An African-American physician in Summit County whose story inspired many is now working to help assure people in the Black community that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe.
Dr. Carl Allamby came to prominence in 2019, when he began his medical career after 25-years as an auto mechanic.
Today, he’s in the ER at Cleveland Clinic Akron General. He says there is still some distrust of government and medicine among African-Americans. And changing those perceptions could take decades.
“The medical community has been largely ones where minorities have been excluded from. And it's very difficult to walk into a place and believe that you are going to receive equitable care when very few people who are there look like you.
“We need to go to different places around the community -- not just stand in front of hospitals -- but go to a lot of other organizations that may represent minority life, black life, or multicultural life to show that we're willing to go to those kind of places in order to deliver the vaccination if we have to.”
Allamby says one other way to get the word out is leading by example: he received the vaccine last month.
The Summit County Public Health Department has released the following myth v. fact sheet about the vaccine:
