Question: I read some headlines about the President’s push for a door-to-door vaccine campaign.  What does that look like?

Answer: On Tuesday, President Biden made remarks about the COVID-19 response, describing the shift from centralized mass vaccination sites to more localized community access. The pivot includes focus on: 1) thousands of local pharmacies where individuals can walk in without an appointment and receive the vaccine; 2) vaccine administration by local doctors and health practitioners so individuals can get the vaccine from someone they know and trust; 3) administration by family doctors, esp. to help adolescents get vaccinated along with their yearly check-ups; 4) vaccination at employee work sites; and 5) vaccination via mobile clinics. Regarding the door-to-door approach, the President stated, “Now we need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes, door to door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus.” The focus on “door-to-door” is about communications outreach to ensure that community members know where they can go to get vaccines; they have their vaccine questions addressed; they have a trusted community member to talk with, including about their concerns and in their preferred language.  It is *not* about vaccination teams knocking on doors administering vaccinations on the spot or cajoling individuals to receive the vaccine.  There are many existing examples of the type of work the Administration is suggesting.  For example, back in February, Washington, DC began a door-to-door approach to reach senior citizens– to talk with community members about the vaccine and help them schedule their appointments.  Detroit has taken a similar approach, partnering with a community-based non-profit to go door-to-door in communities with low vaccine uptake in a major outreach effort to share information with community members.  This is bread-and-butter community work.