LYNN — Dr. Kiame Mahaniah scanned the crowd of people already congregating in the Lynn Tech Field House last Friday morning to get their COVID-19 vaccine shots.
“There’s more diversity today,” said the CEO of the Lynn Community Health Center, which, in partnership with the city of Lynn and other agencies, is dispensing the shots at the spacious Tech gym for Lynn and Nahant residents. “There hasn’t been much diversity in the last few days. Mostly white people.”
And that, Dr. Mahaniah said, is a problem that goes much deeper than you may think. He uses his own agency as an example.
Ninety-seven percent of the LCHC doctors have been vaccinated, he said, and of that group, about 75 percent of them are white. However, of the receptionists and other workers at the agency, who are more representative of the city’s demographics, only 54 percent have been vaccinated. Of the staff represented, 60 percent are people of color.
This is a troubling statistic, Dr. Mahaniah said.
“First,” he said, “These are people in the health industry, and they are skeptical about this vaccine.
“Second, it’s not necessarily the vaccine they’re skeptical about, but just the system itself,” he said. “If you don’t trust law enforcement, politicians, or if you don’t speak English and have another barrier put before you, you’re always facing obstacles. They see racism everywhere, and now people are telling them, ‘There’s no racism involved in this,’ when they’re being persuaded to be among the first to receive this. They’re skeptical.
“It’s like you’re asking some people to change their worldview,” he said. “I’ll give you an example. Our first week here (at Tech), I’d say 80 percent of those receiving vaccines were white. Lynn is not 80 percent white.”
What could happen as a result, Dr. Mahaniah said, is a delayed recovery from the near yearlong COVID protocols that have shut down businesses and caused economic havoc.
“I’ll bet that in Lynn, we won’t be talking about going back to schools until next fall,” he said. “I am really worried that our economy, especially in Lynn, is going to suffer even more because of this lack of confidence, based on what’s happening in our own health center.
Dr. Mahaniah said that most of the people he’s spoken with who express skepticism don’t say they refuse to take it, but that they want to wait a while, perhaps to see whether those who take it have bad reactions. Also, he said, it isn’t simple mistrust either. Some worry that the vaccine, as it was developed in such a short amount of time, may not be safe.
He explained why that is not so. Most previous vaccines were devised by using eggs, which is one reason they took so long to develop — it’s also why some receiving the vaccines have been asked whether they have any allergic reactions to eggs. With the emergence of Messenger RNA (mRNA) — into which both Pfizer and Moderna have tapped — the process can now take less time.
Messenger RNA, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, differs from other vaccines in that it does not put a weakened or inactivated germ into the body. Instead, the CDC says, mRNA vaccines “teach our cells how to make a protein — or even just a piece of a protein — that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.”
Dr. Mahaniah said the key to getting people of color on board with the vaccine is to get their peers involved in talking to them and educating them.
“If you have some church groups that may be reluctant, you have a person from the church talk to them. If you have a Guatemalan group, you get someone from their community to speak. You have to get a dialogue going with them,” he said.
Another thing that Dr. Mahaniah feels inhibits some people from accepting the vaccine is the form it takes.
“If it was a pill, there probably wouldn’t be this reaction,” he said. “But the idea of it being a shot just freaks some people out. There’s just something about a shot that’s different from a pill.”
Dr. Mahaniah feels that by next week, the state will finally enter the next phase of the vaccine rollout, meaning people over the age of 65, especially those compromised by chronic medical conditions, will be eligible to register and be vaccinated.
“We’ll be pretty busy here for about the next three weeks with the next wave of people,” he said. “That’ll give us time to come up with a plan to start reassuring those who are skeptical so that when the activity dies down we’ll be ready.
“We’re not looking for everybody,” he said. “It only takes about 70 percent to develop herd immunity.”
He also feels that even after we’ve reached a point of herd immunity, we’ll not have seen the last of COVID.
“It’s going to be around forever, just like the flu,” he said.
He uses an odd term to describe it.
“It’s a beautiful virus,” he said. “I don’t mean that in a good way. But it’s perfect. It’s respiratory. It takes you a week to 10 days to get sick, yet you can spread it without even knowing you have it, where with most viruses, you don’t start spreading until you have symptoms.”
And, like the flu, the vaccine will have to be modified periodically to accommodate the new strains that have already started popping up throughout the world.
But, Dr. Mahaniah said, thanks to mRNA, the time it takes to respond to the variables in the virus is lessened.
