by Lucius Gantt, THE GANTT REPORT
The measles make you bumpy, mumps will make you lumpy, chicken pox will make you jump and twitch. The common cold will fool you, influenza really cools you but Covid 19, Lord, will kill you quick!
Obviously, the above statement is a comedic take on the old Coasters song, “Poison Ivy”.
Seriously, more than a significant number of my friends, and other people of color, are hesitant to rush to take Covid vaccinations.
However, in my case, I plan to choose life!
Thousands and thousands of Americans die daily in the USA and hundreds of thousands of people die daily around the globe from the CoronaVirus.
A very small number of people who have taken a version of Corona vaccinations have had an allergic reaction but I’m not aware of any vaccination deaths.
I am not a doctor and The Gantt Report is not a medical journal but I do have a Masters Degree in a health related science from a major accredited university so don’t base your vaccination decision on this column. Vaccinate or don’t vaccinate based on what you think is best for you and your family.
I get my health information from my health care providers and from scientists and for the last couple of months I’ve had to see two or three doctors every week including my primary care physician, cardiologists, neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons, nephrologists, urologists and others.
My health decisions are not made based on texts, opinion columns, Facebook posts, Twitter feeds, Tik Tok videos, Instagram posts or Worldstar fight flicks and booty pictures!
I also don’t make health decisions based on Russian, and other foreign nation’s propaganda videos or conspiracy theories from right wing crack pots.
I do, however, know that racism in health care does exist. I know about what happened years ago in the Tuskegee Experiment and continues to happen in today’s health care systems.
If most African Americans don’t know, a Black woman from North Carolina will go down in history for leading the effort to solve the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, a research fellow and scientific lead at the National Institute of Health, is on the frontlines working with a team of scientists, studying Moderna’s vaccine, one of the two COVID-19 vaccines shown to be effective by more than 90 percent.
The drug has received emergency use authorization by the FDA.
“I want to make it clear that the work that we have been doing for so long I personally stand by it, essentially with all of my being,” said Corbett.
African American medical schools where many doctors of color are educated and trained at Tennessee’s Meharry, Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine, Washington’s Howard University College of Medicine, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles are all working on varying fronts — from establishing testing sites, providing medical care to doing research — to fight this Covid 19 disease.
At the end of the day, Lucius Gantt will CHOOSE LIFE!
I will continue to shelter at home, wear masks, wash my hands and social distance as much as possible for the foreseeable future.
Right now, I have some serious health challenges and various underlying conditions and I’m very mature, so to speak.
I want to thank my family, friends, business partners and colleagues for any and all spiritual and financial support you all have for me. God is not through with me or The Gantt Report yet.
A long and healthy life is the best revenge against a devilish, murderous virus.
By the time Covid vaccinations reach most African American communities, the true impact of vaccinations will be obvious to everyone.
Protect your health and yourself at all times and do it by any means necessary!
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.