Our local teams are hard at work implementing creative strategies for getting the word out about COVID-19 vaccination in their communities.

If you missed our recent webinar on building vaccine equity during COVID-19, you can view the recording here. Stay tuned for details on the forthcoming CommuniVax website!

“Hell No”: Correctional Officers Are Declining The Coronavirus Vaccine En Masse. Some correctional officers are refusing the vaccine because they fear both short- and long-term side effects of the immunizations. Others have embraced conspiracy theories about the vaccine. Distrust of the prison administration and its handling of the virus has also discouraged officers from being immunized. In some instances, correctional officers said they would rather be fired than be vaccinated. (The Marshall Project, 3/15/21)

See also: Prisons are long-term care facilities. So why don’t inmates get priority for Covid-19 vaccination? (STAT, 3/17/21)

Little Difference In Vaccine Hesitancy Among White And Black Americans, Poll Finds. Among those who responded to the survey, 73% of Black people and 70% of White people said that they either planned to get a coronavirus vaccine or had done so already; 25% of Black respondents and 28% of white respondents said they did not plan to get a shot. Latino respondents were slightly more likely to say they would not get vaccinated at 37%, compared with 63% who either had or intended to get a vaccine. (NPR, 3/12/21)

Vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination in the time of COVID-19: A Google Trends analysis. This analysis using Google Trends has shown that throughout the pandemic the search interest in a coronavirus vaccine has increased and remained high throughout. Peaks are found when public declarations are made, the case number increases significantly, or when vaccine breakthroughs are announced. Anti-vaccine searches, in the context of COVID-19, have had a continued and growing presence during the pandemic. Contrary to what some may believe, the burden of coronavirus has not been enough to dissuade anti-vaccine searches entirely. (Vaccine, 3/6/21)

Clergy Preach Faith in the Covid Vaccine to Doubters. Clergy members who believe in the importance of vaccines are uniquely positioned to counter those claims. Pope Francis himself declared that coronavirus shots are “morally acceptable” because of the severity of the pandemic and the remoteness of the connection to the aborted fetus. With Ramadan approaching next month, imams have been holding Facebook Live chats with Muslim doctors, organized around questions like, “Is the Covid-19 Vaccine Halal?” (New York Times, 3/14/21)

The Virus, the Vaccine, and the Dark Side of Wellness. Misinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccines have spread across social media, infiltrating the sunny world of wellness influencers at a time when the stakes couldn’t be higher. (Harper's Bazaar, 3/16/21)

People Are Keeping Their Vaccines Secret. For every immunization that sparks public joy, there’s perhaps another that blips silently by, shaded with guilt, frustration, or fear. Many of the recipients of these early jabs have chosen to hide them from even close friends and family—some of the people who stand to benefit the most from the protection that immunization affords. (The Atlantic, 3/11/21)

Topline Report on COVID-19 Vaccination in the United States. This report presents responses collected between January 10 and February 27, 2021 from more than 1.9 million Americans. The proportion of adults who are either vaccinated or are willing to get vaccinated increased by 5 percentage points during this time period, from 72% to 77%, but we still need to combat vaccine hesitancy. (The Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University & Facebook, 3/12/21)

‘We want to be educated, not indoctrinated,’ say Trump voters wary of covid shots. Be honest that scientists don’t have all the answers. Tout the number of people who got the vaccines in trials. And don’t show pro-vaccine ads with politicians — not even ones with Donald Trump. That’s what a focus group of vaccine-hesitant Trump voters insisted to politicians and pollsters this weekend, as public health leaders rush to win over the tens of millions of Republicans who say they don’t plan to get a coronavirus shot. (Washington Post, 3/15/21)

Americans support restricting unvaccinated people from offices, travel. Seventy-two percent of Americans said it was important to know “if the people around me have been vaccinated,” according to the poll. A majority - 62% - said unvaccinated people should not be allowed to travel on airplanes. Fifty-five percent agreed that unvaccinated people should not work out at public gyms, enter movie theaters or attend public concerts. (Reuters, 3/12/21)

