Our local teams continue to make strong progress in their community outreach and engagement efforts.

Freedom, Hope, Relief: What The COVID Vaccine Means To You. After witnessing more than half a million COVID-19 deaths and struggling to survive with little help from the government, many people expressed elation and relief at finally getting the vaccine. Others recalled the nightmare of scheduling appointments. To most, getting the vaccine meant they were a step closer to normalcy. (BuzzFeed News, 3/19/21)

More Black And Latinx Americans Are Embracing COVID-19 Vaccination. Hispanic Americans are still a bit less likely than white Americans to say they have received, or plan to get, a COVID-19 vaccination. But that's partly because Hispanic Americans as a group are younger than white Americans, and younger people are generally less interested in getting a COVID-19 vaccine. A lack of contact with physicians may have contributed to vaccine hesitancy among Black residents who look to their doctors for vaccine advice. (NPR, 3/20/21)

Disinformation Dozen: Two-Thirds of Online Anti-Vaccine Content Originates From Top 12 Anti-Vax Leaders. The report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch is based on analysis of a sample of anti-vaccine content that had been shared or posted on Facebook and Twitter over 812,000 times between February 1 and March 16, 2021. It found that almost two-thirds of the content was the responsibility of 12 of the country's most prominent anti-vaccine leaders, groups and organizations. (Center for Countering Digital Hate & Anti-Vax Watch, 3/24/21)

COVID-19 and the LGBTQ Community: Vaccinations and the Economic Toll of the Pandemic. This new analysis of survey data on 22,000 adults in the United States details how many LGBTQ people living at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities may be less likely to say they want to get vaccinated. Furthermore, the LGBTQ community holds a diverse array of concerns about the vaccine, ranging from concerns about side effects to perceived costs of obtaining the vaccine. (Human Rights Campaign, 3/21)

Funding Black and Latinx community institutions is the key to vaccine equity. The labor of the pastors, congregation members, community organizers and allies has largely been taken for granted. In the last five weeks we have partnered with community groups to run six COVID-19 vaccine equity events delivering thousands of doses to historically marginalized populations. The labor is real and significant. For a 150-dose event, we asked everyone to log their hours and activities so we could rapidly iterate on the process. It took over 20 people 300 hours to make the event happen. The labor costs for that event, completely outside of the health system, amounted to $40 to $50 per vaccine dose. For the largest event of 500 doses, 3,000 phone calls were made to recruit and register older Latinx adults. (The Hill, 3/25/21)

Vaccine Passports Won’t Get Us Out of the Pandemic. In much of the world, coronavirus vaccines remain in short supply and, in some cases, wholly unavailable. As governments, largely in rich countries, seek to use vaccine passports to relax restrictions, they risk relying on a fragmented system that could have the adverse effect of extending the pandemic. (New York Times, 3/22/21)

White House hones in on campaign strategy to reflect growing concern over conservatives' vaccination reluctance. Conservatives will now be one of the primary target audiences for a massive public relations campaign that could launch as early as next week, officials said. And the administration, through its partners, has been working with NASCAR, country music organizations and several rural organizations on vaccine confidence efforts meant for conservative eyes and ears. (CNN, 3/22/21)

How we investigated the spread of Covid-19 vaccine misinformation on Facebook. Our investigation focused exclusively on unfounded Covid-19 vaccine claims, such as that the vaccines change people’s DNA. Using data exported from Facebook’s insights tool, CrowdTangle, we found at least 3,200 posts, attracting 142,049 likes, shares and comments, that had been posted on the platform after the ban. (First Draft News, 3/22/21)

See also: Facebook and Twitter must do more to fight anti-vaccine misinformation, a dozen state attorneys general demand (Washington Post, 3/24/21)

A running list of free stuff you can get for showing your COVID-19 vaccine card. A growing number of businesses are offering free products and more to people who present their COVID-19 vaccination cards. It might seem a curious strategy, but businesses have a strong interest in boosting the vaccination count, as the quicker that number escalates, the quicker sales and operations can start to return to normal. (Fortune, 3/23/21)

See also: Krispy Kreme’s ‘sweet’ vaccine promotion leads to bitter Twitter war (Washington Post, 3/25/21)

