Episode 5 Dr. Kizzy, Lead Immunologist on the Moderna vaccination

Black Woman's Renaissance

Did you know a SISTA lead the team who created the Moderna, Covid Vaccine? Yessss! Do you still think it was created to hurt Black people?

Today we are honoring to accomplishments of Dr. Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Shanta Corbett. At 35 years old she is a leading American viral immunologist. Dr. Corbett is an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and assistant professor of immunology and+ infectious diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Corbett started working on a vaccine to protect people from coronavirus disease.[3] Recognizing that the virus was similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Corbett's team partnered with Moderna, to create their vaccine,

Corbett’s work has earned praise from luminaries in medicine and government alike, from Dr. Anthony Fauci, and president of the National Medical Association Oliver Brooks, to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. As a young, Black female scientist, Corbett has used her national platform to address lingering vaccine hesitancy, or as she calls it, “vaccine inquisitiveness,” in the Black community and reassure skeptics of its safety and efficacy by speaking virtually at churches and other community organizations. She hopes to continue these community outreach efforts in Boston.

A native of North Carolina, Corbett, 35, spent six years as a research fellow and the scientific lead for the Coronavirus Vaccines Team at the Vaccine Research Center’s Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory. In 2008, she received a BS in biological sciences, with a secondary major in sociology, from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she was a Robert and Jane Meyerhoff and NIH undergraduate scholar. She obtained her PhD in microbiology and immunology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014.

This is why Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett is our Black Woman of Renaissance of the week.

KEEPING IT REAL!

Black Folk are still scared of the shot!

The CDC reports demographic characteristics, including race/ethnicity, of people receiving COVID-19 vaccinations at the national level.

As of July 19, 2021, CDC reported that nearly two thirds of people who received at least one shot were White (59%), 9% were Black, 16% were Hispanic, 6% were Asian, 1% were American Indian or Alaska Native, and <1% were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, while 8% reported multiple or other race.

However, CDC data also show that recent vaccinations are reaching larger shares of Hispanic, Asian, and Black populations compared to overall vaccinations. Thirty percent of vaccines administered in the past 14 days have gone to Hispanic people, 6% to Asian people, and 14% to Black people (Figure 1). These recent patterns suggest a narrowing of racial gaps in vaccinations at the national level, particularly for Hispanic and Black people, who account for a larger share of recent vaccinations compared to their share of the total population (30% vs. 17% and 13% vs. 12%, respectively). While these data provide helpful insights at a national level, to date, CDC is not publicly reporting state-level data on the racial/ethnic composition of people vaccinated.

Notably, Blacks have received a lower percentage of their share of the vaccination compared to their share of Covid cases and deaths in every state. For example in Georgia

26%26% vacination

35%35% deaths

32%32% population