The second national CommuniVax webinar will take place on April 20, 2021, 1-2:30 PM EDT, and will examine the roles health departments can take in achieving health equity through vaccination. Register today!

Our local teams continue supporting vaccine rollout in their communities:

Half of vaccine rejectors believe it is safe to travel now, compared to 29% of vaccinated adults. Half of those who reject vaccines (52%) also say it is safe for them today to socialize (compared to just 30% of all Americans). Another 45% say it is safe for them to go without a mask now. Just one in five Americans overall (21%) think it is safe to go maskless today. (YouGov, 4/9/21)

See also: Anthony Fauci reveals which activities he will and won't do now that he's vaccinated — and indoor restaurants are still a no (Business Insider, 4/8/21)

My Pastor Told Me To. In Sacramento County and across the country, local physicians, administrators and community leaders are coming up with new strategies to reach these communities, including partnering with trusted community leaders. When things come together, the results are amazing, and the vaccine clinic at Macedonia Baptist is a shining example of this. (UC Davis EM, 4/3/21)

Pause in Johnson & Johnson shots raises fears of new vaccine hesitancy. The U.S. will soon run out of people who are willing to receive any coronavirus vaccine, as hesitancy over the inoculation remains stubbornly high among minority populations and among conservative Americans who still voice skepticism. Any additional excuses for skepticism of the vaccine, experts worry, will lengthen the pandemic just as the end draws near. (The Hill, 4/13/21)

Vaccine Rebels: The Teens Defying Their Parents to Get the COVID Vaccine. As vaccines are becoming available to not only those who are elderly or have pre-existing conditions, but anyone age 16 and above depending on the vaccine, minor children are left to fight with their vaccine hesitant parents because in most states, you need parental consent to get the COVID vaccine if you’re under the age of 18. (Teen Vogue, 4/7/21)

Nearly 40% of Marines have declined Covid-19 vaccine. The military cannot make the vaccines mandatory now because they have only emergency use authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration, meaning service members who are required to receive a series of other vaccinations have the option of declining shots to protect against Covid-19. Officials say most of the vaccine hesitancy stems from concerns about the speed at which the vaccines were developed and fears over long-term effects. (CNN, 4/9/21)

Vaccine passports: what should they be used for? A Yahoo News/YouGov poll finds that the issue is deeply polarized: 61% of Democrats favor certain businesses requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination with one in five (19%) oppose it. One-quarter of Republicans (23%) support requiring customers to show evidence of vaccination, and three in five (62%) oppose it. (YouGov, 4/14/21)

COVID-19 public health messages have been all over the place – but researchers know how to do better. COVID-19 is not just a medical issue. It is also a social justice, economic and political issue. That makes it hard to figure out how best to share information about it, especially since messages come from a range of communicators – including elected officials, journalists, scientists, physicians and community leaders – and are delivered to diverse audiences. (The Conversation, 4/14/21)

Covid-19 Vaccine Access and Confidence Survey. The initial poll uncovers important new information about contemporary health care issues facing African Americans and Latinx adults that may impact their ability or desire to get vaccinated. The survey found that while an overwhelming majority of survey respondents are willing to get the Covid-19 vaccination when available, barriers to access and present-day discrimination in medical settings must be addressed. (Rockefeller Foundation, 4/21)

See also: 1 in 5 still say they won't get COVID-19 vaccine: poll (The Hill, 4/14/21)

'Getting a clearer picture': Black Americans on the factors that overcame their vaccine hesitancy. In a March survey by KFF, 55 percent of Black respondents said they wanted the vaccination as soon as possible or were already vaccinated. Twenty-four percent were still holding back to wait and see about the vaccine’s effects. Meanwhile, Republicans and white evangelical Christians were the most likely groups to say they will not be vaccinated, according to the survey. (NBC, 4/12/21)

Republican vaccine resistance remains stubborn. In October and November, an average of 38 percent of Republicans told YouGov that they didn’t plan to get vaccinated. In March and April, the average was 37 percent. In Monmouth’s poll, 43 percent of Republicans said they would probably never get a dose. (Washington Post, 4/14/21)

The Rural Pandemic Isn’t Ending. Right now America is in the simplest stage of its vaccination campaign: getting shots to people who want them. But many Americans are still reluctant to get a vaccine—especially those living in rural areas, who tend to be politically conservative and are among the most fervently opposed to inoculation. Public-health leaders will soon have to refocus their efforts toward the next and more difficult stage of the campaign: persuasion. (The Atlantic, 4/14/21)

Parents are hesitant to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19, according to poll. According to the survey of 1,606 U.S. adults, which was conducted from March 22 to 25, just 39 percent of parents say they will have their children vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as they’re eligible. Nearly the same amount — 37 percent — say they won’t have their children vaccinated against the virus, and 24 percent say they’re unsure. (Yahoo!, 4/13/21)

