What happens when this is no longer Top News?
Society has a terrible habit of minimizing people’s experiences so that they can be generalized into a series of archivable Breaking News stories to be reviewed in the future as a moment in history. We’re watching this happen right now, only Covid-19 isn’t the story, it’s the setting. A year ago, the headlines began with, “And Today in Coronavirus…”, and a year later, it’s the same headline. But what happens a year from now, when the headlines have moved on, the economy has rebounded, and the 70% herd immunity goal has been attained? What happens to the families who have experienced significant loss, what happens to the students who lost over a years worth of education, and what happens to those communities who are still waiting for “their turn” to get vaccinated?
As an epidemiologist, I observe disease trends and design interventions that mitigate the risk of sickness and maximize access to equitable care. As a black, female epidemiologist, I apply an equity lens to every intervention, every policy, and every public health education campaign. I ensure that my voice is heard at every table, because unfortunately as we have seen, nothing gets accomplished until someone on the inside sounds the alarm. We didn’t begin reporting demographic data as it relates to Covid-19 cases until AOC, a minority woman in power, began to raise the alarm. She was initially accused of “stretching” information, then the data was provided to support her claims. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to shine an ugly but honest spotlight on the systemic inequities in our nation, I was hardly surprised to hear that a year later only 17 states were actively disclosing demographic data when it comes to Covid-19 vaccine reporting.
As I observed each State launch their vaccine rollout programs, it became strikingly clear that an equity lens had not been applied, and while the narrative of “whoever wants the vaccine will get it” made the headlines, this narrative falsely presumed that people were making informed choices. Based on the conspiracy theories that I spend too much of my time debunking it’s become clear to me that people who are not getting vaccinated are either experiencing one of the 3: vaccine hesitancy, vaccine confusion, or vaccine refusal. The story that every black person is refusing the vaccine due to the racist and unethical history of public health research in black communities, is simply inaccurate. While this is a valid reason for hesitancy, this is not a generalizable assumption. We know that vaccines are our main defense against Covid-19, but why are we not prioritizing the very communities that are at a greater of risk of illness and death? Why is the rush to get vaccinated playing out to look like a sick reality of the Hunger Games, where privileged communities are acquiring immunity while the high risk communities are quite literally being left behind.
Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine confusion are now being presumed as vaccine refusal. All it takes is one conversation with someone from each of these aforementioned groups, and the difference is clear. To combat the spread of misinformation, I have resorted to asking everyone I discuss Covid-19 with, if they’re getting the vaccine; and I don’t judge - I just listen.
Adeola Sonaike, PhD, MPH, CHES | Family Resource Center
As I create an environment of trust, they typically ask me if I got the vaccine - to which I respond yes, and I share my experience. This opens up a whole conversation, that’s personal. Because all of this is very personal to me and I don’t want to see my people being left behind. We just talk, I plant the seed for an alternative perspective. We need to personalize health again and realize that people are more than the headlines; people are not driven to action by data, it’s their personal stories and their lived experiences. As an epidemiologist, who has access to so much information, especially as it pertains to Covid-19, I make it my personal responsibility to get accurate information to the people who need it, because it’s the only way our community can thrive. There’s a lot of healing necessary in this country and the way in which we’ve handled Covid-19 hasn’t been our redemption story, but it doesn’t haven’t have to end here, remember, Covid-19 is just the setting, it was never the story.
