Biden Team Launches Major Public Education Campaign Around COVID-19 Vaccinations
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President Joe Biden’s administration is launching new TV ads and a grassroots network of community leaders and other prominent voices to encourage Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The public education campaign will work with 275 groups, including public health experts (American Medical Association, Planned Parenthood), athletes (NASCAR, NFL), labor unions (AFL-CIO, AFSCME), rural groups (National 4-H Council, American Farm Bureau), business organizations (U.S. Chamber of Commerce), religious leaders (United Methodist Church, Catholic Charities USA) and groups representing veterans and Native, AAPI, Black and Latino communities, among others.
The Biden administration is encouraging anyone to sign up for the COVID-19 Community Corps. Participants will get weekly medical updates, talking points about the vaccine, information on getting vaccination appointments and other social media tools.
“Research shows that, when making the decision to get vaccinated, people want to hear from people they trust, such as medical professionals, their own family and friends, and leaders in their community,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. “The Community Corps was created to provide those trusted messengers with consistent and accurate information about COVID-19 to empower as many Americans as possible to become messengers to share the importance of vaccination in their community. ”
HHS is also out with four new TV ads ― including one in Spanish ― encouraging vaccination. They will run on general broadcast and cable stations, but HHS also made multimillion-dollar ad buys in Black and Spanish-language media and news outlets that reach trial and Asian American and Pacific Islander populations. They will run beginning Thursday through the month of April.
Watch one of the ads below:
The Biden administration is also launching social frames on Facebook so that people can share that they’ve been vaccinated.
The efforts encourage widespread vaccination, but they’re also targeted toward communities that have lagged in vaccination rates either from lack of access or cultural reluctance.
On Thursday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, one of the co-chairs of the public education campaign, are hosting a virtual meeting with the founding members of the Community Corps.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 16% are fully vaccinated.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
