Season One: Vaccine Hesitancy
How do you change someone’s mind who’s hesitant to get vaccinated? At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was a life-or-death question on the minds of public health officials everywhere. While pundits and politicians debated, we went out to communities across America to listen, learn and share the stories of trusted voices who were breaking through the noise. The result is a seven-part docuseries, underwritten by Walgreens, that reveals a deeper truth about vaccine hesitancy and shines new light on what it takes to change hearts and minds.
EPISODE 1: THE GOOD LISTENER
How do you convince someone to get the Covid vaccine? Baltimore barber Kennard Perry does it by giving his customers a safe space to talk, and listening closely. One haircut at a time, he’s countering misinformation and helping men in his community work through their lingering questions and concerns.
EPISODE 5: A MATTER OF FAITH
Reverend R.B. Holmes uses the power of the pulpit, and his faith in God and science, to call upon parishioners in his Tallahassee Baptist church to get vaccinated. “We must be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers,” he reminds them. “I am appealing to you, and young Americans, that it is your moral obligation to get vaccinated.”
EPISODE 4: MANOS A LA OBRA
Gladys Vega is a boots-on-the-ground activist in Chelsea, Massachusetts who will do whatever it takes to keep her predominantly Latinx community safe. Knowing many undocumented immigrants are fearful to come in for vaccinations, Vega and her team are going door to door to reassure and sign up her neighbors.
EPISODE 2: BATTLING TIME AND TIDE
The coast of Maine is dotted with thousands of tiny islands, fifteen of which still have year-round residents. In a race against time, nurse Sharon Daley and the Maine Seacoast Mission brave rough seas and gale force winds to get the Covid vaccine to islanders and safeguard these remote communities against the virus.
EPISODE 3: OVERCOMING A PAINFUL LEGACY
Johnny Ford first became mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama in 1972, the year news broke of the notorious Tuskegee Experiment that would shatter African American trust in the medical establishment for generations. Despite this tragic legacy, Mayor Ford says, with trusted Black scientists and doctors leading this vaccination effort no one should use what happened in Tuskegee as a reason not to get vaccinated now.
EPISODE 6: CARING FOR THE HEARTLAND
Dr. Jen Brull cares for multiple generations of farming and ranching families in the small Kansas town of Plainville, where vaccine hesitancy and distrust run high. Through a combination of persistence, care and respect, Dr. Brull is bringing her patients around to the vaccine one-by-one.
EPISODE 7: TWICE THE TRUST
Dr. Elana McDonald and Dr. Delana Wardlaw, aka the “Twin Sister Docs,” care for patients in the same underserved Philadelphia neighborhoods where they grew up. With empathy and a deep cultural understanding of the communities they serve, they’re doubling down on getting vulnerable populations vaccinated.