The American Heart Association recently published a news story exploring issues of trust and vaccine hesitancy among Hispanic Americans. The story cites the most recent CommuniVax report, highlighting the finding that "vaccination moves at the speed of public trust." Read the story here.

This week, the CommuniVax coalition released 4 new reports that share findings from local rapid research within Black and Hispanic/Latino communities in Alabama, California, Idaho, and Maryland. The reports highlight the urgent need to humanize delivery and communication strategies for COVID-19 vaccines, develop better and heterogenous messaging, and anchor COVID-19 vaccination efforts in hard-hit communities in a holistic “whole person” recovery process. Each report shares research findings for the local communities and identifies targeted actions that their community leaders should take to address not only address access and hesitancy issues in the current vaccination rollout, but also to build systems for lasting public health and community change. 

Vaccine Resisters Seek Religious Exemptions. But What Counts as Religious? Major denominations are essentially unanimous in their support of the vaccines against Covid-19, but individuals who object are citing their personal faith for support. (New York Times, 9/11/21)

See also: Pope questions vaccine skeptics, including cardinals (ABC, 9/15/21)

Parents of Young Children Desperately Seek Vaccine Trials. Schools have reopened around the country, and families with those under 12 are finding ways to get their kids inoculated, even though they’re not officially eligible yet. (New York Times, 9/11/21)

‘The virus is painfully real’: vaccine hesitant people are dying – and their loved ones want the world to listen. For the most part, when an unvaccinated person dies of Covid-19, their families grieve privately. It is not hard to see why: the internet is a callous place. Social media trolls greet the death of unvaccinated people with jubilant celebration, as if they themselves never made a bad judgment call. (The Guardian, 9/14/21)

Nicki Minaj tweets coronavirus vaccine conspiracy theory, spotlighting struggle against misinformation. Officials have encountered vaccine skepticism from some women of childbearing age and groups including some Black and Hispanic adults, who have historically faced disparities in health care. Public health experts say widespread vaccine hesitancy increases the threat of the virus mutating and helps keep the pandemic raging. (Washington Post, 9/14/21)

See also:

Booster Bandits Are Walking a Fine Line. The careful dance of morals and personal peril involved in booster banditry is far more complicated than the obvious ethical dumpster fire of taking a first dose from an essential worker or a cancer patient. But, even though the line-jumpers are loud and proud this time, the illegitimate third doses aren’t always quite as innocuous as they seem to think. (The Atlantic, 9/13/21)

The JAB Initiative. The JAB Initiative empowers people of faith and amplifies voices of faithleaders on ethics in health care to dispel misinformation and fears about vaccination. This vital injection into the discourse will increase access to care and help heal wounds of medical abuse and mistrust of the health care sector that prevail as barriers within communities of color. Each month a JAB Talk will be held to explore one of the three principles of bioethics in depth: Justice, Autonomy and Beneficence. Recordings will be available on the VICPP YouTube channel towatch later. (Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, 9/21)

How wellness influencers are fueling the anti-vaccine movement. Many social media influencers who focus on natural remedies, holistic health and new age spirituality have been sharing posts and videos questioning the wisdom of vaccinating against the coronavirus. Public health experts say widespread vaccine hesitancy increases the threat of the virus mutating and helps keep the pandemic raging. (Washington Post, 9/12/21)

See also: Anti-Vaxxers Are Now Gargling Iodine to Prevent Covid-19 (Rolling Stone, 9/13/21)

Republicans Aren’t New To The Anti-Vaxx Movement. Polls over the past two decades have consistently found Republicans are just as likely as Democrats to hold vaccine-hesitant views. So while the right-wing resistance to the COVID-19 vaccines may feel like an about-face for who is anti-vax in America, both sides of the political divide were always there — but now one side’s fringe views have slipped into its mainstream. (FiveThirtyEight, 9/9/21)

12 COVID-19 Vaccination Strategies for Your Community: A Guide to Support the Work of Health Departments and Community Organizations Across the United States. The COVID-19 Vaccination Field Guide outlines selected strategies to help increase vaccine confidence and uptake. These strategies were drawn from historical (non-COVID-19) vaccination efforts and supported by positive outcomes from evaluation research. The Field Guide also includes examples from communities currently using these strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake. Each strategy addresses common barriers to getting a COVID-19 vaccine, which are structural, behavioral, or informational. (CDC, 9/10/21)

