Deliberately Undermining COVID Vaccination Efforts

I recently read this disgraceful news, reported by Amy Maxmen, which describes "How lawmakers in Texas and Florida undermine Covid vaccination efforts; State legislatures and politicians are pressuring public health officials to keep quiet about Covid vaccines."

"Katherine Wells wants to urge her Lubbock, Texas, community to get vaccinated against Covid-19. 'That could really save people from severe illness,' said Wells, the city’s public health director.

"But she can’t.

"A rule added to Texas’ budget that went into effect Sept. 1 forbids health departments and other organizations funded by the state government to advertise, recommend, or even list covid vaccines alone. 'Clinics may inform patients that COVID-19 vaccinations are available,' the rule allows, 'if it is not being singled out from other vaccines.'

"Texas isn’t the only state curtailing the public conversation about Covid vaccines. Tennessee’s health department homepage, for example, features the flu, vaping, and cancer screening but leaves out Covid and Covid vaccines. Florida is an extreme case, where the health department has issued guidance against Covid vaccines that runs counter to scientific studies and advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Notably, the shift in health information trails rhetoric from primarily Republican politicians who have reversed their positions on covid vaccines."

This sounds criminal! Why would you deliberately hide crucial information from the public about the importance of the COVID vaccine?  Maybe this helps explain the dismal vaccination rate lately.

In the latest Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter,  Dr. Katelyn Jetelina also discusses this problem: "States are withholding vaccine information, And why they should be working in overdrive to do the opposite."

Exposés like this are precisely what's needed to get our public health system working the way it's supposed to. Keep up the good work!