Several White House officials and even some governors publicly blamed the vaccine hesitant people for the latest surge in cases as a result of the spread of the Delta variant across United States. Several studies have shown that the vaccines seem to be decently efficient against the latest, by far more contagious Delta variant, but for some people those facts are still not enough to get the shot.
In the last couple of weeks, the situation with the Covid-19 worsened and some states are even reporting highest daily number of cases and hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic. The vaccination process started well, the interest in vaccines was high, but the trend slowed since early May.
The fact that the President Joe Biden announced that the White House administration will soon require federal workers to get vaccinated along with the fact that some major companies announced similar measures, improved the vaccination rates in the past two-three weeks. Will it be enough to slow the latest spread? No one really knows.
While some still remains unsure whether they should get the shot, one of the most bizarre reasons to not get vaccinated comes from Georgia where a couple decided not to get the shot because they were afraid that the government was experimenting with the vaccines on Black people.
The Daniel couple were married for more than 22 years. Their vaccine hesitancy caused them life, after they got infected with the virus and died on the very same day.
According to the WSBT, the reason why they initially decided not to take the vaccine is the government’s syphilis experiments on Black men during the 1930s.
The Tuskegee study was a government-funded experiment from the 1930s to 1970s on the progression of syphilis, as well as to study if there were differences in symptoms among white patients and Black patients with late-stage syphilis, The Hill reported.
“Just tying these two events together and understanding the historical context of what’s going on,” said Cornelius Daniel, their nephew, “it really wears on me sometimes.”
Cornelius was also vaccine hesitant claiming the dark chapter in American history means something for every Black person. However, he and his eligible family members decided to take the shot later in order to prevent themselves and their loved ones.
“It’s imperative that we see the importance of the vaccinations,” he said.
In many occasions, it was confirmed that the virus can be very dangerous. It’s not the fact that we already know it can kill, but the fact that the virus can worsen the health condition of the infected person in literally hours, making it impossible to even try and treat it.
This has been the case with the Daniel couple and one of their family members described how fast the couple became unresponsive and how they lost them.
“Within a couple of days, they were no longer with us,” said family member M. Daniel from her home in Henry County.
According to the latest CDC data, the states with the lowest vaccination rates seem to have the highest daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
