As conspiracy theories, misinformation and doubt based on past experience swirl around the new COVID-19 vaccines, Mansfield doctor Antonio Rozier wants people to know it’s not just safe but vitally important to the health of all Americans.
“We have an avenue now to get back to normal if we all just take the vaccine,” Dr. Rozier said. Rozier specializes in interventional spine medicine.
Rozier received the vaccine last week and says he was surprised by just how minimal his side effects were.
“As a person who actually responds pretty significantly to most vaccines, I was surprised. I thought I was going to be sicker from the injection. I was expecting a little more from it, but no, that was all,” Rozier said. “For the first 24 hours, I was a little tired, lethargic, like a sluggish day. My arm was sore like I got punched in the arm and the next day it was gone.”
As an African-American, Rozier also believes it’s vital that the medical community confronts doubts about the vaccine in communities of color. Doubts, that in many cases, have a history of unequal medical care in minority communities and abusive government programs carried out in decades past.
“There is a reason why Black people feel like the medical community has not been honest with them,” Rozier said. “We need to spread as much positive, factual information about the vaccine on a personal level as possible.”
Ultimately, Rozier believes the success of the vaccine rollout will be determined by the ability to circumvent inaccurate information online. In many cases, it will come down to doctors like him showing through their actions that they trust its safety.
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“I have had to confront this in my community, many times this has come up,” Rozier said. “This is something that transcends color.”
