Dr. Luther Robinson pulled up the sleeve on his right arm as he sat in a chair in the exam room. A nurse, Deborah Dominessy, expertly plunged a needle into his arm.
"How did that feel?" she asked.
"Excellent. You're good. I didn't feel a thing," Robinson said. "I'm excited."
The doctor, a pediatrician and student program director with the Jericho Road Community Health Center, was excited because he was the first health care worker there to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.
As a Black man and a doctor, he wanted to set an example. He wanted to show his fellow workers, patients and the public that the vaccine is safe.
"I've looked at the data, I've looked at the research and I've come to the conclusion that this is a good vaccine," he said.
Health care workers are at the front of the line for receiving the vaccine, but some have been hesitant to get the shot.
Jericho Road Community Health Center founder Dr. Myron Glick explains why the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine means so much to him and his staff, who have worked tirelessly over the last nine months, diagnosing more than 2,000 cases of the deadly disease.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said he expects about a "70% acceptance rate" of the vaccine among medical workers and the public at large.
"Herd immunity is somewhere between 70 to 90, if you listen to the experts, if you listen to the Dr. Faucis of the world," Cuomo said. "You have to hit at least 70% society-wide. And society-wide, there are going to be a lot of people who don't want to take this vaccine. You have a lot of cynicism and skepticism. You have it especially in the Black community, you have it in the anti-vaxxer community. Ninety percent is incredibly high. If you were giving out cash to New Yorkers, you wouldn't hit 90%."
Jericho Road, whose diverse staff provides health care to underserved and marginalized communities in Buffalo, has seen some of that reluctance and skepticism.
Of the roughly 350 employees, only about half have either been vaccinated or have signed up for the shots since they were made available to Jericho Road on Dec. 22, said Dr. Myron Glick, founder of the health care center.
It's a challenge, Glick said, but one that's understandable.
Jericho Road's clinics on Barton Street on the West Side and on Broadway, near the Broadway Market, have seen numerous Covid-19 patients. Jericho Road has conducted mass testing for Covid. The clinics have administered more than 20,000 tests during the pandemic and have provided care to more than 2,000 Covid patients. Forty-four staff members have tested positive for the virus since March, Glick said.
"One hospitalization, no deaths thankfully," he said of his staff. "But we've seen some of our patients die."
Many of Jericho Road's patients are Black and Latino, as well as new immigrants and resettled refugees, all communities that have been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19. The positivity rate among those tested by Jericho Road has consistently been at least double that of the general population in Western New York, Glick said.
That's why it was especially exciting, he and Robinson agreed, that the vaccine was being made available.
Dr. Myron Glick holds up a sign before getting his Covid-19 vaccination on the first day of staff vaccinations at Jericho Road Community Health Center, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020.
"To get to this day where you know we could start vaccinating – our team is really excited. And it's a relief. A big relief," Glick said.
Yet, some staff are nervous about the vaccine.
"It's not that we have anti-vaxxers. That's not the deal," Glick said. "We have a very diverse staff. That staff, especially the African American members of our staff, have experienced, directly and indirectly, 400 years of racism. If you look at what happened over the last 400 years, how Black folks have been treated ... like the Tuskegee syphilis experiments ... There were so many different times when as a people they weren't respected by the health care system. They were experimented on. While this is not what's happening this time, it's why I think people are afraid ... I think we have to keep that in mind."
To build trust among staff, Robinson and Glick were the first two at the clinics to get vaccinated.
They both made signs about why they chose to get the vaccine: Robinson wrote, "I want to help to bring the pandemic to an end!" and Glick wrote: "Hope!"
They recorded videos of themselves that were posted on Jericho Road's social media sites and they invited The Buffalo News to be there as they got their shots.
The idea was to show how it's done and to spread the word.
Jericho Road is not making the vaccines mandatory for staff, Glick said.
"We have to get it right with our own staff," he said. "And in the coming months we have to get it right for the community we serve ... There are going to be barriers. I want to be understanding of what the issues are. I'm actually optimistic that, long term, we will overcome the doubt and people will get vaccinated. This vaccination is the way out of this horrible situation."
The Karen community, an ethnic minority from Myanmar, has been testing positive for Covid-19 at higher rate than the rest of Erie