Only 30% of L.A. County men got COVID-19 vaccine, compared to 44% of women. Why the disparity? The data from L.A. County paints a troubling picture: Here, 153 of every 100,000 women have died from COVID-19, while 289 of every 100,000 men have. But while 44% of women in L.A. County have received at least one dose of a vaccine, only 30% of men have. And in the 38 states that have published a gender breakdown of vaccination rates, more women have been vaccinated than men in all of them, according to Kaiser Health News. (Los Angeles Times, 4/14/21)

Tucker Goes Full Tinfoil Hat: Maybe the Vaccine ‘Doesn’t Work’ and ‘They’re Not Telling You That’. Health officials are studying whether to exclude certain age groups if they resume the J&J vaccine—all six reported cases were women between the age of 18 and 48. A vocal vaccine skeptic for months now, Tucker Carlson pounced on that alarming news Tuesday night, taking the opportunity to openly speculate that the White House and government agencies know that the vaccines are ineffective and dangerous but are hiding that fact from the American people. (The Daily Beast, 4/13/21)

CDC ramps up scrutiny of rare post-vaccination ‘breakthrough infections’. These cases represent a tiny percentage of the 66 million people fully inoculated, and experts say they are neither unexpected nor occurring at an alarming rate. Indeed, the rarity of the breakthrough illnesses in the context of the vast scale of inoculations reinforces the encouraging message from public health experts: These vaccines are highly effective, and their rollout has dramatically driven down the rates of sickness and death among the most vulnerable populations first targeted for inoculations. (Washington Post, 4/9/21)

Johnson & Johnson Vaccinations Paused After Rare Clotting Cases Emerge. Injections of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine came to a sudden halt across the country on Tuesday after federal health agencies called for a pause in the vaccine’s use as they examine a rare blood-clotting disorder that emerged in six recipients. All six were women between the ages of 18 and 48, and all developed the illness within one to three weeks of vaccination. One woman in Virginia died, and a second woman in Nebraska has been hospitalized in critical condition.. (New York Times, 4/13/21)

Cases of Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia after Receipt of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine. As of April 12, 2021, approximately 6.85 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine (Janssen) have been administered in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are reviewing data involving six U.S. cases of a rare type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the J&J COVID-19 vaccine that were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. (CDC, 4/13/21)

See also: COCA Call: Johnson & Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia – Update for Clinicians on Early Detection and Treatment (CDC, 4/15/21)

The COVID-19 vaccine and menstrual irregularities. There are an increasing number of reports surfacing online of changes in the menstrual cycle shortly after COVID vaccination, either bleeding that appeared earlier than expected (a few days after the vaccine), was heavier than expected, and/or more painful than expected. (Substack, 4/12/21)

Why Are Women Bearing the Brunt of Vaccine Side Effects? Dr. Sabra Klein, professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-director of the Center for Women’s Health, Sex, and Gender Research, spoke to Rolling Stone about what researchers do and don’t know about the reasons why women have reported more reactions to the COVID vaccines, while men have been effected more severely by the virus itself. (Rolling Stone, 4/14/21)

COVID-19 Vaccines Are Entering Uncharted Immune Territory. Vaccines have promised, to the rest of the world, a return to a semblance of normal life; the ones currently cleared for use against the coronavirus are, by all accounts, extraordinary. But they were not designed for, or tested extensively on, immunocompromised or immunosuppressed individuals, whose immune systems have been subdued by underlying conditions, environmental exposures, drugs, or viruses such as HIV. (The Atlantic, 4/15/21)

Pfizer, BioNTech request expanded emergency use of Covid-19 vaccine for ages 12-15. In March, the drugmakers said the vaccine was found to be safe, effective and produced robust antibody responses in 12- to 15-year olds in a clinical trial. (CNBC, 4/9/21)

Moderna COVID-19 vaccine protects for at least 6 months: Study. ew research suggests the protection the Moderna vaccine gives against COVID-19 lasts for at least six months. The report Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine echoes what Pfizer said last week about its vaccine, which works in a similar way. (ABC, 4/7/21)

A Former FDA Chief on What It’s Like to Pause a Vaccine. One person who knows what it’s like to make such a monumental decision is Dr. Margaret Hamburg, who oversaw the Food and Drug Administration from 2009 to 2015. In 2010, she made the decision to recommend pediatricians pause use of a vaccine given to infants and children to prevent severe cases of diarrhea. (New York Magazine, 4/13/21)

Vaccine Requirements Spread in U.S., Sowing Concern on Overreach. Given the fraught politics, many companies are “not necessarily wanting to be the first in their sector to take the plunge,” said Carmel Shachar, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. Still, “we’re going to see employers start to require vaccinations if you want to come into the office, if you will have a public-facing job.” (Bloomberg, 4/10/21)

