Vaccine Myth Busting: the New York Task Force for Vaccine Equity and Education - Karen Boykin-Towns
Vaccine Myth Busting — the New York Task Force for Vaccine Equity and Education
“Nationwide, Black people are dying at a rate 2.5–3x higher than other groups.”
Communities of color have suffered a significant amount more than other groups from the impacts of the pandemic. Sadly this fact comes to no surprise as racism in healthcare and healthcare inequalities are not new.
Along with bias-related issues, there are other factors that contribute to this unsettling reality, such as lack of access to healthcare, the spread of pandemic and vaccine related misinformation, and living conditions.
It’s extremely important that we have resources and intentional efforts aimed at ensuring credible, factual information is disseminated into the communities that have been hardest hit during this pandemic.
Our lives depend on it.
I am proud to be a member of the New York Task Force for Vaccine Equity and Education, a group determined to counteract this pattern and protect people of color. We diligently work as agents of change in our community. To combat these inequalities, our Task Force has launched a new initiative:
The COVID-19 Vaccine Toolkit for Black Communities
This initiative is a toolkit of information and resources developed for communities of color to help fight against the virus and save lives.
It will be followed by additional efforts to help people to identify accessible locations in their community to receive the vaccine.
We hope this toolkit will help debunk Covid myths, provide communities of color with credible and accurate information on Covid and how to stay safe.
Governor Cuomo Announced the Task Force Initiative
On April 5thth, Governor Cuomo announced our Roll Up Your Sleeves initiative along with universal eligibility for all New Yorkers 16 years of age and older stating:
“Since the start of this critical phase of our fight against COVID, we have made it our top priority to bring the vaccine to the communities that were hit the hardest by the virus, and with the ‘Roll Up Your Sleeve’ campaign, we are helping ensure that no community gets left behind in the vaccine distribution process. The vaccine is the weapon that will win the war, but only if we all take it.”
Let’s use this campaign to receive correct information, get vaccinated, and stay #NewYorkTough.
You can find the toolkit in several languages available for download here.
#Covid19 #VaccineHesitancy #Equity #VaccineEquityNow #GettingTheFactsStraight
