HHS launches COVID-19 Community Corps to promote vaccine acceptance

Multimedia campaign taps medical, religious and civic groups to engage people at the ground level; J&J says it is still on-track despite Baltimore factory snafu.

Johnson & Johnson says it is still on track to deliver its committed 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of June, despite a mixup at a Baltimore factory that fouled millions of doses that had not yet been released. Twenty million doses of the signle shot COVID-19 vaccine have already been delivered to the U.S. government.

The federal government is rolling out the next phase of its campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, especially in minority and underserved communities. In addition to TV ads using the tag line “We can do this,” Vice President Harris and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy hosted an inaugural meeting of the COVID-19 Community Corps earlier today.

The Community Corps includes more than 275 organizations, including the American Medical Association, the NAACP, the Salvation Army, NASCAR and many others. The campaign includes a way for anyone to sign up to become a Community Corps member and receive weekly scientific and other updates and materials to help others get vaccinated and prevent COVID-19. The program also includes social media profile frames in both English and Spanish.

Help invent better masks: The HHS agency that develops vaccines, drugs and other essential “countermeasures” for public health emergencies, BARDA, has launched a $500,000 mask design challenge. “We want to get people across the country involved in developing new masks that are both effective and comfortable. This will help us control COVID-19 and be better prepared for future public health emergencies,” said Nikki Bratcher-Bowman, HHS acting Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in a statement. (Disclosure: I am a consultant to a contractor that supports BARDA.)

“Trustworthiness, Partnership, and Reciprocity” are the essential ingredients in COVID-19 vaccine communications, according to experts writing in the New England Journal of Medicine. They point to tinyurl.com/COVID19Materials for a library of infographics, draft social media posts and other communications tools that advance these goals. They were developed by an NIH-supported clinical outreach network.

GOP politician urges masks: Former Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told People magazine that she and two of her children had been infected with COVID-19. And, she urged people to wear masks: “It's better than doing nothing to slow the spread," she said.