A healthcare professional administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to a member of the Clarendon school district staff at Manning High School in Manning, South Carolina, USA, on Friday, March 12, 2021. Credit – Micah Green – Bloomberg / Getty Images
When people arrive for their COVID-19 vaccine appointments, Pastor Kylon Middleton greets them in the lobby of East Cooper Medical Center in Mount Pleasant, SC on March 19 with a lapel sticker saying “I Got It!” The OT in “It” is a syringe.
“It’s going well!” Middleton, the well-known pastor of the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Charleston, tells TIME about the public health event between elbows. “Slowly but surely, one shot at a time.”
The event is the second COVID-19 vaccination campaign organized by the recently launched “I Got It!” public health education campaign, which aims to decrease the hesitation of the COVID-19 vaccine in colored communities in South Carolina. So far, the campaign has focused on historically Black settlement communities in the Charleston area – some of which date back to the relocation land after the Civil War – and actively sought out individuals who had no access to computers or transportation. “I understood!” has partnered with its organizers with the East Cooper Medical Center to pre-register and provide vaccination appointments for eligible vulnerable populations.
Closing the healthcare gap – a nonprofit organization that tackles health disparities in black and underserved communities in South Carolina – recently launched the campaign in partnership with the Rotary Club of Charleston, the health analysis company based in Charleston ADoH SCIENTIFIC and Middleton himself.
Middleton’s involvement in the campaign is crucial, says Closing the Gap in Healthcare founder Dr. Thaddeus Bell. “The church has always been a source of inspiration,” he explains. “People trust the church. And they trust the pastor. ”In South Carolina, where faith has historically played a central role in bringing communities together, religious institutions can be crucial in boosting collective immunity. Some places of worship were used by state officials to serve as vaccination centers. Others are working to regularly update their congregations on the latest developments in the launch.
Middleton, who also sits on the Charleston county council, says his goal is to marry “God and science” by working with data scientists, doctors and community leaders to help distribute the vaccine to as many underserved communities as possible. “I am also an elected official. You will not need elected officials. People are not going to trust that, ”says Middleton. “[But] they will listen to their pastor. They will listen to their religious leaders. They will hear individuals who are trusted voices in the community. “
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Bell, who is a practicing physician, has been running radio ads across the state for the past 17 years with the aim of combating the documented distrust of the black community in the health care system, which comes from a history of centuries of mistreatment at the hands of medical professionals.
And taking advantage of the stature of Middleton and Bell in their community, “I Got It!” The campaign launched TV and radio ads in which the two men talk about getting the vaccine and encourage others to do it too.
Henrietta Snype, a 69-year-old sweet grass basket artist from the Four Mile settlement community, was among the 25 people who attended the March 19 event. (Fifty people were vaccinated during the first event, a week earlier.) The organizers filmed her receiving the injection and asked her to explain why she chose to be vaccinated; they will then distribute the video across South Carolina through social media, hoping to use the clip to encourage others to subscribe.
“I am honored to spread the word,” Snype told TIME. “I think that many people in the community did not know how to proceed to obtain [the vaccine]… many of them don’t have the resources to get where they need to go. ”(To get around this problem, the“ I Got It! ”Campaign is recruiting organizers to go door to door and register people for the vaccine and then transport them to their appointments.)
Snype adds that she believes that churches should play an important role in launching the vaccine, as they did in response to previous disasters, such as hurricanes or floods. “People focus on the church…. It’s like being at home, ”she says. “This is where we look for a shoulder to support us.”
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Americans of color have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 nationally and are also underrepresented in the current vaccinated population. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), black Americans are almost twice as likely to die from the virus compared to white Americans, but demographic data released by South Carolina officials in February showed that white residents were vaccinated at twice the rate of black residents.
This discrepancy is probably rooted in several factors. A February survey by ADoH SCIENTIFIC – which sampled 396 adults in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee – found that only 19.3% of black respondents said they were “very likely” to receive the vaccine, in compared to 28.5% in a similar national survey conducted in January. “I don’t think the medical profession is willing to accept and acknowledge that distrust actually plays an important psychological role for African Americans and the needy,” says Bell.
“I am in the black community. I know there is a vaccination hesitation, ”adds Middleton. “Culturally, in our community, when you talk about vaccines, there are certain things that come up that immediately invoke fear,” he continues. The United States has a long history of mistreating blacks through the medical system – a particularly infamous example of this is South Carolina physician James Marion Sims, often considered the father of gynecology, who conducted many of his experiments with enslaved women without anesthesia – and doctors racism continues in America to this day, increasing health disparities that were only exacerbated by the pandemic.
Middleton adds that he himself was nervous about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine before learning more about the subject. “And when I succeeded, I recognized that it was my moral responsibility, it was my duty of faith, to spread that message, to preach that gospel, if you will,” he says.
While “I Got It!” The campaign is mainly active in the Charleston area at the moment, its organizers plan to expand across the state. At the end of this month, they will specifically target Allendale, SC, the state’s poorest and least populous county, says Tony Clarke, director of outreach and development at Closing the Gap in Healthcare. There, the data analyzed by ADoH SCIENTIFIC have signaled vaccine hesitation and the existence of comorbidities is especially high. In addition to TV and radio ads, the campaign is reaching trusted organizers and institutions in the community – mainly religious centers – to help distribute information about the vaccine.
Organizers also see participation in its first two events as indicators of what is to come. They hope to vaccinate about 75 to 100 people per event soon, depending on the offer, says Clarke, and have partnered with other medical clinics across the state to schedule appointments. And the more people they help get vaccinated, they reason, the more likely people around them will also get the vaccine.
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“Other houses of worship will be needed,” says Middleton of gaining the support of other religious leaders to promote the efforts of the “Got it” campaign, “to embrace this message and preach this gospel.” When an individual spreads the news of his vaccination, says Middleton, “it becomes the prayer for family members to receive it. It is the prayer that other members of your churches receive. It is the prayer that the members of your nuclear community will be vaccinated. “
“And therefore, if we can do this in every municipality or small community, especially those that are most vulnerable and needy,” he continues, “then we would have successfully touched and reached the individuals who need it most.”