DETROIT – A new study from the University of Michigan is raising an alarm after it found a majority of Detroit residents don’t think they’ll choose to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available.
Read: Pfizer, BioNTech seek emergency use of COVID-19 shots in US
According to the study, nearly two-thirds of Detroiters say they are unlikely to get a coronavirus vaccine -- and those numbers grow among some of the hardest hit communities in the region.
Those from Hispanic or Latinx communities were twice as likely to say they wouldn’t get the vaccine compared to white responders. For Black Detroiters, that number is four times higher.
Health experts who authored the study say the results are due to high levels of distrust in the government, doctors and news throughout those communities. The survey ran between Oct. 14-28, prior to the presidential election.
The news of the study shook Detroiter Alfonso May, whose mother Carolina passed away just three weeks after contracting the virus.
May is joining health officials’ in their plea to Detroiters to receive a coronavirus vaccine once one becomes available.
“This is real. If you’re not going to do it for yourself, do it for others around you and your family,” May said. “This is a deadly, deadly, deadly virus.”
Alfonso’s family was affected numerous times by COVID-19. One of Detroit’s youngest COVID victims, Skylar Herbert who died at just 5 years old, was May’s cousin.
Click here to read the results of the University of Michigan’s survey.
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