Dapper Dan on Community, COVID-19, and the Importance of Getting Vaccinated. After receiving the first of his two shots, Daniel "Dapper Dan" Day sat down for a Zoom with a Dr. Mary Bassett, the former commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and the Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. Together they discussed the ins and outs of the vaccine process and addressed common concerns regarding safety, side effects, and the reasons why COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted BIPOC individuals. (Vogue, 3/15/21)

How anti-vaccination websites build audiences and monetize misinformation. Anti-vaccination websites employ vast configurations of ad, social media and analytics trackers to drive traffic, build audiences and monetize misinformation. While some of these sites may have been blacklisted by the tracker providers, this nevertheless gives an indication of the important role that the technologies of these companies have played in publishing anti-vaccination websites. (First Draft News, 3/10/21)

Massive Facebook study on users’ doubt in vaccines finds a small group appears to play a big role in pushing the skepticism. The research is a large-scale attempt to understand the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy, or the act of delaying or refusing a vaccination despite its availability, on social media — a primary source of health information for millions of people. While Facebook has banned outright false and misleading statements about coronavirus vaccines since December, a huge realm of expression about vaccines sits in a gray area. (Washington Post, 3/14/21)

COVID Cases Plummet among Nursing Home Staffers despite Vaccine Hesitancy. Along with other health care workers, nursing home staffers and residents were first in line to get vaccines in December because elderly people in congregate settings are among the most vulnerable to infection: More than 125,000 residents have died of COVID, CMS data shows, while over 550,000 nursing home staff members have tested positive and more than 1,600 have died. Yet the vaccination rate among staffers is far lower than that of residents. (Scientific American, 3/15/21)

5th Annual Virtual Conference: COVID19: Media, Misinformation, and Science Communication. In this two-day conference, nationally renowned keynote speakers and panelists will share their work examining online COVID-19 patient communities, vaccine hesitancy and acceptance, health inequities and global health communication. The virtual conference will be held May 13-14, 2021. Registration is required. (University of Connecticut, 3/21)

COVID-19 Vaccine Second-Dose Completion and Interval Between First and Second Doses Among Vaccinated Persons — United States, December 14, 2020−February 14, 2021. Among persons who received a first dose and for whom sufficient time had elapsed to receive the second dose, 88.0% had completed the series; 8.6% had not received the second dose but were still within the allowable interval to receive it. Among all 2-dose recipients, 95.6% received the second dose within the recommended interval. Differences in missed doses or second doses administered outside the recommended interval were identified among jurisdictions and demographic group. (CDC, 3/15/21)

Don't be Seduced: Two Shots Are Better Than One. It was a pleasant surprise to learn from Pfizer's and Moderna's clinical trials that a first dose affords meaningful protection against COVID-19, at least in the short-term. Based on these data, many countries are delaying the second dose in order to spread the limited supply to as many people as possible. It's easy to be seduced into thinking we should do the same, and some American public health experts have urged us to follow suit. Here, Drs. Céline Gounder, John P. Moore, and Luciana Borio explain why the United States has been getting it right all along and why shifting gears now would be a mistake. (Think Global Health, 3/18/21)

Vaccinated Mother Gives Birth To First Newborn With Covid-19 Antibodies. A Florida woman, who is a healthcare worker, received her first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at 36 weeks of pregnancy, and three weeks later delivered a healthy newborn girl. Samples of the newborn’s umbilical cord blood at the time of delivery demonstrated presence of Covid-19 antibodies. (Forbes, 3/17/21)

See also: Pre-print: Newborn Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 detected in cord blood after maternal vaccination (medRxiv, 2/5/21)

Why the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine can make you feel lousy. What’s going on? We asked experts to describe what happens after mRNA vaccinations. (Mercury News, 3/15/21)

Prioritization of Pregnant Individuals in State Plans for COVID-19 Vaccination. Most states include pregnant individuals as a priority group for initial COVID-19 vaccination, and in almost 50% of states they are currently eligible to receive vaccine. The increased prioritization of pregnant people for COVID-19 vaccination marks important progress — it is both ethically imperative and supported by recommendations from U.S. professional obstetrics societies and the CDC. Continued efforts to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant people require, at minimum, that all states prioritize pregnancy equally with CDC-listed high-risk health conditions based on the available objective data. (American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 3/13/21)