I have a COVID-19 vaccine appointment. Do I deserve it? The cruelest reality of the vaccine system is that it is exactly those who are likely to struggle to get a COVID-19 vaccine appointment who need the shot the most: people of color, service workers, the elderly, and the disabled. Those demographic groups are more likely to live in heavily polluted communities. Exposure to air pollution has been shown to be a significant risk factor for more severe COVID-19 outcomes. And yet, those burdened neighborhoods have been shunted aside in the vaccine rollout in places like Chicago. (Grist, 3/18/21)

See also: Some people are lying to get the vaccine, and it’s testing their friendships (Washington Post, 3/25/21)

Is it acceptable to take a COVID vaccine that will be thrown out? A new YouGov poll finds that seven in 10 Americans (69%) who want to get vaccinated say it is acceptable to take a vaccine that would otherwise expire and be thrown out, but one-quarter (25%) say this is unacceptable. (YouGov, 3/22/21)

See also: A look at the ethics of the vaccine rollout (MPR News, 3/19/21)

Fully Vaccinated and Time to Party: If You Are 70. Older people, who represent the vast majority of Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, are emerging this spring with the daffodils, tilting their faces to the sunlight outdoors. They are filling restaurants, hugging grandchildren and booking flights. (New York Times, 3/21/21)

Five myths about coronavirus vaccines. Three coronavirus vaccines have been authorized for emergency use in the United States. Two more are expected to be authorized later in the spring. These five vaccines will be used to immunize the American people and are expected to stop or slow the epidemic in the United States. But even before the vaccines were approved, myths were spreading about them. (Washington Post, 3/19/21)

A Hospital Encounters Vaccine Hesitation Among Its Own Staff. In New York State, African-Americans make up about 17 percent of the adult population but have received only 10 percent of the shots. That is because of difficulties gaining access to the shots but also because of a lingering reluctance — and that has rung true at Harlem Hospital, where a majority of the staff is Black, administrators said. (New York Times, 3/24/21)

See also: SARS-CoV-2 Infection after Vaccination in Health Care Workers in California (New England Journal of Medicine, 3/23/21)

In Search of a Vaccine, Some Tourists Find Luck in the Caribbean. Roughly 3 percent of vaccines in the U.S. Virgin Islands have gone to tourists, the governor said this week. “Nowhere else in the U.S. can you actually just walk in and get the vaccine,” he said. (New York Times, 3/24/21)

AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Data Questioned By Safety Board. A safety board overseeing AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine trial is raising concerns about the company's data. In an unusual post-midnight statement, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the Data and Safety Monitoring Board, which monitors the trial, is concerned that "outdated information" may have been included in the trial results. (NPR, 3/23/21)

Don’t Be Surprised When Vaccinated People Get Infected. Breakthrough infections, which occur when fully vaccinated people are infected by the pathogen that their shots were designed to protect against, are an entirely expected part of any vaccination process. They’re the data points that keep vaccines from reaching 100 percent efficacy in trials; they’re simple proof that no inoculation is a perfect preventative. And so far, the ones found after COVID-19 vaccination seem to be unextraordinary. (The Atlantic, 3/19/21)

CDC’s Messonnier: We can’t change the Covid-19 vaccine regimen unless we know it works. Some lawmakers and scientists have also called for looking into giving a lower dosage of the Moderna vaccine, which, as given now, contains about three times as much vaccine as the Pfizer shot. But without additional data, Messonnier cautioned against such a move. She questioned whether lowering the dosage might have an effect on how long the vaccine guards people or reduce the quality of protection it provides. (STAT, 3/16/21)

See also: COVID-19 Vaccine Second-Dose Completion and Interval Between First and Second Doses Among Vaccinated Persons — United States, December 14, 2020−February 14, 2021 (CDC, 3/19/21)

Pfizer Begins Testing Its Vaccine in Young Children. Results from the trial are expected in the second half of the year, and the company hopes to vaccinate younger children early next year, said Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for the pharmaceutical company. (New York Times, 3/25/21)

Vaccinated mothers pass covid antibodies to babies in utero and through breastmilk, early studies show. Several preliminary studies suggest that women who received an mRNA vaccine such as Moderna or Pfizer during pregnancy had covid-19 antibodies in their umbilical cord blood. One of the studies also detected antibodies in their breastmilk, indicating that at least some immunity could be transferred to babies both before and after birth. (Washington Post, 3/22/21)

New signs J&J may not be able to hit vaccine delivery goal. The Biden administration on Tuesday said it has just 4 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine to deliver to states and federal partners next week — the latest indication the company is lagging in its commitment to deliver 20 million shots to the federal government by the end of this month. (POLITICO, 3/23/21)

