For Black people, medical care in this country has been fraught with a tangled history of lack of access and an inherent mistrust in a system that has both experimented on Black bodies and at times ignored the pleas and complaints of Black people who have had varying experiences with medical professionals who either don’t listen to them outright or simply believe myths about Black folks’ ability to withstand pain. Enter COVID-19 and the global pandemic that has had the world in a chokehold since last spring. With so much information—and misinformation by way of the former administration–many, including Black folks, are rightfully confused by both the pandemic itself and what it will take to eradicate it or get it under control. Depending on where you live, you may still be receiving mixed messages on the federal, state, and local level as politicians in each one of those sectors have carried out their own personal and political agendas—opening cities and towns before the virus is fully contained, removing mask mandates, and otherwise pretending the thing that is still killing people daily isn’t really happening. Add to that mix the various available vaccines and the confusion around them, and you have a dizzying mix of facts and fiction to sift through before you can even begin to discuss the access issues. For those who still have questions and concerns that have made them either hesitate or outright refuse to take the vaccine, we recently sat down with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to the president. We asked him to help us understand just how the vaccines work, and he addressed some of the bigger concerns people have expressed including the FDA approval process and the confusing info on mask mandates. Check out the video above.