U.S. moves to prevent shortage of therapy as hospitalizing unvaccinated costs billions. The Biden administration has sought to avert shortages of monoclonal antibodies this week as an analysis published Tuesday found that treating the nation’s hospitalized, unvaccinated population topped an estimated $5.7 billion. (Washington Post, 9/14/21)

Shots at the Shop: How Local Health Departments Can Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations by Supporting Barber Shops and Salons. Shots at the Shop is a program that has engaged 1,000 Black-owned barbershops and hair salons nationwide to act as health advocates, assisting their clients in making informed COVID-related decisions, dispelling misinformation and hosting COVID-19 vaccination clinics in their shops. This webinar will provide an overview of the program, provide an update on its successes, and describe how local health departments can play an important role supporting enrolled shops. The webinar will take place on September 23, 2021, 3 PM ET. Registration is required. (Shots at the Shop, 9/21)

School vaccine campaigns targeting students face blowback. In most states, minors need the consent of their parents in order to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Navigating family politics in cases of differing views has been a challenge for students and organizers of outreach campaigns, who have faced blowback for directly targeting young people. (AP, 9/14/21)

Why A Group Of Doctors Are Using Their Free Time To Call Their Unvaccinated Patients. In Massachusetts, a group of resident physicians are using their downtime to call their unvaccinated primary care patients to talk about the COVID-19 shot. (NPR, 9/13/21)

Joe Biden to propose target of vaccinating 70% of world in a year. The west has been repeatedly accused of hoarding surplus vaccines and of moral failure by providing jabs to teenagers or a third set of vaccines to adults when large tracts of Africa remain totally unvaccinated. (The Guardian, 9/14/21)

Tensions mount between CDC and Biden health team over boosters. In meetings and conversations over the past month, senior officials from the White House Covid-19 task force and the Food and Drug Administration have repeatedly accused CDC of withholding critical data needed to develop the booster shot plan — delaying work on the next step of President Joe Biden’s vaccination campaign and making it more difficult to set clear expectations for the public. (POLITICO, 9/13/21)

More workers are facing mandatory Covid vaccination or no job. In both the U.S. and Europe there are a growing number of jobs and sectors which are now requiring people to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 — not only in the more obvious public-facing roles like healthcare and education but also in the technology, hospitality, travel and finance sectors. (CNBC, 9/14/21)

COVID Vaccines Will Be Mandatory for Students in Nation’s Second-Largest School District. The Los Angeles Unified school district voted Thursday to require COVID-19 vaccines for all students 12 and older who attend school in person, a move that could ricochet nationally, paving the way for other districts to enact similar mandates. (EdWeek, 9/9/21)

NBA players won't be required to get COVID-19 vaccination. The NBA and NBPA continue to negotiate aspects of COVID-related protocols and procedures for the upcoming 2021-22 campaign, but the NBPA has refused to budge on its demand that players not be required to take the vaccine, sources say, and any proposal that mandates vaccination remains a "non-starter." (ESPN, 9/14/21)

See also: For Basketball Refs, Agreeing to a Vaccine Mandate Was ‘Not That Difficult’ (New York Times, 9/13/21)

U.S. will require most new immigrants to get coronavirus vaccine. The measure goes into effect on Oct. 1. Most people applying to become a permanent resident in the United States are required to receive the immigration medical examination “to show they are free from any conditions that would render them inadmissible under the health-related grounds,” according to USCIS. (Washington Post, 9/15/21)

The tangled history of mRNA vaccines. The story illuminates the way that many scientific discoveries become life-changing innovations: with decades of dead ends, rejections and battles over potential profits, but also generosity, curiosity and dogged persistence against scepticism and doubt. (Nature, 9/14/21)

See also: An mRNA Pioneer Discusses How Her Work Led to the COVID Vaccines (Scientific American, 9/15/21)

Peer review of a VAERS dumpster dive. There is a new preprint study of COVID-vaccine-associated myocarditis (C-VAM) by Hoeg et al. being shared on social media and several news sites that has not passed peer review. The claim from the study authors is that they replicate the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice’s (ACIP) analysis of C-VAM event reports from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) and found a much higher incidence than previously reported. The study falls short of this claim in many ways but perhaps most significantly, it appears the authors wandered into the VAERS quagmire with no understanding of how the system works. (Science-Based Medicine, 9/12/21)