A toolkit for local health departments, pharmacists, and health care partners to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence in members of the public, among health care providers, and among community & business leaders.
A Message from the NYSDOH Vaccine Confidence Workgroup:
We now have more capacity than ever before to help prevent people from becoming severely ill from respiratory diseases such as COVID, including:
- Safe, updated immunizations – For the first time ever, immunizations are available for all three major fall and winter respiratory diseases – flu, COVID-19, and RSV.
- Widely available, effective treatments – Treatments are available for flu and COVID-19 and can reduce severe illness, hospitalization, and death.
- Testing – Tests, some of which can be used at home, can quickly detect these respiratory viruses so patients don’t delay treatment and other actions that can protect their family, friends, and coworkers.
- Common-sense measures – Other tools like masking, physical distancing, washing hands, and improving airflow in the places where people live and work can provide an additional layer of protection.
You, as members of LHDs, pharmacists, and health care partners play a crucial role in assisting members of the community in getting their COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots.
Getting as many people vaccinated as possible, is the main path toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is still some vaccine hesitancy or vaccine “unsureness” that may pose a challenge to increasing the numbers of vaccinated people in your area. In addition, there is a good deal of misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine that is tough to dispel, especially in an era when social media can spread fallacies far and wide in a matter of seconds
To the extent those in your community who have not been vaccinated but willing to consider doing so, this toolkit was prepared to assist you with multiple educational links, resources, talking points and tools on promoting vaccine confidence.
We hope you find this vaccine confidence-building toolkit helpful as you continue to roll out the vaccine to those currently eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and new populations as they become eligible.