implications I see since we have the lowest vaccination rates around Black males is that we talk a lot about incarceration and things of that nature.
When I think about the impact of the pandemic on Black men who will not get vaccinated, I think about how it is similar in terms of mass incarceration, of the impact on the volume of the Black males that we could lose out that are long haulers. COVID is daunting to me, when you look at the numbers nationally of Black males that are not getting vaccinated.
I know people who still keep their grandkids, but they’ re not vaccinated, nor are the parents vaccinated, even though the person who’ s the grandparent may be vaccinated. We’ re in a different point in time with some of our communities in terms of respect for the elders that would have helped sustain and increase the vaccination rate.
If you look at the Asian communities, and how they access technology, a lot of those communities that were hard hit, didn’ t have that same access to internet and those types of things. And even they may have a phone, but it’ s not a smartphone. I do think those things matter, not just the homogeneity, though homogeneity does play a role. pandemic, that you are supposed to protect yourself and others from contagion. I think they already had that cultural approach to any kind of illness. And then the fact that when the vaccines became available, they spent a lot of time making sure that their elders and others were vaccinated because protecting your community is front and center. It’ s a cultural norm that is very sustained in that community. They made sure that their elders and the entire family units were protected early on.
But somehow, we lost a lot of that in Black communities where we would do it, even if we were invincible and young and healthy, just to protect the elders. I think there is some lesson learned and trying to get some of that back. And maybe the messaging around that, because I see a lot of a lot of the deaths and hospitalizations that happened in the Black community early on with the older adults.
And then all of the background of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and all that other stuff that push people to a place that they may not normally have been, trying to have some say in what they do and what their bodies do. I also get concerned one of the major
You go back to the cultural norm that you’ re exposed to and expect it to protect your elders and yourself. Even though they’ re homogeneous, that you have to put everything aside. Many younger Asians spent hours and hours and hours to get these appointments for their elders, using their iPads. And you know, just it was amazing to watch how engrossed they were in making sure they got the vaccine.
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I always think about how important setting up vaccine clinics in meat packing plants in hard hit places early on would have been
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CDU College of Medicine | PG. 26