Danny Ainge says ‘at least a couple’ Celtics won’t want COVID-19 vaccine

According to Danny Ainge, general manager of the Boston Celtics, not everyone on the list will want to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it is fully available to the public.

“I’ve talked to a handful about it,” Ainge said Thursday, speaking to Touch & Rich of 98.5. “Most of them get it, yeah, possibly in the next few weeks here. But yeah, I think there will be at least a couple who don’t want to have it.

Ainge also noted that he had received the Pfizer version of the vaccine.

The Celtics have been one of the teams hardest hit by the virus. Marcus Smart was one of the first players in the league to test positive. At the start of the season, three games were postponed due to health and safety protocols. Jayson Tatum ran out of time and explained that his lungs haven’t felt the same since his return. More recently, Romeo Langford and Tristan Thompson have missed a lot of time. Romeo Langford has finally cleared the protocols and is expected to be back in the Celtics lineup on Friday against the Houston Rockets. Thompson is also expected to be back soon, according to Ainge.

On Thursday, the team posted a lengthy conversation as part of their Celtics United social justice initiative with Grant Williams, Tacko Fall, Cedric Maxwell, Abby Chin of NBC Sports Boston and local doctors Charles Anderson, president of the Dimock Center in Boston. and Dr. Joseph Betancourt, senior vice president of equity and community health at Massachusetts General Hospital. The conversation, according to the team, is intended to contribute to “an understandable and long-standing distrust” of the medical system in the black community.

During the conversation, Anderson and Betancourt address mistrust, discussing events like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in which more than 600 black men with syphilis were denied treatment for their condition as doctors watched. the natural history of untreated syphilis. As Maxwell noted, events like Tuskegee have been anchored in the memories of the black community and give many people a break when considering a COVID shot.

“Here’s the thing about it: We hear these stories through our grandparents,” Anderson said. “Our grandparents who, because they know it and lived it, tell us growing up: ‘You know what? You can’t trust the doctors. They will just experiment on you. Be careful.’ And when you hear enough of it, it rings in your head for most of your life, and then things happen every day that reinforce that.

Still, Anderson and Betancourt were unequivocal supporters of the vaccine. They discussed how the vaccine was produced, noting the large and diverse trials and its effectiveness.

“Look around and see who’s running for the shot,” Betancourt said.

Williams and Fall noted that they had heard skepticism about vaccines in their circles. Williams said her mother Teresa Johnson – an engineer who has worked for NASA for 30 years – grew up telling her to fight disease.

“When this is health care, I have parents who work in the industry, ”Williams said. “They say they see the abuse every day. … This is something that I think makes a lot of our community reluctant to go.

Fall added that growing up in his home country of Senegal, most people believe in more traditional ways. Now that he lives in the United States, he knows “a lot of people” who are not going to get the vaccine.

“It’s all about trust,” Fall said. “Find a way to convey this.”

Williams said he was initially skeptical, but doctors on the panel helped him build his confidence in the vaccine.

“I feel like [it’s] something that not only the black and brown community should be a part of, but everyone in the world, ”he said. “Just really use it as that tool to hopefully bring us back to where we can see others smile, others laugh – really show that expression of love that we maybe haven’t had since.” a year and a half. “