Shelby County recruiting ‘ambassadors’ to encourage vaccinations
To encourage continued vaccine uptake in Shelby County, Mayor Lee Harris is convening a new community council.
The 40-plus volunteers will be encouraging peers and neighbors to become vaccinated, and meet twice monthly online to discuss the summertime pandemic response.
“One of the more important things we can do, in addition to taking the shot ourselves,” Harris said, “is to encourage our friends, our neighbors and our loved ones to take the vaccine.”
A bit more than half of Memphis needs to get a COVID-19 vaccine for the county to reach herd immunity, which is estimated at 70% or more of the population, a new study estimates. Reaching that level of immunity will decrease opportunities for transmission of the virus and facilitate a “return to normal” with decreased risk of contracting disease, health experts agree.
Individuals also benefit because the vaccines are highly effective at preventing infection and severe disease, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At an Alcy-ball area event in the last week, Harris got the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be “one and done,” he said.
“Vaccine skepticism is real,” Harris said. “I’ll even admit that I was a little skeptical myself, and I have very skeptical people in my family.”
Harris became eligible when access opened to all people 16 and older, so he took the first opportunity he could to get vaccinated, he said.
The convenience of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine played a role in his personal choice to get the single-dose vaccine, instead of having to clear up his schedule for two doses, he said, which are required for the Pfizer and Moderna shots.
While demand for COVID-19 vaccine appointments was high at the outset when supply was lower, Harris expects the supply could outweigh demand in coming weeks and months.
“I think we’re right now in that period of time where we’re going to have to work hard to keep the momentum up,” he said Thursday. “... At this juncture, we’re going to get to that place where there will be a lot of slack in demand. In other words, some of the appointments may not be filled, and there may not be as high of a demand.”
The council is meant to address this by facilitating vaccination encouragement among peers, he said. The members are expected to share best COVID-19 practices and information about the vaccine to their communities, Harris said. They’ll also volunteer and recruit volunteers for non-medical COVID-19 response needs, and will be one of the groups to weigh in on the county’s search for a new permanent health director.
People who are 16 and older can apply online until the April 15 deadline: shelby countytn.gov/mayors-communitycouncil
Meetings will begin in May. Although the county has more than 40 other councils devoted to items like ethics and economic development, there is not yet a board solely dedicated to COVID-19.
So far, elected leaders and medical experts have convened in the city-county COVID-19 joint task force to lead the pandemic, Harris acknowledged. The new council will add a community voice that is “essential” to the pandemic response this summer, he said, suggesting the nicer weather will increasingly bring more people together.
Harris said the success of the council will be measured by vaccine uptake.
“We’re going to have to see a vaccine take-up rate that exceeds the national average,” Harris said. “I think we will get there . ... We have a long way to go. It’s very likely we’ll be at this for several months.”
Reach Laura Testino at laura.testino @commercialappeal.com.