Boston Reverend Enlists Dr. Fauci To Help Black Community Get Behind COVID-19 Vaccine

Published November 30, 2020 at 11:20 AM CST

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House on November 19, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

A new study shows Black and Latinx communities face disproportionate exposure to coronavirus because of systemic inequality. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s statistics say they’re infected at twice the rate of white people.

Still, a study by the COVID Collaborative finds that fewer than half of Black people say they’ll take a COVID-19 vaccine. In most cases, the reticence stems from a well-founded historical distrust of the medical community that launched the decades-long Tuskegee Study and profited from Henrietta Lacks‘ cervical cancer.

Now, Black leaders are coming together to promote the vaccine, among them Rev. Liz Walker, senior pastor at Roxbury Presbyterian Church in Boston. To do so, she enlisted the help of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Host Robin Young talks to Rev. Walker.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.