HJNO Mar/Apr 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  MAR / APR 2021 37 STOPVACCINATIONS! will step up, just as our pharmacy, clinic and hospital vaccine providers have. That’s the spirit of Louisiana: come pandemic or high water, we’ll do extraordinary things to help each other, and when we do, we’ll come back stronger than before. n Joseph Kanter, MD, serves as interim assistant sec- retary of the Office of Public Health and assistant state health officer of the Louisiana Department of Health. He is also a clinical assistant professor of medicine at LSU Health Sciences Center, adjunct assistant professor of medicine at Tulane Universi- ty School of Medicine and a practicing emergency physician. lacked healthcare access or who distrust the system as a whole and display patience and diligence in helping them get a vaccine when they decide it’s their time. Over the next several months, you’ll be hearing more from the Department and the key community members we’ve been part- nering with about what more you can do. But, just as we’ve learned from the terrify- ing number of natural disasters that have hit our state over the years, government can’t do it alone. We’ll need to help each other. I know the communities across Louisiana entering is going to take everyone’s help. We’ll have to go beyond the individual responsibility of getting myself vaccinat- ed and commit ourselves collectively to a new cause of doing everything we can to ensure everyone in our communities can get immunized. We will need community organizations, elected officials, faith lead- ers, neighbors, friends and family members to ask themselves: what can I do to ensure enough people in my community are getting vaccinated to end this pandemic? There will be people in your neighbor- hood who need help making an appoint- ment because of technology or literacy is- sues; there will be people in your zip code who will have trouble finding a ride to their vaccine provider. Some people in your parish will be hes- itant about getting a vaccine and will need help getting information about it being safe and effective; they will also need peo- ple to empathize and respect their decision. Most of all, we’ll need to build trust while acknowledging that some in our commu- nities are hesitant, because the terrible his- tory of inequitable healthcare has earned the mistrust of communities who have been treated very differently. There will be huge challenges ahead as we take on this new mission, and the spread of misinformation about vaccines will be among them. We are fortunate that when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccines, the truth is on the side of public health, and as more of the population get vaccinated, the num- bers will tell a story that will be difficult to undermine. But, we will also need to dig deep to tell our own personal stories, to reassure our family members and friends who are hes- itant, to get them the truth when they’ve heard facts or disinformation twisted into plausible-sounding warnings about injury or death. We’ll also need to make sure that we keep in mind those who’ve historically Joseph Kanter, MD Interim Assistant Secretary Louisiana Department of Health Office of Public Health “There will be huge challenges ahead as we take on this new mission, and the spread of misinformation about vaccines will be among them.”