0:00

Welcome to COVID nineteen Immunity

0:03

in Our Community. Before

0:05

we kick off the show, here's the latest

0:07

COVID nineteen vaccination news

0:09

at the time of this recording on Monday

0:12

May. At the start

0:14

of this week, over two five million

0:16

vaccines have been administered in the US,

0:19

and six out of ten American adults

0:21

have received at least one COVID vaccine

0:24

dose. The FDA

0:26

recently authorized the Fiser COVID

0:28

vaccine for adolescence between twelve

0:31

to fifteen years old. The CDC

0:33

recently updated mask guidelines.

0:36

Fully vaccinated individuals can resume

0:38

activities without wearing a mask or

0:40

physically distancing you are fully

0:43

vaccinated two weeks after your

0:45

final dose. That's it

0:47

for now, enjoy the show. Hello,

0:52

Yeah you Hi. I'm Robin Roberts

0:55

of ABC's Good Morning America, and

0:57

welcome the COVID nineteen Immunity

0:59

in Our Community, brought to you by the

1:02

U S Department of Health and Human Services.

1:17

COVID nineteen Immunity in Our

1:19

Community has been created to provide

1:21

you with the groundbreaking science,

1:24

honest facts, unvarnished

1:26

truth about the deadly coronavirus

1:29

and the revolutionary vaccines that

1:31

could put this pandemic behind us. Today,

1:33

we're talking about vaccine hesitancy

1:36

and the people that bridge the gap of trust

1:38

between hesitant folks and the healthcare

1:41

providers who want to help them.

1:51

These liaisons are community healthcare

1:53

navigators. Sometimes the people

1:55

who take on this role are professional

1:57

mediators through government programs, but

2:00

other times they're simply our neighbors

2:02

or our family. Many of these

2:04

figures are women responsible for

2:06

balancing social distancing, homeschooling,

2:09

remote work, and the healthcare

2:12

decisions for their own families. But

2:14

what does it take to change minds

2:16

about the safety of COVID nineteen vaccines.

2:19

Well to find out, we sat down

2:22

with Heather Simpson, a mother who

2:24

used to be part of the anti vaccine

2:26

community. However, some compassionate

2:29

friends and thoughtful experts led

2:31

her to research the science behind

2:33

the COVID nineteen vaccines. Now

2:36

she's a community healthcare navigator

2:39

herself. Heather offers

2:41

her unique insights on how we can

2:43

best convince others to roll up

2:45

their sleeves and get vaccinated. Then

2:48

we talked to Dr Rochelle Wolinski,

2:51

director of the Centers for Disease

2:53

Control and Prevention. She

2:55

discussed the community health Workers Initiative

2:58

and effort to support healthcare worker and

3:00

navigators. She also covered how

3:03

our health care system can work to build and

3:05

repair trust in these hesitant communities,

3:08

and what each of us can do to help.

3:21

Once upon a time, Heather Simpson

3:23

was stringently anti vaccine

3:26

or anti vax. When COVID

3:28

nineteen hit and talk of a vaccine

3:30

started to circulate, she knew

3:32

she wouldn't take her daughter to be vaccinated. Nope.

3:34

Heather had long been active and

3:37

anti vax Facebook groups. One

3:39

year, you know what she did. She dresses measles

3:42

for Halloween because she says it was the least

3:44

scary thing she could imagine. That

3:47

image of Heather in her costume circulated

3:50

the Internet and earned her no shortage

3:52

of mocking online. The anti

3:55

vax hmmunity was the only place

3:57

Heather felt really understood and except

4:00

did. But when the COVID nineteen

4:02

pandemic hit the country hard, Heather

4:04

still felt it was important to wear masks

4:06

and protect the community. The

4:08

anti vax Facebook groups did

4:10

not agree, and they turned against her. After

4:13

losing her anti vax community, Heather

4:16

decided to speak to experts about

4:18

the efficacy of vaccines. Slowly,

4:21

she realized that vaccines are safe, and

4:24

now Heather has been vaccinated against COVID

4:27

nineteen. Here's Heather

4:29

Simpson now to share her story of how

4:31

she came to become anti vaccine,

4:33

how she realized that vaccines

4:36

work, and how empathy played

4:38

a key role in that journey. Then

4:40

she'll talk about her mission to spread the truth

4:43

about COVID nineteen vaccines. I

4:56

am a mother of a three

4:58

and a half year old all and her

5:01

name is Charlotte. She is a

5:03

wild child. She loves dinosaurs

5:06

and the great outdoors, and she

5:08

she quite literally never stops going.

