The second national CommuniVax report will be released in July. In the meantime, be sure to check out our previous reports, view our webinars on COVID-19 vaccination, and download our implementation toolkit.

Some updates from our local teams:

Heidi Larson, Vaccine Anthropologist. Over a video call this spring, Larson told me that the COVID-19 vaccination effort “should remind everybody that you cannot have scientific advances and great global-health plans” without taking vaccine confidence into account. Five months into the vaccination effort, the share of the U.S. population who’ve received at least one dose of the vaccine has barely exceeded fifty per cent. (New Yorker, 6/12/21)

Spreading Vaccine Fears. And Cashing In. The pandemic helped boost the influence of many of the anti-vaccine movement’s stars. The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that anti-vaccine influencers gained 8 million social media followers in the first half of 2020, bringing their total to nearly 60 million by July. Social media platforms have taken steps in recent months to crack down on some of these personalities, removing certain pages or making them harder to find via searches, but much of their influence remains. (Center for Public Integrity, 6/8/21)

AMA: 96% Of Doctors Are Vaccinated Against Covid-19. The AMA said its survey of practicing doctors showed “no significant difference in vaccination rates across regions. “Of the physicians who are not yet vaccinated, an additional 45 percent do plan to get vaccinated,” the AMA said in a statement accompanying its poll results. (Forbes, 6/11/21)

Anti-Vaccine Activists Use A Federal Database To Spread Fear About COVID Vaccines. VAERS has played a major role in the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. The data is regularly appropriated by anti-vaccine advocates, who use the reports to claim falsely that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous. They are aided by the fact that the entire VAERS database is public — it can be downloaded by anyone for any purpose. (NPR, 6/14/21)

The NFL Has a COVID Vaccine Hesitancy Problem. As of now, the NFL is not requiring players to be vaccinated. Coaches and team personnel, on the other hand, have a strong incentive to get the shot. If a coaching staff member doesn’t get the vaccine by the end of the week, they reportedly lose their Tier 1 status, which means being banned from the practice field, meeting rooms, and direct interactions with players. (Vanity Fair, 6/10/21)

See also: Alabama school officials urge vaccinations, warn of football, volleyball cancellations (AL.com, 6/11/21)

Just because you've been vaccinated doesn't mean you can stop caring about America's vaccine campaign. All levels of government in the US have been united in their message that it is up to individuals to get vaccinated if they want to. The federal and some state governments have set up incentives from free beer and sports tickets to lotteries. But these programs assume the problem is merely hesitancy and don't actually address the reasons why people are hesitant. What we need is to bring the vaccines to the people. (Yahoo! News, 6/14/21)

Christian Eriksen’s cardiac arrest prompts vaccine misinformation. The rumor that Eriksen had received the Pfizer vaccine appears to have been heavily promoted by fringe physicist and blogger Luboš Motl, who has shared false and misleading claims about Covid-19 and vaccines. Motl’s Twitter post was in turn amplified by figures such as Alex Berenson, a former New York Times journalist who has been criticized for making false and misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines. (First Draft News, 6/14/21)

Building Vaccine Confidence in the Health Neighborhood. The Get the Medications Right Institute empaneled a Task Force of national leaders across

a broad spectrum to develop recommendations to address vaccine hesitancy and bolster vaccine confidence. The Task Force developed recommendations divided into two categories: Short-term recommendations to boost COVID-19 vaccine confidence for the remainder of 2021 and longer-term recommendations to address confidence in vaccines beyond the

COVID-19 pandemic. (GTMRx National Task Force, 6/15/21)

See also: Background and Resources to Build Vaccine Confidence in the Health Neighborhood (GTMRx National Task Force, 3/21)

Shots at the Shop. SheaMoisture is partnering with local and national groups to ensure Black communities are not locked-out of critical and life-saving efforts in the fight against COVID-19. Together, we can turn vaccine hesitancy into vaccine confidence in our community. We're awarding 1000 businesses with $1000 to become trained community health champions. (SheaMoisture, 6/21)

See also: To fight vaccine hesitancy, Black-owned barber shops double as COVID-19 vaccination sites in some U.S. cities (CTV News, 6/15/21)

Coronavirus infections dropping where people are vaccinated, rising where they are not, Post analysis finds. States with lower vaccination also have significantly higher hospitalization rates, The Post found. Poorly vaccinated communities have not been reporting catastrophic conditions. Instead, they are usually seeing new infections holding steady or increasing without overwhelming local hospitals. (Washington Post, 6/13/21)

Lessons from the Vaccine Rollout: Harnessing Proximity in Healthcare. In the beginning, there were stadium sites. America’s vaccine rollout kicked off with the repurposing of sports stadiums and their parking lots for walk-up and drive-through inoculations. Mega-venues, by and large, served those who could readily access the sites. But to vaccinate people in non-urban regions, healthcare providers had to improvise alternative strategies. (Blueprint Future, 6/10/21)

See also: The Public-Health Calculus Has Shifted (The Atlantic, 6/13/21)

COVID-19 vaccine prioritization of incarcerated people relative to other vulnerable groups: An analysis of state plans. We conducted a document analysis of the vaccine dissemination plans of all 50 US states and the District of Columbia using a triple-coding method. We found that 22% of states prioritized incarcerated people in Phase 1, 29% of states in Phase 2, and 2% in Phase 3, while 47% of states did not explicitly specify in which phase people who are incarcerated will be eligible for vaccination. (PLOS ONE, 6/15/21)

