What better way to convince doubting patients than to show them, even the local leading Black physicians will get the COVID vaccine? Here are the photos of three of those local leading physicians after getting their COVID vaccine shots in a local hospital. Their eagerness is sparked by the staggering number Black and Latino deaths from the Coronavirus in the past 9 months. Dr. Willie H. Goffney, a oncology surgeon and President of the Charles R. Drew Medical Society, the largest Black physician collective in Southern California, is leading by example, and is on the same accord with former President Obama. Primary care physicians are seeing whole households get infected by a visiting relative or friend, or even a teenager returning home from “hanging out,” who had no symptoms.
“Covid-19 losses are mentally depressing for everyone, including our medical staffs who are talking to gasping, scared patients one day, and a few days later to their family members that they have left behind. Dr. William D. King, medical director of W King Health Care Group and Dr. Derrick L. Butler , Chief Medical Officer of To Help Everyone Clinic are both thought-leaders and advocates in the Southern California medical community, both research/teaching-level HIV specialists, and both bare witness to the increasing numbers of their patients who do not survive the damage of COVID-19. Vaccines will be a key weapon against imminent death from COVID, especially if you already have respiratory, heart and diabetes problems, which is the case for a significant number of our patients.”
Resistance & Doubt
Why the doubt among their patients? Even when their infected family members have suffered severe loss of mobility or death, there is resistance to getting any free COVID-19 vaccine. The most vocalized resistance to getting vaccinated for Coronavirus is the issue of mistrust in the medical “system,” after its notable mishandling of a 40-year medical study to determine the end results of syphilis infections in Blacks. The medical system must be accountable for its past by advocating for equity in its future. Trust must be developed. This is why Drs. Butler, Goffney and King were vaccinated and photographed being vaccinated not unlike, Dr. Jerome Adams, the Surgeon General, an African American who recently received his vaccine LIVE on TV, also to promote “safety” in getting the vaccine among doubting minority populations.
The Research Backs It
For those that need it, there are research studies and statistics to back up all the above. Of the more than 286,000 U.S. deaths recorded as of Dec 19. 2020, these are the number of losses documented by group: Black (49,994), Indigenous (2,834), Latino (51,812), Pacific Islander (435), Asian (9,412), and White (151,354). Additionally, 6,196 deaths are recorded only as “other” race (and include more Indigenous people and Pacific Islanders, as well as multiracial individuals), while another 16,466 had an unknown race. What that means to you and your families – for all race groups: 1 in 750 Indigenous Americans has died (or 133.0 deaths per 100,000); 1 in 800 Black Americans has died (or 123.7 deaths per 100,000); 1 in 1,100 Pacific Islander Americans has died (or 90.4 deaths per 100,000); 1 in 1,150 Latino Americans has died (or 86.7 deaths per 100,000); 1 in 1,325 White Americans has died (or 75.7 deaths per 100,000); 1 in 1,925 Asian Americans has died (or 51.6 deaths per 100,000).
