At her last doctor’s appointment, Erica Tyler, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., joked that she didn’t want to get vaccinated for Covid-19 “because another foot might grow out of my forehead.
And I’m not ready for that.” Ms. Tyler, 68, a cancer survivor who has diabetes and high blood pressure, lost her wife to a heart attack nearly a year ago and has been staying home throughout the pandemic to avoid becoming infected with the coronavirus.
But when the vaccine became available, she did not rejoice. “I was resistant,” Ms. Tyler said. She described feeling unsettled by the push to vaccinate minorities, especially given how Black people have been underserved or mistreated by the medical establishment in the past. “I felt that they were trying to.