5:11

So I grew up vaccinated.

5:15

Um I got my Heppy series when I was a

5:17

teen. I guess it was a different schedule

5:19

but then and that's

5:21

just what we did. We didn't worry about it. We

5:24

didn't like them, but we just did it. And

5:27

when I was eighteen and going off to college,

5:29

my mom gave me the choice to get my

5:31

meningitis shot. And

5:34

I hate needles, so being

5:37

eighteen, I said no. And

5:40

I guess there was a little spark of

5:42

hesitancy in me at that point, like,

5:45

well, why why do we get vaccinated?

5:47

And you know what, what would be the dangers,

5:50

but I just kind of shut that down. And a

5:52

couple of years later, I poked myself with some

5:54

old jewelry, so I ran to the local

5:56

clinic and I got a tennis shot. A

5:59

couple of years after that, I had to get a flu

6:01

shop for school. I almost passed

6:03

out, but I wasn't worried that I

6:07

would have a crazy side effect.

6:10

It wasn't until I think two thousand

6:12

fifteen, when me and my husband started

6:15

thinking about having a kid and trying

6:17

to get pregnant, that

6:21

we realized, oh, my goodness, we have

6:24

We're going to have this life that we're

6:26

in charge of. We have to make these kinds

6:28

of heavy decisions. And

6:31

that's when we were at our most vulnerable. And

6:34

that's when I

6:36

saw this ad for a documentary

6:38

series about vaccines, and

6:41

it was completely anti vaccine. It was

6:44

about nine hours long, and we

6:46

decided to watch

6:49

it all, which

6:52

the hard part about it was it was full

6:54

of doctors, um

6:57

anti vaccine doctors. But you

6:59

know, growing up having trusted doctors,

7:02

I'm listening to these doctors like, Wow,

7:05

they're correct, this

7:07

is this is crazy. How have I

7:09

not known that vaccines were so dangerous?

