CDC to encourage 'Vaccinated for COVID-19' buttons
If there are "I Voted" stickers, why not "Vaccinated for COVID-19" buttons?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to offer health care providers a template they can use to print buttons or stickers that would advertise a person's vaccination status. The idea is that the button would be handed out to patients after they receive their vaccination shots.
The effort is part of a "toolkit" that the CDC plans to provide healthcare systems to "educate and promote vaccination," a CDC spokesperson told ABC News.
"These toolkits should be available soon," said spokesperson Kristen Nordlund.
Dr. Amanda Cohn, a senior CDC official who has been working with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said the idea was part of a broader effort to build confidence in the vaccine.
"We think it's really important that when an individual is vaccinated we make it visible they've been vaccinated," she said Thursday during an agency webinar.
A federal advisory board is meeting Dec. 10 to discuss possible authorization of what's expected to be the first COVID-19 vaccine available to Americans. If allowed for distribution, the vaccine made by Pfizer would be available in limited quantities initially and offered first to health care workers and people in long-term care facilities.
It's expected that the broader public will have access to the vaccine next spring, possibly April.
In a vaccine roundtable on Thursday, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield urged politicians, business leaders and medical professionals to help encourage Americans to get vaccinated to help end the pandemic. Health officials have warned that if people are reluctant to get immunized, the pandemic will be slower to come to an end.
"One of the things I can ask all of you to play a key role in helping us over the weeks ahead -- helping us to create a culture in this nation that's grounded in vaccine confidence," Redfield said.
