Political Gumbo: Get the Vaccine

Yes, that was a long extended vacation, but the pot is finally back on the stove and good stuff is brewing. 

A lot has happened since then. Huntington Hospital has bounced back, and indoor dining is back.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but things appear to be looking up. If everybody does what they are supposed to do, it looks like we may beat this thing.

Mentioning all of that, last week I received the vaccination for COVID-19.

Yes, I was one of the people who originally planned to not get the vaccine. 

My reason was simple, there was no way in hell I trusted Donald Trump’s word on the vaccine, especially considering the guy thought it was OK to inject disinfectant into the body to heal people with COVID.

Yep, that was the main reason for my skepticism, the expedience with which a vaccine was suddenly available also left me with questions. 

But now that the Orange Menace is out of office, and no one I know has fallen over or grown an extra nose after getting the shot, I decided to get the Johnson & Johnson one-and-done vaccine. 

The entire process took less than a minute. 

I trekked over to First AME Church on Raymond Avenue, and got the shot at 4:30 p.m. last week, then hung around for 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t have any setbacks.

In the meantime, the great folks from the city Health Department gave my 12-year old daughter Lauren a crash course on the virus and how it works. 

No setbacks from the shot, and regrettably no superpowers either — still can’t walk up walls, but I’m vaccinated.

Almost immediately, though, some close friends could not believe I was dumb enough to fall for the okie doke and roll up my sleeve.

According to one person, it won’t be long before I have issues.

Of course, I always listen to my diabetic friends lecture me on not trusting health officials. Come on, who else are you going to turn to for advice?

Yeah, I know a lot of Black people don’t want to get the shot for a lot of reasons, including distrust in part due to the 40-year long Tuskegee Experiment. Yes, for 40 years the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and Centers for Disease Control conducted a study to observe the natural history of untreated syphilis by failing to treat 330 Black men suffering from the virus. 

So to be clear they were not injected with syphilis they were denied proper treatment.

This is not the same thing. Black people are being offered the proper treatment free of charge. I imagine those victimized at Tuskegee would have welcomed the proper treatment. 

Whether that medical racism is unforgivable is up for debate, but what’s not up for debate is how I would feel if I gave COVID to anyone in my family, including my 90-year old mother or my daughter. That’s something I couldn’t forgive myself for, especially since the vaccine is available. 

Yes, the government denied Black men medical treatment, but I’ll be damned if I deny treatment for myself.  

More than a half-million people in the country have died from COVID.

Starting on Thursday anyone over 50 will be eligible to get the vaccine. Get vaccinated. 

We can beat COVID.