The Long Term Side Effects: Why I Got the Covid Vaccine
Many Black and brown Americans are hesitant to get the Covid-19 vaccine - and with good reason. So how does the U.S. legacy of medical racism continue today and what does it mean for the future of POC in the pandemic?
by TRISHES
I blasted Weezer’s “Feels Like Summer” on the 87 degree January day in a car-line at Dodger’s Stadium. A lot of us in Los Angeles are familiar with this scene, the stadium being one of the city’s largest drive-through Covid-19 testing centers. But on this day the familiar wait was a joyous one. I wasn’t at Dodger’s to get a Covid test, but the Moderna Covid vaccine.
When I got the e-mail that I was qualified to get the vaccine, I was surprised. I do not work in the medical field, I am young, healthy and low risk. I expected that I would likely be in one of the last groups able to receive it.
What I didn’t realize was that my work with a community organization (Noho Home Alliance) that provides services to those experiencing homelessness actually qualified me as a healthcare worker.
I got my paperwork identifying me as a homeless service provider on that Friday morning, booked my appointment online and two hours later I pulled up to a worker in a neon traffic safety vest at the end of the queue. They looked at my NHHA ID card, my appointment confirmation and my health services letter, and then directed me forward where the line branched into several. I asked how long the expected wait was - to which the worker replied that he didn’t know - today was the first day that the stadium was being used for vaccines. I had managed to luck into one of the first appointments.
I parked my car behind a white compact and an SUV holding a family of 4. A group of 5 workers in scrubs and protective gear rolled a cart, topped with an umbrella and filled with Moderna, to the front of the line.
Nearing one year since the beginning of on-and-off lockdown, hundreds of thousands of deaths, not playing live music, not seeing my friends, and randomly crying on my couch for no reason (but for all of the reasons), that cart felt like the Arc of the Covenant. A miracle. Sacred. I was in reverence of it.
Come to think of it - given the global cooperation and relentless efforts of scientists to make the vaccine - it is sacred.
I watched as the workers surrounded the first car, vaccinating someone at each window of the SUV. They then split up and headed to the rest of the line. A young woman with dirty blond hair came to my window. I rolled up my left sleeve and she shot the vaccine into my arm, asking if I wanted a Band-Aid. I probably didn’t need one, but I wanted one. Maybe I liked the symbol or the ritual or both. She then gave me my vaccination card that documented the type of vaccine and the date to return for my second dose.
Through our masks we smiled at each other and I knew she was just as giddy to be giving this elixir to me as I was to receive it. I felt so much hope right then - but that hope is unfounded unless enough of us get this vaccine.
Now there is anti-vax bullshit from white wellness moms and Q-Anon adjacent internet rabbit hole dwellers, and then there are legitimate concerns from people of color.
I’m not really here to address the former, but the concerns of people of color are valid for a slew of reasons given our country’s history of exploiting Black people for medical research and our healthcare system’s failure to provide equal access and care to POC. It is both that 1800’s studies on childbirth used enslaved Black women for excruciating experiments and that Black women today are 2.5 times more likely to die during childbirth. It is both that the Tuskegee experiments used Black men for research on syphilis without actually treating or informing them and the fact that less Black men are enrolled in medical school now than in 1978 because educational barriers are a crucial part of systemic racism.
Illustration of Dr. J. Marion Sims with Anarcha by Robert Thom. Anarcha was subjected to 30 experimental surgeries. Pearson Museum, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
So why do I feel not only comfortable but genuinely thrilled to be getting the vaccine?
For me it is a simple risk assessment but not a risk assessment for my life individually but our lives collectively. People of color are dying of Covid-19 at a disproportionate rate and the vaccine is our only chance of stopping that.
I trust doctors and scientists despite the U.S. history of medical exploitation. The Covid vaccine was developed internationally, and many of the prominent scientists promoting the vaccine are POC themselves. The vaccine uses mRNA, not small doses of Covid, to prepare the body for an attack by the real virus. The likelihood of long term effects of the Covid vaccine are slim, far slimmer than long term effects of the virus itself. Additionally, while the Covid-19 vaccine is new, we do know a lot about vaccines in general. Most side effects occur within 2 months of administration.
Still, I understand that we cannot know for sure what the long term effects of the Covid-19 vaccine are. But here is what we do know:
We do know if 70% of us do not get the vaccine, we will not gain herd immunity and hundreds of thousands of people will continue to die.
We do know a disproportionate number of those deaths will be people of color because many POC cannot work from home and systemic racism makes it more difficult for us to access healthcare.
We do know the long term effects of Covid-19 range from chronic heart palpitations to permanent lung damage.
We do know that many who suffer the worst effects of Covid-19 will rack up hospital bills that will financially ruin them.
We do know that the wealth gap will continue to widen while billionaires profit off of our global misfortune.
We do know that many more small businesses will not survive if we do not get the pandemic under control.
It’s pretty clear to me that the risks of not getting the vaccine far outweigh the risks of getting it.
We take risks not knowing long term effects all the time - from the chemicals in our food to the cell phone tower signals hitting our brains to the psychological trauma of social media. And we don’t gain much from those risks. If getting the vaccine will save hundreds of thousands of lives - that is absolutely a risk I am willing to take.
Our rugged individualism is what’s brought up to a place of 25 million infections and 420 thousand deaths. That same outlook could very well be our downfall again at this moment.
If the majority of us don’t get the vaccine, not only will a lot more of us, particularly POC, die, but a lot more of us will face the known long term health and financial effects of the actual Covid-19 virus. The middle class will continue to dwindle. Our music venues will not re-open. Our healthcare system will break. We will continue a life without concerts and hugs and first dates at neighborhood bars and visits to grandparents and novelty and weddings and smiling at strangers on sidewalks instead of trying desperately to avoid them. That is what will inevitably face us.
We cannot look at the vaccine as something we do for ourselves, but something we must do for each other.