7:12

They blamed everything under the sun

7:15

on vaccines, and I just ate it up. I

7:17

was terrified after that. At

7:20

the same time she developed her distrust

7:22

of vaccines, Heather and her husband were

7:24

experiencing fertility issues that

7:26

no doctor could seem to solve. She

7:29

didn't feel like she was being listened to by

7:31

the medical professionals in her life. Then,

7:35

when natural methods finally helped Heather

7:37

get pregnant, she decided to go

7:39

the natural route for good. Natural

7:42

medicine seemed to help her when no

7:44

doctor could. When

7:47

COVID kind of became this big

7:51

pandemic and the vaccine was

7:54

being talked about, I in

7:56

no way wanted anything to do with

7:58

it. I definitely didn't want my daughter

8:00

to have it. I didn't want myself to have

8:03

it. I didn't want my husband to have it. I

8:05

did not trust it. I

8:08

was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. I was still

8:10

an anti vaxtor when COVID

8:12

hit um and still somewhat

8:15

vocal about my anti vaccine

8:17

beliefs online. So

8:19

as ironic as it is that a doctor

8:22

kind of made me distrust Western

8:25

medicine, another doctor kind

8:27

of turned the situation around

8:29

for me. I have in demetriosis

8:31

to last February. It was really bad,

8:34

and my kind of coologists

8:36

wanted to do surgery. I posted

8:39

online to my friends, my anti VAXX

8:41

friends, and they were telling me it's

8:43

the lazy way out. You just need

8:45

to eat healthier, and

8:48

doing the surgery is just kind of

8:50

pathetic. And then I went to my doctor

8:53

and I cried, master if this

8:55

was my fault, if I just needed to eat better,

8:58

and she told me it was not my fault, and I needed

9:00

the surgery and I felt better

9:02

after the surgery. And that was kind of when I started

9:05

to trust Western medicine

9:07

more. As

9:11

Heather started to warm up to the medical

9:13

system, the anti vax community

9:15

turned against her. Now they're

9:18

also noticed that the anti vax community

9:20

was stringently anti mask, but

9:23

wearing masks in public was something Heather

9:25

felt passionate about because

9:27

of her different opinions. The anti vax community

9:30

completely rejected her, so

9:32

she turned to her friends and vaccine experts

9:35

for the truth. So

9:40

I had a friend named Jess that

9:43

forward hours and hours of

9:45

her time into talking with me about

9:48

my fears, and that really,

9:51

to have someone care so deeply

9:53

and actually listened to me, that

9:56

was one of the biggest things that kind of turned

9:58

the tide for me. I mean, she was

10:00

just so empathetic and

10:03

in all of our previous conversations, she

10:05

never judged. She would ask

10:07

why, you know, well, why are you scared

10:09

of that? What is your thought process

10:12

behind that? Okay, well this is why I believe that's

10:14

not correct. I

10:17

started reading actual pro

10:21

vaccine books instead of

10:23

anti vaccine propaganda, and

10:25

then I started talking to online

10:28

doctors that became friends on Facebook

10:30

and online scientists that became friends on Facebook,

10:33

and they were so happy to help answer

10:35

my questions and they actually

10:38

explained the science to me. A

10:40

lot of anti vaccine people

10:43

believe that aluminum

10:45

from vaccine gets into your brain because they

10:47

read these studies that show that there's a luminium

10:49

in your brain. What actually happens

10:52

at the end of these studies, if you read the

10:54

details, it's environmental

10:57

aluminum. It's not the vaccine

10:59

aluminum. And that that blew

11:01

my mind. I was like, we've been reading

11:03

all these studies wrong. It's like we're not doctors.

11:08

I still feel this fear. I think every parent

11:11

feels a little bit of anxiety

11:14

going in to get your child's vaccines

11:16

because you don't know. I mean, one in a million can

11:18

have aniflexus, probably not your kid,

11:20

but it's just it's just a medical procedure.

11:23

You know, everybody has a little

11:25

bit of anxiety. But telling myself those

11:27

scientific facts, it

11:30

was just such a relief to know that there's

11:32

hard science out there that you can trust.

11:40

After learning the truth about vaccines

11:42

from experts and speaking to hympathetic

11:44

friends, Heather made it her mission

11:46

to use the same science and patients

11:49

to spread the facts about all vaccines.

11:52

She also booked her COVID nineteen

11:54

vaccine appointment. I

11:56

am nervous because needles. You know, I

11:58

have been known to faint um,

12:00

but you know that happens,

12:03

and I'm glad to be part of her immunity.

12:07

I have heard a lot of rumors,

12:09

you know that the COVID vaccine effects

12:11

fertility, or you know my

12:13

mom died the next day, you know, things

12:16

like that. And what I'm doing is

12:18

just posting and trying to explain to people

12:20

the science that I've read. And

12:23

I personally got to talk to Dr Paul

12:25

off It about that because that

12:27

was kind of my fear. You know, when you read about fertility

12:30

and you want another kid, you

12:32

don't want to stop that, And

12:34

he just put my fear, my

12:36

fears at ease, And that was just such

12:39

a wonderful conversation. And so I'm

12:41

confident moving forward that it

12:44

is a good vaccine with solid science

12:47

behind it. All I can do is

12:49

just share those articles with my

12:51

friends and share what I know. If

12:54

you are going to talk to a vaccine hesitant

12:56

person or an anti vaxer and try

12:58

to bridge that gap, just keep in mind that they

13:01

are terrified and

13:03

they they truly

13:05

believe what they believe. Mocking

13:07

them is not going to do anything.

13:10

Being sarcastic is only

13:13

going to build that wall.

13:15

When I got a ton of hate as

13:18

an anti factor, that just strengthened

13:20

my platform and I believed,

13:23

Oh I got hate, that means I'm doing something

13:25

right. So just be on their team.

13:28

And these hard

13:30

scientific facts that you can't get

13:32

around, have those ready,

13:35

have those written down, whatever you need

13:37

to do. But there are hard

13:39

scientific facts, even about

13:41

the COVID vaccine that you can't feel

13:44

your way out of, you can't argue with your way

13:46

out of. You can empathize

13:49

with them and say, I understand how scary

13:51

it is to read these stories you

13:54

can explain, uh,

13:56

you know, there's actually a lot of funny

13:58

correlation does not equal causation

14:01

things on the internet. That's that's

14:03

what helped me and the scientific facts.

