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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services booked an unusual guest interviewer for one of its public health events this fall: Shulem Lemmer, the first Hasidic singer to sign with a major record label.
Lemmer has no particular expertise in public health, but he grew up in Brooklyn, home to many ultraorthodox Jews like himself. He s seen as a trusted messenger in parts of the Hasidic community that, despite suffering a disproportionate number of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, have on some occasions resisted New York s pandemic restrictions.
In the end, the interview never aired HHS changed its mind about having entertainers explain COVID-19. Still, public health experts say the idea of enlisting respected and well-known leaders to help explain the health message is exactly the right way to disarm and persuade skeptics and more crucial than ever this winter as cases and deaths from the coronavirus surge all across the U.S .
Trusted Messengers, Trusted Messages : How To Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy
at 2:00 am NPR
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services booked an unusual guest interviewer for one of its public health events this fall: Shulem Lemmer, the first Hasidic singer to sign with a major record label.
Lemmer has no particular expertise in public health, but he grew up in Brooklyn, home to many ultraorthodox Jews like himself. He s seen as a trusted messenger in parts of the Hasidic community that, despite suffering a disproportionate number of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, have on some occasions resisted New York s pandemic restrictions.
ByDr. H. Geoffrey Watson
Last week, I had the opportunity to meet and interview Dr. Mark Finch on the Health Beat TV show on Channel 78. ,
Highly experienced and world-traveled, Finch is one of the few African American infectious disease specialist in the Bay Area. Finch and I have worked in the hospital together caring for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
I asked Finch the questions often posed by my patients about the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna that were recently given emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to Finch and his research from the Centers for Disease Control, the responses are as follows;
"Vaccine hesitancy" or "vaccine skepticism" remains a huge challenge for health authorities trying to overcome mistrust by communities of color, the anti-vaxxer crowd and general dubiousness on the part of a traumatized nation.
Some Texans are hesitant to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Here’s how health officials are countering skepticism.
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Doctors Hospital at Renaissance employees in Edinburg ready a Pfizer vaccine for administration on Dec. 19, 2020 Credit: Jason Garza for The Texas Tribune
When Julieta Hernandez began hearing the first rumblings about a COVID-19 vaccine soon arriving in Texas, the Rockport writer and bartender had no doubts that she would get her shot when her time came.
And then she sat down to breakfast with her vegetarian parents, lifelong believers in homeopathic treatments with a deep skepticism for vaccines and mistrust in the government.