NEW YORK – Just as the new coronavirus was declared a global pandemic, gym members in New York City frantically called the fitness center where Rahmell Peebles worked, asking him to freeze their memberships.
Peebles, a 30-year-old black man who’s skeptical of what he hears from the news media and government, didn’t see the need for alarm over the virus. “I felt it was a complete hoax,” Peebles said. “This thing happens every two or four years.
We have an outbreak of a disease that seems to put everybody in a panic.” Peebles is among roughly 40 million black Americans deciding minute by minute whether to put their faith in government and the medical community during the coronavirus pandemic.