Planned Parenthood introduces $2 million bilingual campaign promoting COVID-19 vaccinations

Planned Parenthood introduced a $2 million bilingual campaign promoting COVID-19 vaccinations on Thursday, with a goal of reaching 1.5 million people by the fall. 

The grassroots campaign entitled “Protect. Every. Body.” includes videos and images and utilizes Planned Parenthood’s social media, email lists and website to spread accurate information about the COVID-19 vaccine. 

The campaign also seeks to fight disinformation about the vaccines.

Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the U.S. needs “vaccine administration and education to put an end to this pandemic.”

“In this moment, Planned Parenthood’s mission has never been clearer: provide the high-quality care and trusted information people need, and our communities deserve, to make the best decisions about their bodies and live the life they want — healthy, strong, and protected against COVID-19,” she said in a release. 

Planned Parenthood, which is a part of President Biden’s COVID-19 Community Corps, said it commits to reaching and educating the “hardest hit communities,” including Black, Latino and Asian American Pacific Islander communities. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data on COVID-19 has found disproportionate deaths in Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. 

The organization said its role as a health care provider makes it “uniquely positioned” to communicate with these populations to ensure they “get the information and health care they deserve.”

For the campaign, organizers will be sent out to at least 12 states with a goal of having at least 1.5 million “meaningful conversations with people,” including through phone calls and in-person “COVID-19-safe door knocking.”

Planned Parenthood’s campaign launch comes about a week after the Biden administration unveiled the COVID-19 Community Corps designed to promote public education on the virus and the vaccine. 

The announcement also comes days after Biden announced that all Americans older than 18 will be eligible for the vaccine on April 19. By his 100th day in office, the president aims to have administered 200 million vaccine doses — an increase from the original goal of 100 million doses which was surpassed last month. 

So far, more than 109 million American adults have received at least one dose, amounting to 42 percent of the population, and more than 64 million, or almost a quarter of the population, are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.