Health care workers answer questions about the COVID-19 vaccines.
Rhea Boyd, MD, MPH, explains that in addition to keeping you healthy, the COVID vaccines also provide peace of mind.
I don’t think we’ve had enough attention as a community on how much COVID has affected us. We talk a lot about how it affects our physical bodies, but not as much about how it affects our spirit, our mental health, our sense of wellbeing. And I think for communities like ours, that look like me, who has faced enormous losses of adults and beloved caregivers and grandparents and children, we have experienced that burden on our mental health more than any other. And so, I think for our communities in particular, having access to something that can help us curtail what has been honestly just devastation in our communities is so important and can sometimes be that salve to what has really been a burden upon our mental wellbeing. And so, I do think for some people getting the COVID vaccine actually helps with the mental health strain that we’ve had from all of the losses that we’ve experienced during the pandemic.