See also: Vaccine mystery: Why J&J’s shots aren’t reaching more arms (POLITICO, 3/22/21)

A New Generation of Vaccines Is Coming, Some With No Needles. The next generation includes shots built from the coronavirus’s genetic material and nasal sprays that defend without using a needle at all. They are stealthy, faster to make and easier to ship, offering workarounds for hurdles that limit the impact of the first inoculations to reach the market. (Bloomberg, 3/23/21)

Why Some of Your Vaccine 'Side Effects' Might Just Be Placebo. Just as our positive expectations can make us feel better after taking a new potential treatment, for a while at least, our negative expectations can do the opposite and make us feel crummy. On Twitter, some have even admitted to feeling worse after taking the placebo than they did after taking the real thing later on. (Gizmodo, 3/22/21)

Everything You Need to Know About the COVID-19 Vaccine and Facial Fillers. Patients already treated with dermal fillers should not be discouraged or precluded from receiving vaccines of any kind. Similarly, patients who have had vaccines should not be precluded from receiving dermal fillers in the future. (Good Housekeeping, 3/19/21)

Immunogenicity of a Single Dose of SARS-CoV-2 Messenger RNA Vaccine in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients. In this study of immunogenicity of the first dose of the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccine among solid organ transplant recipients, the majority of participants did not mount appreciable antispike antibody responses. However, younger participants, those not receiving anti–metabolite maintenance immunosuppression, and those who received mRNA-1273 were more likely to develop antibody responses. (JAMA, 3/15/21)

U.S. Rushes to Expand Covid Vaccine Eligibility in a ‘Race Against Time’. But even as the pace of vaccinations has accelerated to about 2.5 million shots each day nationwide, the country finds itself at a precarious point in the pandemic. Cases, deaths and hospitalizations have all fallen sharply from January peaks, yet infection levels have plateaued this month, at about 55,000 new cases a day. While governors relax restrictions on businesses like bars, indoor gyms and casinos, highly infectious variants are spreading and some states, especially on the East Coast, have struggled for weeks to make any progress in reducing cases. (New York Times, 3/19/21)

Biden commits $10 billion to close racial and other gaps in vaccine coverage. Deploying funding largely from the pandemic aid plan that cleared Congress this month, the administration will invest more than $6 billion in community health centers and make front-line essential workers and all people 16 and older with high-risk medical conditions eligible for vaccination at such sites. More than 65 percent of doses allocated by the federal government to community health centers have gone to people of color, the administration said in a fact sheet announcing the plans. (Washington Post, 3/25/21)

See also: Biden's new goal is 200 million COVID-19 vaccinations in first 100 days (The Hill, 3/25/21)

Rich Countries Signed Away a Chance to Vaccinate the World. By partnering with drug companies, Western leaders bought their way to the front of the line. But they also ignored years of warnings — and explicit calls from the World Health Organization — to include contract language that would have guaranteed doses for poor countries or encouraged companies to share their knowledge and the patents they control. (New York Times, 3/22/21)

COVID-19: Legal Considerations for Bringing a New Vaccine to Market. This report discusses the licensure (i.e., approval) process for vaccines under the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act) and the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), as well as potential legal avenues for expediting that process to bring a new vaccine to market sooner. (Congressional Research Service, 3/24/21)

See also: The PREP Act and COVID-19: Limiting Liability for Medical Countermeasures (Congressional Research Service, 3/19/21)

Health, Place, And Covid-19 Vaccines: Why Geography Matters For Equity And Public Health Now, And Once Vaccines Are Widely Available. Disadvantage indices—statistical measures that integrate different variables to capture how vulnerable, on average, people living in a particular area are—offer a unique opportunity to simultaneously promote public health and social justice. In the context of vaccine distribution, these indices are being used by more than half of the US’ states for four concrete and vital purposes: planning vaccination locations; conducting targeted outreach to disadvantaged groups; allocating larger shares of the vaccine to those most in need; and monitoring allocation to ensure equity. (The Appeal, 3/18/21)

See also: County-Level COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage and Social Vulnerability — United States, December 14, 2020–March 1, 2021 (CDC, 3/17/21)

We Ran Tests on Every State’s COVID-19 Vaccine Website. The Markup ran a series of tests using our Blacklight tool and Google’s Lighthouse tool on official COVID-19 vaccination sites for every state, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. The results, measuring accessibility and privacy protections, were not always great. (The Markup, 3/24/21)