Afraid of Needles? Don’t Let It Keep You From a Covid-19 Vaccine. And as the world’s hopes of returning to a post-pandemic normal rest largely on people’s willingness to take a Covid-19 vaccine, experts and health care professionals are assuring those people that there are ways to overcome this fear. (New York Times, 3/15/21)

Vaccinating Children Seen As A Key Step Toward COVID-19 Herd Immunity. The U.S. has administered more than 110 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, but the vast majority of those jabs are going to adults. Moderna announced Tuesday that it has begun enrolling children from 6 months to less than 12 years old into a trial of its COVID-19 vaccine. (NPR, 3/17/21)

COVID-19 Variants: Vaccines, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics. The

variants pose potential challenges to the effectiveness of existing countermeasures—vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics—and the development of new ones. Efforts have increased nationally to track the emergence and spread of new variants, primarily through increasing genomic and other surveillance. (Congressional Research Service, 3/11/21)

See also: Virus Variants Likely Evolved Inside People With Weak Immune Systems (New York Times, 3/15/21)

Some Long Covid Patients Feel Much Better After Getting the Vaccine. Scientists are only beginning to study any potential effect of vaccines on long Covid symptoms. Anecdotes run the gamut: Besides those who report feeling better after the shots, many people say they have experienced no change and a small number say they feel worse. (New York Times, 3/17/21)

Biden says country will hit 100 million COVID-19 shots this week. Biden entered office with a goal of administering 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office. He described it as an “audacious” and “aggressive” goal, but experts at the time argued the country would need to be much more ambitious in the coming months, particularly since the U.S. was already administering hundreds of thousands of shots a day when Biden came into office. According to federal data, the U.S. has administered 115 million doses, and is on track for 200 million shots by the 100-day mark. (The Hill, 3/18/21)

Biden Takes First Tentative Steps to Address Global Vaccine Shortage. Under pressure to play catch-up on “vaccine diplomacy,” President Biden says he will help finance vaccine manufacturing capacity but is still resisting exports of doses. (New York Times, 3/12/21)

The White House is set to unveil a wide-reaching, billion-dollar campaign aimed at convincing every American to get vaccinated. This television, radio, and digital advertising blitz, set to kick off within weeks, will focus on Americans outright skeptical of vaccines’ safety or effectiveness as well as those who are potentially more willing to seek a Covid-19 immunization but don’t yet know where, when, or how. Specifically, the campaign will target three groups in which access, apathy, or outright skepticism may pose a barrier to vaccinations: young people, people of color, and conservatives, according to a Biden aide. Congress and the administration have set aside over $1.5 billion for the effort. (STAT, 3/15/21)

See also: What’s in the American Rescue Plan for COVID-19 Vaccine and Other Public Health Efforts? (KHN, 3/16/21)

The U.S. Is Sitting on Tens of Millions of Vaccine Doses the World Needs. The fate of those doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine is the subject of an intense debate among White House and federal health officials, with some arguing the administration should let them go abroad where they are desperately needed while others are not ready to relinquish them, according to senior administration officials. (New York Times, 3/11/21)

Defense Production Act Speeds Up Vaccine Production. Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has used the law frequently in the crash program to develop COVID-19 vaccines. While the law may seem like a magic wand to help jump-start vaccine production, there are limitations to the act's power and difficulties in tracking how well it actually works. (NPR, 3/13/21)

Shot Chasers: How Officials in Trump’s Lame-Duck White House Scrambled to Score COVID-19 Vaccinations. In December and January, a long-planned effort to vaccinate essential federal workers was thrown into turmoil, breeding suspicion, infighting, and “shameless” attempts to crash the list. (Vanity Fair, 3/15/21)

There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots. So why are people worried? So far, these vaccines have shown themselves to be extraordinarily safe. In fact, it’s perhaps surprising that we haven’t heard more stories of adverse effects. There could well be some extremely rare event that is triggered by Covid-19 vaccines, but there is no sign of this yet. We can just hope that this message gets through to those who are still hesitant because of the misinformation that has been spread about the supposed harm of vaccines, and the unhelpful comments made by some European politicians. (The Guardian, 3/15/21)

