Weekly Roundup COVID-19 Vaccine Development, Policy, and Public Perception in the United States

People, Perceptions, and Poll

WEBINAR Talking With Patients and Communities About the COVID-19 Vaccines: Tips for Effective Communication. Dr. Sandra C. Quinn and leading vaccine experts shared effective strategies to enhance the acceptance and uptake of the vaccine and address concerns and questions on the approval and use of COVID-19 vaccines from health care providers, administrators, public health practitioners and community health workers as they listen to patients and community members. A recording of the webinar is available to view. (University of Maryland, 1/21)

WEBINAR Listening to Community Voices: Addressing Questions and Concerns about COVID-19 Vaccines. This session will include African American and Latino community members, public health professionals, and local leaders to talk about what we know about these topics and prepare our communities to make informed decisions about the vaccine. Registration is required. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, January 19, 6-7:30 PM EST. (University of Maryland, 1/21)

INTERVIEW The Specific Experience of Being Black and Getting the Coronavirus Vaccine. In December, when news of the vaccine broke, Dr. Valerie Fitzhugh took to Twitter to reveal she had volunteered to take part in the vaccine travels. Dr. Fitzhugh is a physician and professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson medical school, where she is interim chair of pathology. (Harper's Bazaar, 1/8/21) See also: Black America Has Reason to Question Authorities (New Yorker, 1/10/21) Podcast: COVID-19 Vaccines and the Opportunity to Build Trust Between Health Care Institutions and the Black Community (Public Health on Call, 1/11/21)

ANALYSIS Vaccine Hesitancy in Rural America. Rural residents are among the most vaccine hesitant groups, along with Republicans, individuals 30-49 years old, and Black adults. Individuals living in rural areas in the U.S. are significantly less likely to say they will get a COVID-19 vaccine that is deemed safe and available for free than individuals living in suburban and urban America. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1/7/21) See also: The challenge of vaccinating rural America (Axios, 1/12/21)

POLL New Poll Reveals Most Effective Language to Improve COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance. The poll identifies the language that will be most effective in reaching all Americans, especially those who are currently less likely to take a vaccine, including rural Americans, Republicans age 18-49, Black Americans 18-49, and women 18-49. (DeBeaumont Foundation, 1/21)

COMMENTARY The Erosion of Public Trust and SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines— More Action is Needed. Misinformation about COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy, and the erosion of the American public’s trust in the vaccine regulatory process due to recent and ongoing events. Broad action is needed to address these issues, including improved and consistent communication by the Food and Drug Administration, restoration of the Centers for Disease Control as an independent and science-driven institution, and more aggressive policies to counteract misinformation, particularly on social media platforms. (Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 1/4/21)

NEWS Scars from Flint's water crisis shake city's faith in Covid vaccine. These aren't folks who will take a vaccine just because the federal government tells them it's safe and effective. They live in Flint, a city still reeling from the 18 months starting in 2014 when public officials insisted that tap water, eventually found to contain dangerously high lead levels, was safe to drink.. (NBC News, 1/12/21)

GUIDANCE Vaccine Misinformation Management Guide. This new 60-page guide, published in December, addresses how to manage and counter misinformation, specifically about vaccines. It was developed by UNICEF, First Draft, the Yale Institute for Global Health, and PGP (The Public Good Projects) to help organizations address the global “infodemic” strategic and well-coordinated national action plans to rapidly counter vaccine misinformation and build demand for vaccination. (Public Health Collaborative, 1/6/21)

R&D

NEWS Johnson & Johnson Expects Vaccine Results Soon but Lags in Production. The U.S. needs J.&J.’s one-shot vaccine more than ever. But the company is behind on manufacturing promises made in its Operation Warp Speed contract. New York Times, 1/13/21)

NEWS Moderna doesn’t expect Covid vaccine data for young children until 2022, CEO says. The company has already begun a study testing the vaccine in adolescents as young as 12, and Bancel expects that study will be done by the time the fall semester starts in September. It expects to start a study for young children between ages 1 and 11 “soon,” but Bancel said that study will take “much longer.” (CNBC, 1/11/21)

GUIDANCE COVID-19 Vaccines. This slide deck provides an overview of COVID-19 vaccines, their distribution, and acceptance and hesitation. (MedAnthCOVID-19, 1/21)

Policy

NEWS CDC expands Covid vaccination guidelines to everyone 65 and older. The Trump administration on Tuesday issued new guidelines that expand coronavirus vaccine eligibility to everyone age 65 and older as well as to those with comorbid conditions, like diabetes. (CNBC, 1/12/21) See also: Trump admin. adopts Biden’s vaccine plan, threatens to punish slow states (Ars Technica, 1/12/21) Biden team sees risks in Trump decision to widen vaccine pool (Washington Post, 1/13/21)

NEWS Biden’s plan to end policy of keeping Covid vaccine doses in reserve is the first step in a difficult journey. Instead of keeping half the doses in reserve to make sure that every person who received their first dose can receive their second dose, the transition said Friday that it would release the vast majority of available doses of authorized vaccines at once. (STAT, 1/8/21) See also: Experts express concern about Biden's plan to release nearly all available vaccine doses (Yahoo! News, 1/9/21) Biden Plans Coronavirus Vaccination Blitz After Inauguration (New York Times, 1/8/21)