Could the U.S. Have Saved More Lives? 5 Alternate Scenarios for the Vaccine Rollout. The Trump and Biden administrations debated numerous options, including ideas raised by the experts. There is by no means universal agreement about what should have been done, and no way of knowing with certainty whether different vaccination tactics would have resulted in fewer deaths. Still, with the benefit of hindsight, experts pointed to several areas where the United States might have taken another approach. (New York Times, 6/17/21)

Pediatricians work to close gaps in Covid-19 vaccine coverage by vaccinating adults. Pediatricians across the country say they're now regularly having conversations about the Covid-19 vaccine with families in their offices, at schools and other community settings. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says these grassroots efforts are helping move the needle on the nationwide vaccination effort. (CNN, 6/15/21)

See also: Report Finds 'Uphill Battle' For Pharmacists Combatting COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy (Pharmacy Times, 6/14/21)

What You Need to Know About Your Vaccine Card. There are already a number of vaccination “passport” initiatives underway that would make vaccination status easy to share digitally. Clear, a biometric screening program used in airports across the country, and the technology company IBM have created their own passes, for instance. And in March, New York became the first state to introduce a digital tool, called Excelsior Pass, to allow people to easily show that they have either tested negative or been inoculated against the virus in order to gain entry into some events and venues. (New York Times, 6/15/21)

Cincinnati Public Schools' unions want incentives, not a requirement, for COVID-19 vaccines. The CPS board of education discussed a staff vaccination requirement at a board meeting last week. There are about 6,500 full- and part-time employees serving 36,000 students in the district, according to its website. It is the third-largest school district in Ohio. If the board does decide to require COVID-19 vaccines for staff, it could be one of the first public school districts in the country to do so.. (Cincinnati.com, 6/14/21)

How full FDA approval could pave the way for COVID-19 vaccine mandates. A recent survey found that about one-third of unvaccinated adults say they would be more likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine if it is approved by the FDA, underscoring the importance of full approval in combating vaccine hesitancy—and suggesting that some Americans may have misperceptions about what exactly emergency use authorization (EUA) is and how it is granted. (National Geographic, 6/11/21)

Companies Desperate to Reopen Ask: What’s Your Vaccination Status? Most companies are hoping to avoid requiring vaccines. The federal agency that enforces workplace discrimination laws says they can, but chief executives fear vaccine mandates would lead to lawsuits, invite political upheaval and be hard to enforce. But they’re worried about safety. An outbreak could force a company to retrench on masking and social distancing policies, making it even harder to get back to normal. (New York Times, 6/11/21)

COVAX Effort to Vaccinate the World Is Faltering. COVAX has fallen short of its aims. The collaboration has accounted for only 4 percent of more than two billion shots administered worldwide to date, largely because wealthy countries bought most of the new vaccines before they were even approved by regulators for emergency use. (Scientific American, 6/16/21)

Novavax Covid-19 vaccine highly effective in late-stage trial, long-awaited results show. Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine was highly effective in preventing symptomatic infections, hospitalizations, and severe illnesses, long-awaited results from the company’s Phase 3 trial, released Monday, revealed. The vaccine was 90% protective against laboratory-confirmed symptomatic infection. (STAT, 6/14/21)

See also: Novavax trial data sparks misinformation (First Draft News, 6/15/21)

CureVac’s Covid-19 Vaccine Disappoints in Clinical Trial. The trial, which included 40,000 volunteers in Latin America and Europe, estimated that CureVac’s mRNA vaccine had an efficacy of just 47 percent, among the lowest reported so far from any Covid-19 vaccine maker. The trial will continue as researchers monitor volunteers for new cases of Covid-19, with a final analysis expected in two to three weeks. (New York Times, 6/16/21)

Caught in a 'pickle,' millions of Americans might not have had an adequate response to the Covid-19 vaccine. Millions of Americans are also taking immunosuppressive drugs that might weaken the effect of the Covid-19 vaccine, and they find themselves in uncharted territory, scared -- with good reason -- that their vaccinations might not have worked. If their vaccinations did not work, they rely on the rest of the population to get vaccinated. (CNN, 6/4/21)

See also: Extra Covid vaccine may help protect transplant patients (STAT, 6/14/21)

mRNA Covid-19 Vaccines in Pregnant Women. Clinicians relied on developmental and reproductive animal data from Moderna that showed no safety concerns, and there was no biologically plausible reason that the mRNA technology would be harmful in pregnancy. Pregnant women were counseled to consider the available evidence and make personal decisions about vaccination in the absence of human safety data. (New England Journal of Medicine, 6/17/21)

The C.D.C. is investigating nearly 800 cases of rare heart problems following immunization. Federal officials are reviewing nearly 800 cases of rare heart problems following immunization with the coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Not all of the cases are likely to be verified or related to vaccines, and experts believe the benefits of immunization far outweigh the risk of these rare complications. But more than half of the heart problems were reported in people ages 12 to 24, while the same age group accounted for only 9 percent of the millions of doses administered. (New York Times, 6/11/21)

J&J to scrap about 60 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine. Federal regulators are forcing Johnson & Johnson to scrap about 60 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine made at the problem-plagued Emergent BioSolutions plant after possible contamination, according to an individual familiar with the situation. The Food and Drug Administration, which found unsanitary conditions in an inspection of the plant in April, cleared 10 million doses made at the facility for use. Those salvaged doses are expected to be sent overseas as part of President Biden’s effort to share vaccines with other nations. (Washington Post, 6/11/21)

How COVID vaccines work against the Delta variant. According to data published on Monday by Public Health England, vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca jabs is as effective at preventing hospitalisation in the case of the Delta variant as it is in the case of the Alpha variant. (Al Jazeera, 6/16/21)

See also: Dr. Fauci Says The Risks From The Delta Variant Underscore The Importance Of Vaccines (NPR, 6/17/21)