The speed with which Pfizer and Moderna developed and submitted for approval vaccines for the Covid-19 coronavirus is astounding. The vaccines have been approved by the FDA and trusted sources like the CDC and well-known scientists are urging Americans to get vaccinated as soon as they are able. But even as the vaccines began rolling out first, to front-line health care workers and other essential workers, misinformation and doubt is beginning to spread.
African-Americans and other minorities are beginning to share a reluctance to get vaccinated, and who can blame them, when the spectre of the Tuskegee experiment still occupies memories?
The vaccines have a massive PR problem that must:
- Correct misinformation, of which there is plenty
- Reach people in their communities, through churches, neighborhoods, and even visiting nurses
- Spotlight trusted individuals through public, televised and social media-broadcast vaccinations, to inspire confidence and change minds
It’s going to be a tough campaign, and like the Y2K campaigns that ruled 1999, the Covid vaccines campaigns will fuel the PR and communications industry for at least the year to come.