Nebraska aiming to ease vaccine fears in communities of color

LINCOLN, Neb. – Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services answered questions yesterday in an attempt to ease fears about the COVID-19 vaccine among communities of color.

The DHHS is partnering with several organizations to hold online town halls over the next several months.

Officials say the goal is not to push the vaccine on anyone, but instead to offer a venue where people can get information in a comfortable and empowering setting.

"If you're a person of color, if we could start to decrease some of that folklore stuff and give you real-time information that makes sense about why you need to take the vaccination because as I said, even for myself, this is a life or death situation," says Dannette Smith, the CEO of DHHS.

Smith, CEO of DHHS, says many of the town halls are meant to coincide with Black History Month.

According to the CDC, Blacks and Hispanics are both about four times as likely as whites to be hospitalized if they contract a coronavirus infection, and nearly three times as likely to die.

Despite those figures, surveys have found that only about a quarter of Black Americans and about one third of the Latino community say they plan to get the vaccine.