The Rev. Edward S. Thomas, 47, of Clarksdale, Mississippi, a fifth-generation pastor, believes the events that took place on Capitol Hill will fuel vaccine hesitancy in the African American community. “Our history shows that we have been used as guinea pigs and lab rats, so there is a distrust there and rightfully so,” he says.
Dr. Anthony Fauci joined state public-health leadership at Tougaloo College today to address America’s history of medical racism and the barriers to equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The medical experts spoke in turn over Zoom, with Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases and top coronavirus adviser to President Joe Biden, leading the event with a candid commentary on the medical establishment’s historical treatment of Black Americans.
Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Feb. 9 that more Mississippians had received at least one shot of vaccine than have ever contracted COVID-19, the first of many milestones in the long road toward exterminating the virus in the state. Vaccinations have crested at 288,699, and second shots are rapidly following, with 81,790 delivered in total. The state’s population is just under 3 million. Census estimates from 2019 peg the over-18 population, the core demographic for vaccinations, at 2,276,754, leaving just under 2 million Mississippians left to receive shots.
Positive signs are emerging in Mississippi’s fight against COVID-19, with a continued decline in case transmission and new hospitalizations paired with an increasingly effective vaccination program. But racial disparity in the delivery of the vaccine remains an issue the state has yet to solve.
Mississippi is set to receive 37,000 first doses of COVID-19 vaccine each week, mostly intended for Mississippi State Department of Health drive-through clinics, putting a long road ahead of the effort to reach herd immunity through vaccination. At that vaccination rate, it would take roughly 57 weeks to fully vaccinate the population of the state, just over a year and a month in all.
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