14:06

Man, I couldn't argue my way

14:08

out of those scientific facts. Heather

14:14

Simpson stressed the importance of listening

14:16

to vaccine hesitant people without judgment,

14:19

patiently sharing the real science with

14:21

them. That's what changed her

14:23

mind about vaccines and turned her into

14:25

a community healthcare navigator. To

14:28

learn more about how the medical system can

14:30

build trust in the communities they served, we

14:33

spoke to Dr Rochelle Walnsky,

14:35

Director of the Centers for Disease Control

14:38

and Prevention. Dr Walnsky

14:40

was a professor at Harvard Medical School

14:42

for eight years and chief of the

14:44

Division of Infectious Diseases at

14:47

Massachusetts General Hospital for three years.

14:50

She also spent a year working on the front

14:52

lines of the COVID nineteen pandemic. This

14:55

gave her an up close understanding

14:57

of how this disease has impacted vone

15:00

A Bowl communities, as well as

15:02

what may cause those communities to be hesitant

15:04

about vaccines. Dr

15:06

Willinsky discussed how the CDC

15:09

is working to support and fund

15:11

community healthcare workers and navigators,

15:14

as well as what you listeners can do from

15:16

home to become small scale healthcare

15:19

navigators yourselves. I

15:25

think it's really important that we understand

15:28

where people are when they're thinking about

15:31

vaccines and whether they are confident

15:33

in the vaccines, whether they want the vaccines, and who

15:35

they get their information from, because

15:37

not everybody trusts everyone

15:39

UM and they have trusted people in their

15:41

lives and their communities and they really want

15:44

to understand vaccine safety,

15:46

vaccine efficacy and learn it

15:48

from the people who they trust. And

15:52

so it is those people UM

15:54

locally. It may be in

15:56

their faith based organizations, it may be

15:58

in their communities, that may be in their pharmacy sees

16:00

that maybe their loved ones. And it is those

16:02

people who really have to extend the confidence

16:04

and the message that vaccines are

16:07

effective, they will prevent disease, and

16:09

vaccines are safe. To meet people

16:11

where they are. We need to convey the science.

16:14

We need to communicate it. We need to bring it to

16:16

the people UM at the level that they

16:18

want to hear it, that they want to understand it. We

16:20

need to be able to you know, this is

16:22

this is going to happen. One person at a time.

16:25

UM, we need to make sure that people get

16:27

the answers to their specific questions, and

16:29

they get the answers to those questions

16:32

in the context of where they have trusted

16:35

messengers. So some people get

16:37

that information from their pharmacists, some people

16:39

don't have a trusted pharmacist. Some people

16:42

might go to their their minister and

16:44

want to get it from their faith based organization. And

16:46

so we're really trying to spread

16:49

all over local communities to

16:51

make sure that they get those trusted messages

16:54

from those trusted messengers and

16:56

in fact that it's science based

16:58

and they have all of the tool hits that they

17:00

need to convey that information

17:02

based on that science. The

17:07

CDC recognizes the importance

17:09

of trusted figures like healthcare navigators

17:12

to spread the facts about the COVID nineteen vaccines.

17:15

That's why they're devoting resources to encouraging

17:17

more people to take on the role in developing

17:20

the skills of people who already have. We

17:23

have devoted three D thirty

17:25

two million dollars to our community health

17:27

worker initiative. We know as

17:29

part of getting people excited

17:32

um and motivated to take the vaccine

17:34

that we really need to meet people where they are.

17:37

It is those community workers who understand

17:40

the people in their community, who understand

17:42

where or why they might be hesitant,

17:45

who know how to find them, who understand

17:47

what their reluctancy might be. And I think

17:49

when we talk about vaccine confidence, we really

17:52

need to understand that some people

17:54

are worried because it's not convenient.