COVID-19: Efforts to Increase Vaccine Availability and Perspectives on Initial Implementation. The federal government has taken several actions to increase the availability of COVID-19 vaccine doses and indicated it expects to have enough doses available for all adults in the United States by the end of May. As of April 1, 2021, the government had purchased 1.2 billion doses of one- and two-dose regimen vaccines. Also, vaccine companies reported making additional manufacturing sites operational, among other actions to expand capacity and mitigate challenges. (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 4/14/21)

Vermont’s race-based vaccine policy raises legal questions. “From an ethical perspective, I think [Vermont’s policy is] justified,” says Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, citing the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on minority communities. “From a legal point of view, I think that there would be smarter ways for Vermont to accomplish the same kinds of goals.” (The Economist, 4/11/21)

From Vaccine Nationalism to Vaccine Equity — Finding a Path Forward. accine distribution remains nonexistent in many of the poorest countries, and experts anticipate that 80% of the population in low-resource settings will not receive a vaccine this year. Although investment in discovery is critical, the long-term neglect of public health and global delivery strategies has left us poorly equipped to end this pandemic. (New England Journal of Medicine, 4/8/21)

How Bill Gates Impeded Global Access to Covid Vaccines. How he’s developed and wielded this influence over two decades is one of the more consequential and underappreciated shapers of the failed global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Entering year two, this response has been defined by a zero-sum vaccination battle that has left much of the world on the losing side. (The New Republic, 4/12/21)

Online Scammers Have a New Offer for You: Vaccine Cards. On Etsy, eBay, Facebook and Twitter, little rectangular slips of paper started showing up for sale in late January. All were forgeries or falsified copies of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards, which are given to people who have been inoculated against Covid-19 in the United States. (New York Times, 4/8/21)

Ramadan and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy—a call for action. Growing concerns around uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine during Ramadan are focused on whether the injection invalidates the fast, any possible side-effects, and whether people have to break the fast. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a global call for action to reduce vaccine hesitancy. (The Lancet, 4/7/21)

I was fortunate to get my vaccination, but the hurdles are too great for many other Deaf people. Though thousands of people filtered through this site each day, there was no sign language interpreter anywhere to be found. Verbal cues ran the entire process, and the nurses were visibly uneasy when they had to stray from the standard process for completing my patient screening (they showed me the list of questions on the computer and I gave them a thumbs up or down). Later on, I missed my turn to schedule the appointment for my second dose because I had not responded to someone calling my name. (CNN, 4/13/21)

Red states are vaccinating at a lower rate than blue states. Polling has suggested all along that Republicans would be less likely to get vaccinations than Democrats -- and this is now being seen in the real world. Blue states are starting to outpace red states when it comes to vaccinations, and the instances where that isn't the case are often explained by other expected demographic patterns. (CNN, 4/10/21)

Equitable Allocation of the Vaccine in an Unfair Pandemic by Saad B. Omer, MBBS, MPH, PhD, FIDSA. This talk will cover ethical approaches and public health strategies to equitably and fairly allocate COVID-19 vaccines globally and within the US in the middle of a raging pandemic. The seminar will take place on Monday, Apr 26, 2021, 12-1 PM EDT. (Berman Institute for Bioethics, 4/21)

See also: Hearing: Vaccinations and the Economic Recovery (U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee, 4/14/21)

Mississippi Mobile Vaccination Efforts Increase Access For Older Residents. Working with community-based organizations made it easier for the state to reach older Black residents. The North Delta Area Agency on Aging and the Rev. S.L.A Jones Activity Center partnered with the state to bring the mobile vaccine program to the community. (NewsOne, 4/12/21)

See also: Against the clock: A Philadelphia nurse practitioner spends his nights rushing across the city to bring COVID-19 vaccines that would otherwise expire to homebound residents. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/14/21)

Vaccines won’t save Michigan from its covid-19 surge. So why not just send more vaccines to Michigan? Well, first, because the state already has enough vaccine supply. Plus, the Federal Emergency Management Agency deployed staff in February to assist Michigan with vaccine distribution and administration logistics. There’s another, more important reason for why more vaccines won’t stop the surge: the coronavirus’s incubation period. (Washington Post, 4/13/21)

‘Shot Dots’ and ‘Blue Martini Special’: Vaccine Site Races Time. Time is everything as the workers prepare the world’s most valuable substance. Each syringe takes just under a minute to assemble, and the team must ready an hour’s worth, about 400 shots, by a little after 8 a.m., when the first patient will roll up her sleeve in a day that will stretch until 6 p.m. (Bloomberg, 4/14/21)

Boston Medical Center: Vaccine Link Intended For Disadvantaged People Was Shared Widely Online. Boston Medical Center confirmed it has canceled thousands of appointments of people who signed up for vaccinations using a registration link that was intended solely for socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, but was shared widely on social media over the past week. (WBUR, 4/13/21)

SSIR Guide to COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution. A collection of SSIR articles on civil society's insights into the logistics behind a global vaccination campaign, including ideas for winning over the hearts and minds of people who aren’t yet convinced they should get the shot. (SSIR, 4/15/21)