Central District Health Department has received a $10,000 gift from JBS USA for developing an educational campaign focusing on the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccine is currently only being distributed to first responders, emergency service personnel, medical facility staff, school nurses and a few others.
The campaign should be ready this spring when the vaccine becomes available to the general public, CDHD Director Teresa Anderson said.
The donation is the result of a COVID Community Response call, which is held every Tuesday.
“We presented on that call that we have some concerns about vaccine acceptance,” Anderson said. “There’s a need to develop an educational plan that will help people to have a better understanding of the vaccine in their own native language, from someone they respect in their community, who shares their culture.”
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Creating an understanding of the vaccine will help to further reduce the spread of the virus, Anderson said.
“The basic information we have now is, the virus is not going away in the foreseeable future, but we can protect ourselves and our loved ones by taking the vaccine, along with the other measures we have in place,” she said.
Anderson emphasized that the vaccine is safe.
“Even though it was developed very quickly, the vaccine went through all the rigors of scientific testing and has proven to be a very solid vaccine,” she said.
It is not known what the campaign will look like or what medium it will use.
The purpose is to help people understand what the vaccine is, its safety and how people can ask any questions about it, Anderson said.
A campaign will take roughly a month to prepare, and will be preceded by written materials.
“If we’re going to develop little video segments that we can play on Facebook or our website, we want to get those up and running as soon as possible,” she said. “It’s just a matter of getting individuals identified who can speak with that cultural understanding of those communities that we’re trying to reach.”
For more information about COVID-19 and Central District Health Department services, visit cdhd.ne.gov.