17:56

Some people are worried that the side effects might keep

17:58

them out of work the next day. Some people are

18:00

worried about their safety or

18:02

whether they really work, or maybe some people

18:05

aren't concerned that they would get COVID

18:07

at all, and a disease. Trusted

18:09

community workers who live in the community,

18:12

who can come with informed discussions

18:15

where people can really ask the questions

18:17

of the people in their community and get the answers

18:20

to the questions that they perceive

18:22

as the reason that they don't want to get the vaccine.

18:24

And I think it's really those community workers.

18:26

The the money and resources that CDC

18:29

is putting forward towards this community

18:31

worker program, is going to help with community

18:33

worker education, is going to help

18:35

with evaluation, technical assistance

18:38

so that we can really inform these community

18:40

workers and they can bring that message out to

18:42

the members of their community. Dr

18:47

Wilinsky said that community healthcare

18:49

navigators should focus on sharing the

18:51

overwhelming scientific evidence

18:53

that vaccines are safe and effective.

18:56

I think it's really important to recognize

18:58

that now hundreds of millions of Americans

19:01

have rolled up their sleeve and gotten the vaccine,

19:04

and we are starting to see the data that demonstrates

19:06

that that vaccine is leading to decreased

19:09

hospitalizations, decreased disease

19:11

in the communities that have been vaccinated.

19:14

I think it's really important to understand

19:16

that the safety of as vaccine has

19:19

been demonstrated not only in clinical

19:21

trials of a hundred thousand people,

19:23

but now through the experience

19:26

of a hundred million people. And

19:28

I think it's really important that people understand

19:31

that that it is so critical

19:33

for people to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated.

19:35

It will help with with curbing disease,

19:38

and it will um it is safe to do. Health

19:41

care systems and clinical providers

19:44

have been at the front lines working

19:46

with patients and are working now

19:48

to ensure consistent communication,

19:51

trusted communication, and accountability

19:54

for the work that they're doing. And UM,

19:56

I'm really enthusiastic that over this next

19:59

tenures were building up vaccine trust

20:01

that they will be there leading with science to

20:03

lead that trusted message. All

20:10

of you listening at home, and we're so glad that you

20:12

are. You can become healthcare navigators

20:14

too by talking to the hesitant

20:17

people in your lives about why it's

20:19

important to get a COVID nineteam vaccine.

20:22

The very first step is leading

20:24

by example people

20:30

who are listening at home. The first

20:32

thing you can do is roll up your own sleeve and get vaccinated.

20:35

And the next thing that you can do locally is

20:37

just look around you and be the messenger

20:39

for someone else. There are a lot

20:41

of resources on the CDC dot gov website.

20:44

There are a lot of resources on that we can

20:46

do this website and UM.

20:48

Those resources can be used as tool kits

20:50

to engage in your community to

20:53

spread the word out. When

20:55

the mailman comes, I might ask have you

20:57

been vaccinated? UM, and the people

20:59

really us want to hear about it in their

21:02

community. So so send the message

21:04

to the people around you, to your community, to

21:06

your loved ones, and really understand

21:09

what it is that is causing them to not

21:11

necessarily roll up their sleeves. If it's

21:13

the ride, you can be there to provide it for them.

21:15

If it's the appointment you can be that help

21:17

access it. We are going to do this one

21:20

person at a time. When

21:25

I say meet people where they're at, I mean

21:28

it both figuratively and literally.

21:30

So if you are if the mailman

21:32

comes, if you're in the pharmacy, if

21:34

you're having a casual discussion, UM,

21:37

talk to people about whether they've gotten the vaccine?

21:39

Where a sticker or where where a

21:42

bracelet that says you've gotten the vaccine?

21:44

And and and be the walking advertisement

21:47

and in fact when then you have this conversation,

21:50

So not only are you literally meeting them and

21:52

finding them wherever it is that they go every

21:54

day, but then you're having a conversation with

21:56

them about why if you haven't

21:58

gotten the vaccine, why not? UM?

22:01

What is it about the vaccine that either has you

22:03

concerned? Was it not convenient? Could you not

22:05

find it? Did you not have the time, did you not have

22:07

the time off? UM? Or were you

22:09

worried about its side effects? Where you worried

22:11

about its safety profile? Because if

22:13

you're empowered with all the information to

22:16

answer those questions, then

22:18

UM you will be the one to motivate

22:21

UM their decision making as they roll up

22:23

the sleeves and get the vaccine themselves. You

22:25

know, I spent a year on the front lines during

22:27

this pandemic, so I have so many stories.