NEWS America’s Vaccine Diplomacy Is AWOL in the Middle East.  If Americans are worried about the Chinese and Russian challenge, the absence of the United States in battling the coronavirus in a variety of important places, including the Middle East, is glaring. (Foreign Policy, 1/8/21)

ANNOUNCEMENT HHS Announces $22 Billion in Funding to Support Expanded Testing, Vaccination Distribution. Funding will provide critical support for testing and vaccination-related activities to jurisdictions before January 19, 2021. (CDC, 1/6/21)

NEWS Some States Put Brakes on EEOC’s Stance on Mandating Covid-19 Vaccine. It is now clear under federal employment law that employers can require workers to receive a Covid-19 vaccination. But state legislatures are proposing anti-discrimination and other laws that would erode an employer’s ability to mandate the vaccines. (Bloomberg Law, 1/13/21) See also: Digital vaccine certificate looms as HR's next problem (TechTarget, 1/12/21) Dollar General Will Pay Workers to Get a Covid-19 Vaccine (Wall Street Journal, 1/13/21)

NEWS Should The Government Pay People To Get Vaccinated? Some Economists Think So. Overcoming vaccine skepticism may take more than public service appeals from celebrities, politicians and scientists, says Robert Litan, an economist affiliated with the Brookings Institution. So he has been advocating a Plan B — cash payouts for everyone who gets vaccinated. (NPR, 1/13/21)

Public Health Practice

PODCAST How Badly Is Vaccination Going? Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of homeland security and an Atlantic contributor, joins staff writer James Hamblin and executive producer Katherine Wells on the podcast Social Distance. She explains what’s going on, what the problems have been, and why we shouldn’t be too concerned (yet). (The Atlantic, 1/8/21) See also: The Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout Faces a Two-Shot Problem (Wired, 1/13/21) Podcast: Coronavirus Crisis Update: Luciana Borio – “It’s Gonna Be Hard.” (CSIS, 1/21) Vaccines were a chance to redeem failures in the U.S. coronavirus response. What went wrong? (Washington Post, 1/11/21) Podcast: Answers To All (Or At Least Some) Of Your COVID-19 Vaccine Questions (FiveThirtyEight, 1/8/21)

NEWS The Capitol outbreak shows one vaccine dose may not fully shield against the coronavirus. At least three Democratic members of the House of Representatives recently found out the hard way. They were sheltering for hours with Republican colleagues who refused to wear masks during the Capitol riots on January 6 and later tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. (Vox, 1/12/21) See also: Biden Gets Second Vaccine Shot and Faults Mask-Rejecting Republicans (Bloomberg, 1/11/21)

OP-ED States and hospitals: overhaul your vaccine plans with data before it’s too late. To complete the vital task of making effective vaccine plans, states must partner with major provider and payer networks as well as county health clinics and federally qualified health centers that typically deliver care to underserved populations, all of which have the best line of sight into the needs of their patients and beneficiaries. (STAT, 1/11/21)

UPDATE The COVID-19 “Vaccination Line”: An Update on State Prioritization Plans. Overall, we find states are increasingly diverging from CDC guidance and from each other, suggesting that access to COVID-19 vaccines in these first months of the U.S. vaccine campaign may depend a great deal on where one lives. In addition, timelines vary significantly across states, regardless of priority group, resulting in a vaccine roll-out labyrinth across the country. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1/11/21) See also: Random People Are Lining Up to Get Vaccinated in D.C. Grocery Stores (The Atlantic, 1/13/21)

NEWS Millions of Americans with intellectual disabilities, at 'particularly high risk' for COVID-19, are still waiting for vaccinations. Across the country, the priority level for people who live in group homes varies by state – even though the outbreak this spring showed that they are two to three times more likely to be exposed to and die from COVID-19 than the general population. (USA TODAY, 1/11/21)

NEWS At Elite Medical Centers, Even Workers Who Don’t Qualify Are Vaccinated. A handful of the nation’s most prestigious academic hospitals have already taken the notion much further. Workers who have nothing to do with patient care, and who are not 75 or older, have been offered the shots. Some of the institutions were among the first recipients of the limited supplies in the United States. (New York Times, 1/10/21) See also: It’s essential to understand why some health care workers are putting off vaccination (Vox, 1/11/21)

WEBINAR A Shot in the Arm For Long-Term Care Facilities? Early Lessons from the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout to High Priority Populations. KFF will hold an interactive web event at Noon Eastern time on Thursday, January 14 that will provide the latest data on COVID-19 cases and deaths in long-term care facilities and examine how the effort to vaccinate residents and staff in long-term care settings is going, challenges experienced so far, and opportunities for improvement. Registration is required. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1/21)

SYMPOSIUM COVID-19 Vaccine Development, Strategy and Implementation. Participants will hear from a group of 25 outstanding speakers who have been intimately involved with all aspects of COVID-19 vaccine development, strategy, and implementation. The symposium will take place from February 22-26, 2021. Registration is required. (Columbia University, 1/21)

NEWS Scammers are claiming to sell Covid-19 vaccines on the dark web for up to $1,000 worth of bitcoin. Several sellers claimed to supply vaccine doses in bulk rather than single shots, according to Check Point. One vendor said they could sell a 10,000 vial order at a total price of $30,000, the researchers said. (CNBC, 1/13/21)

This newsletter supports CommuniVax, a research coalition convened by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Texas State University Department of Anthropology, with support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.