These Are the Barriers Preventing Teachers From Getting Vaccinated. Even with the prioritization of all school staff, if booking an appointment requires them to spend long hours on the phone or online, vaccine centers aren’t easily accessible to them, and they can’t take a day off to account for their body’s reaction to the vaccine, then vaccination is still not accessible. (VeryWell Health, 3/12/21)

Teachers - Choice for Vaccine and Returning to School. The webinar will be held on Monday, March 29, 4-5 PM EDT. (Johns Hopkins eSchool+ Initiative, 3/21)

Inequities in Technology Contribute to Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution. National guidelines and expert recommendations have not proposed solutions to technology-related equity challenges. Ameliorating these inequities will require a deeper understanding of how technology may exacerbate disparities in vaccine access and to consider potential solutions. (JAMA, 3/19/21)

See also: Now is the Time to Explicitly Emphasize Equity in Vaccine Access (Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 3/19/21)

Cities Direct Johnson & Johnson Vaccine to Homeless Populations. There are practical reasons why it makes sense to use the one-dose vaccine for hard-to-reach groups, but experts say the practice can also fuel skepticism and concern if public officials aren’t careful. (Route Fifty, 3/12/21)

She Managed Concert Tours. Now, Covid Vaccines. In Caroline Smith's public-facing role, which involves managing queues, fielding questions and complaints, educating patients, and disinfecting surfaces, her mission is to get people in and get them out as safely and quickly as possible. She says her crowd-management skills and experience with venue organization make her uniquely qualified for the job, adding that dealing with disgruntled patients can, at times, compare to handling intoxicated fans. (Rolling Stone, 3/15/21)

Operations research advice for Covid-19 vaccination planners: think bigger, move faster. Individually optimizing vaccine delivery at pharmacies, churches, doctor’s offices, sports stadiums, or even at the state level, will not benefit the country as a whole without a strategy that links these efforts to the right national goal. Operations research shows that “local optimization leads to global disharmony.” (STAT, 3/21/21)

See also: The Global Mass Vaccination Site Collaborative (Ariadne Labs, 3/22/21)

Mobile vaccine clinics ramp up efforts to reach Philly’s most vulnerable communities: ‘Let’s bring vaccine to them’. Teams of medical professionals are going to senior housing complexes, setting up clinics in lobbies and community rooms, and even going directly to the individual residences of homebound seniors. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/23/21)

See also: ‘You work your butt off’: Inside the scramble to bring Covid-19 vaccines to homebound Americans (STAT, 3/23/21)

How ‘Vaccine Day’ Could Boost Inoculations. Public health advocates are pushing a citywide series of events in Boston to lay the groundwork for a one-time federal holiday to celebrate frontline workers — and win over the vaccine-hesitant. (Bloomberg, 3/16/21)

See also: To fight vaccine hesitancy, make access really, really convenient (Business Insider, 3/19/21)

COVID Vaccine Equity Research Dialogues (CoVEReD). As the rollout of the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program continues and questions remain about how allocation can simultaneously reduce risk and inequity, Penn is convening a new series, COVID Vaccine Equity Research Dialogues (CoVEReD). Hosted by Penn LDI Senior Fellows and vaccine policy experts Alison Buttenheim, PhD, MBA, and Harald Schmidt, PhD, MA, the series brings together top experts to discuss equitable vaccine distribution. (University of Pennsylvania, 3/21)

See also: Dr. Angela Shen: Vaccine Distribution Equity After May 1 (VIDEO) (CoVEReD, 3/18/21)

A Harvard professor who once helped secure Soviet nukes is now grading the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Graham Allison and colleague Hugo Yen put together a method for copying data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into an excel spreadsheet so that people could grade states on their vaccination performance. Their protocol allows anyone to rank the states by COVID-19 deaths per capita, vaccinations administered per capita, the percentage of vaccine supplies used, and the number of months left until eligible residents are vaccinated. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 3/18/21)

See also: What we learned registering thousands of our neighbors for vaccines (Epicenter NYC, 3/22/21)

The Dark Web Is Teeming With Vaccine Listings Right Now. Security researchers have seen a spike in listings on dark web marketplaces in recent weeks. The sites are advertising everything from vaccine doses to falsified vaccine certifications and negative test results. Currently, more than 1,200 listings are offering a variety of vaccines, including Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sputnik, and Sinopharm. (Wired, 3/25/21)

See also: Here's how much vaccines are selling for on the illegal market (CNN, 3/23/21)