22:30

What I can tell you is when

22:32

it comes to reaching communities,

22:35

there are people who might be reluctant.

22:38

There are people who don't

22:40

really understand the impact of

22:42

this disease. So often

22:44

early on we said, you need to stay home, you

22:47

need to quarantine, you need to isolate. UM.

22:49

Quarantine, as I've found in so

22:51

many of these communities, is actually a privilege

22:54

that many people don't have the opportunity to

22:56

quarantine and um.

22:58

It is those community health workers who live

23:00

in these communities who find

23:03

people who can convey to those

23:05

people that their healthcare workers out there,

23:07

who care, who want them to come in,

23:10

who want to see them, who want to see

23:12

them before they're super sick, so we can intervene

23:14

early and to really want to make

23:16

sure that they can get vaccinated so that they

23:19

are not at risk to themselves or

23:21

to their families. So

23:36

each of us can also help bridge the

23:38

gap of trust between our communities and

23:40

the health care systems that serve us. In

23:43

fact, we encourage you to join the

23:45

COVID nineteen Community Core to

23:48

receive information on how you can help build

23:50

vaccine confidence in your community.

23:53

You know it's understandable for people to ask

23:55

questions about the COVID nineteen

23:57

vaccines. Decisions about

23:59

our health are some of the most

24:01

important decisions we will ever make, and

24:04

if we're responsible for making healthcare

24:06

decisions for a child or relative, the

24:09

pressure to do things right can be overwhelming.

24:12

But each of us can listen

24:15

to those concerns with empathy and patience

24:18

and then help hesitant folks understand

24:21

the solid science behind the COVID nineteen

24:23

vaccines. Both Heather Simpson

24:26

and Dr Rochelle Rolinsky stressed

24:28

how important it is for healthcare navigators

24:31

to use a combination of empathy

24:33

and science to change minds, and

24:35

more importantly, to listen to the

24:38

questions and fears people have.

24:41

Lead by example and

24:43

book your vaccine appointment today.

24:53

To get vaccinated, go to vaccines

24:56

dot gov and click find COVID

24:58

nineteen vaccines. The site

25:00

will help you determine where you can get the vaccine

25:03

and how to make an appointment. Now

25:06

you don't have to worry about paying for your

25:08

vaccine. Your taxpayer

25:10

dollars are funding the rollout, so

25:13

there's no individual cost to you, So

25:15

if someone asked you to provide your insurance

25:18

information, that's only so your

25:20

vaccination provider can build your

25:22

insurance for the administrative costs,

25:24

but you will not be personally responsible

25:27

for any expenses. I'd

25:30

like to thank our guests, Heather Simpson and

25:32

Dr Rochelle Willinski for sharing their

25:34

thoughts and their expertise with us today.

25:37

Tune in again for episode six,

25:40

where we'll address how the COVID nineteen

25:42

pandemic has impacted the Hispanic

25:45

community.

25:54

COVID nineteen Immunity in Our Community

25:57

was developed and paid for by the U. S

25:59

Department of Health and Human Services,

26:01

part of a public education campaign to

26:04

increase public confidence in COVID

26:06

nineteen vaccines while reinforcing

26:09

basic prevention measures. We

26:11

Can Do This Presented

26:13

by I Heart Radio and ABC News,

26:16

this podcast is hosted by me

26:18

Robin Roberts. The episode

26:21

was executive produced Ethan

26:23

Fixal with production by Wonder

26:26

Media Network. It was written,

26:28

engineered, and edited by Edie

26:31

Aller to Triple Threat, with research

26:33

assistance from Alessandra Hata.

26:36

If you haven't already subscribed, rated,

26:39

or reviewed COVID nineteen Immunity

26:41

in our community. What are you waiting for? Please

26:44

do so on the I Heart radio app,

26:46

Apple podcast, or wherever you

26:49

get your podcasts. Until

26:52

next week. I am Robin Roberts

26:54

and this is COVID nineteen immunity

26:57

in our community. We could do this. Thank

26:59

you for listening. E