By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.
Washington, D.C. — Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, America's first Black and first woman vice president, took a shot of the Moderna vaccine live on television on Tuesday and urged Americans, particularly Blacks and other minorities, to also take the vaccine as Blacks are dying of the deadly disease at a rate at least three to five times higher than that of Whites, data show.
“I want to encourage everyone to get the vaccine — it is relatively painless. It is safe," Harris said.
Exactly how many people will embrace the vaccine, which provides acquired immunity to COVID-19, remains to be seen as Blacks are more skeptical in large numbers and lower class and less educated Americans are also more reluctant to take the vaccine, which ever vaccine brand, none of them approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be administered to people under 18-years old.
The virus has spread to all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and the nation has more than 81 million reported cases and some 341,000 people dead since early March when the pandemic hit the U.S. with a vengeance, worldwide figures showing that there are some 82 million cases globally and roughly 1.8 million deaths.
Harris took the vaccine behind President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, both of them taking their vaccine shots live last week on television.
Harris' husband, millionaire entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff, also took the vaccine Tuesday.
The vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20 when both he and Harris take office amid political discourse as President Trump still refuses to concede the presidential election he lost on Nov 3 to Biden.
Harris, 55, is the first woman of color to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America.
When she accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president relative to the Democratic National Convention in August she spoke out on racism, among a number of public policy issues impacting the Black community and others, including the pandemic.
She blamed the partisan divisiveness in the country on the Trump administration.
She said then that Trump is too controversial, and that he is mean.
"The constant chaos leaves us adrift," Harris said. "The incompetence makes us feel afraid."
With millions of Americans watching across most major television and cable channels, she shined during the vice presidential debate on Oct 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and out did Vice President Mike Pence, polls said.
A former California attorney general, the junior federal lawmaker is a native of Oakland who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.
She became the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.
