to this report.