Inoculation Nation: States Inch Closer to Herd Immunity as Nation Sets Record High Vaccination. As of March 14, the U.S. has distributed a total of 135.8 million doses to its states, districts and territories, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. In the past week, the federal government distributed 19.4 million doses, slightly lower than the previous two weeks’ distribution levels. (APM Research Lab, 3/16/21)

Maryland launches preregistration system for mass vaccination sites. Maryland has launched a single portal for people to register for coronavirus vaccinations at mass vaccination sites, amid frustration with the state’s decentralized system and criticism from Democrats over racial disparities in who is getting the vaccine. The website, covidvax.maryland.gov, will not replace local distribution systems but will allow people who qualify for a shot under the state’s Phase 1 criteria to preregister for an appointment at one of six mass vaccination sites. (Washington Post, 3/14/21)

The CDC’s program to track vaccine effectiveness over time leaves out 60 million Americans. V-safe, a program designed to monitor how well the vaccines work over time, can only be used if you have a smartphone. That makes it inaccessible to approximately one in five Americans. (Fast Company, 3/15/21)

Plenty of Vaccines, but Not Enough Arms: A Warning Sign in Cherokee Nation. “We’re running out of people to vaccinate,” said Brian Hail, who helps oversee the tribe’s vaccination efforts. He winced as he pulled up the day’s schedule one recent morning: Vaccinations were open to basically everyone across the reservation, but 823 appointments sat unclaimed. It is a side effect of early success, tribal health officials said. With many enthusiastic patients inoculated and new coronavirus infections at an ebb, the urgency for vaccines has gone distressingly quiet. (New York Times, 3/16/21)

Fewer than half of states are giving vaccine access to U.S. Postal Service workers. The Postal Service has endured tumultuous months amid a significant increase in online shopping, understaffing, government funding issues and an explosion of mail-in ballots during a contentious election. Thousands of postal workers have contracted the coronavirus, and more than 150 have died. Still, fewer than half of the states across the country — at least 22 — have begun administering shots to Postal Service workers, at least in some counties, even as they rapidly expand access to more groups of people, according to a New York Times survey. (New York Times, 3/14/21)

Why Your Doctor Was Left Out Of The COVID-19 Vaccination Plan. The exclusion of primary care doctors is just one of the many ways that a pandemic vaccine rollout differs from the normal, everyday process of getting people vaccinated. We have a process that we know works — experts I spoke to, in fact, described the United States’ normal vaccination system as one of the best in the world. So why not use it in a pandemic? (FiveThirtyEight, 3/18/21)

America’s Next COVID Obstacle: Vaccine Deserts. As the nation’s vaccine supply grows, the next challenge will be getting shots to these harder-to-reach communities, which is necessary to reach herd immunity and bring the virus under control. Public-health experts call these areas “vaccine deserts,” where eligible people — often poor people and people of color, who is Black — do not have easy access to vaccinations. (New York Magazine, 3/11/21)

For the top women leading the country’s pandemic response, equity is kept top of mind. In a conversation with The 19th, Drs. Rochelle Walensky and Marcella Nunez-Smith discuss the country’s vaccination distribution plan. As the United States races to vaccinate every adult in America — a feat that President Joe Biden said could happen by the end of May — top women officials leading the president’s coronavirus response said the administration’s efforts are centered around equity. (19th News, 3/11/21)

For the first time in decades, vaccines are having a moment. Will it last? The question is whether the newfound embrace of vaccines will translate into anything more. Adult vaccination against other diseases has long trailed the success of childhood efforts, for example. Will some people reconsider the importance of inoculations in general? (STAT, 3/15/21)

How Alaska managed to vaccinate residents at higher rates than any other state. The state’s pandemic response is also largely driven by the oral history of the 1918 pandemic that has been passed down by Native people, Zink said. Many tribes were devastated by the spread of influenza more than a century ago and again with COVID-19. The Alaskan Native population — which currently constitutes about one-fifth of the people in the state — has seen a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. (19th News, 3/11/21)