Arizona Vaccine Advocacy - Arizona Partnership for Immunization

Advocacy: We support vaccines and vaccine education.

October 20, 2020

Please read the letter template to send to Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in support of continuing the mask mandate in Maricopa County.

The Honorable Clint Hickman and
Members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
301 West Jefferson Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85003

Dear Chairman Hickman and Members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors:

As leaders in the health care ecosystem, we thank you for supporting public health with the mask mandate, the most effective safety protocol to minimize infection with the exception of a shelter in place mandate.

We understand there is a small but vocal minority calling for the elimination of the mask mandate in Maricopa. We urge you to continue maintaining the mandate. To lift the mandate would be a devastating blow to the progress we have seen in the past few months of declining COVID infection and death rates in Arizona, once an epicenter of the pandemic.

Until a vaccine is widely available, masks and social distancing are the most effective tools we have to save lives, short of widespread shelter in place orders that would devastate the economy.

Multiple scientific studies have been published demonstrating proper mask usage reduces infection[i]. There have been no scientific studies that show masks do not reduce COVID infection.
Our own experience in Arizona reflects the effectiveness of widespread mask usage. We came dangerously close to exceeding hospital capacity in Arizona over the July 4^th Since the mask mandate was implemented, hospital inpatient rates and deaths due to COVID have continued to drop. A recent CDC report expressed that masks played a crucial role in controlling the outbreak in Arizona this past summer.[ii] The United States has struggled more than any other county with mask mandates, enduring almost 21% of total deaths with only about 4% of the entire world population.
According to a Harvard CAPS/Harris Pool, 79% support a mask mandate (July 2020).

Science supports mask wearing. Removing the mask mandate before a vaccine is available will cost lives. We urge you to maintain the existing mask mandate.

Thank you for your consideration of this critical matter.

Sincerely yours,

[i] The World Health Organization, June 2020, Institute for Health Metrics, June 2020, Health affairs-Wyi Lyu & George Wehby, June 2020

[ii] The Center for Disease Control, October 2020

Download the template here

August, 2020

Please read the letter TAPI and some of our important partners have sent to Governor Ducey. Help us urge him to remind parents that kids still need vaccines!

Childhood Immunizations during COVID-19

Interact with TAPI

The Arizona Partnership for Immunization

9 hours ago

"My mom said “It’s okay—we got our flu shots.” Still, I was not reassured. But my mom has my house key, and I literally was in no condition to prevent her from coming over. Mama and my aunt nursed us back to health. I braced myself to return the favor when they inevitably got sick. Except…they didn’t get sick.
The flu shot that year was quite effective against the strain we had caught. My chronically ill mom and aunt did not get it from us, despite direct, prolonged exposure. Meanwhile, we had been in misery, remained exhausted and weak for a long time after recovery, lost time from work, and racked up medical bills. I had to admit that my mom and aunt had made the right decision to get vaccinated.
Despite all this, though, my (mis)understanding of vaccines in general and the flu shot in particular made me reluctant to get it for my young family. Somehow I remained more afraid of the flu vaccine than the illness.

Fast forward one year. My twenty-eight-year-old friend caught the flu. It progressed to pneumonia. Then she went septic and her kidneys failed. She fell into a coma.

She died. She had not been vaccinated.
The flu killed her in less than three weeks. She left behind an eight-year-old son. I was beside myself—clearly I had more to learn about the flu and how it can kill even young people.

Information is how I cope, so I read. I read that flu vaccines, even if they don’t prevent the flu entirely, lessen the severity of the illness and prevent hospitalization. I had heard this before, but I’d also heard the opposite from anti-vax sources: that a poorly matched flu shot made for a less effective immune response and increased death. Wondering how one could know which was true, I started getting into the weeds of the reports and statistics.
I encountered a fact that shook me to the core: about 80% of pediatric flu deaths occur in children who weren’t vaccinated.

Immediately, my mind flashed back to a memory of running and carrying my whimpering and unresponsive toddler. I belatedly realized how much I had endangered her, how much I had risked, by withholding the flu shot. At this point I had already begun discovering that much of what I thought I knew about vaccines was based on misunderstandings and distortions. But this discovery hit me hardest.

I had sincerely believed that breastfeeding, elderberry, and organic nutritious food were the best defenses against the flu. They’re not. The flu shot is. My elderly, chronically ill mother showed me this when she cared for my flu-stricken family and remained flu-free. But much, much more important than my anecdote is the evidence and data over the years and across populations that support this."

https://voicesforvaccines.org/natural-lifestyle-didnt-prevent-flu/… ... See MoreSee Less

Our Natural Lifestyle Didn't Prevent Flu - Voices For Vaccines

www.voicesforvaccines.org

Have you heard that children who breastfeed don’t really need the flu shot? Or that good nutrition and immune support (elderberry, vitamin C, etc.) provide better protection than the vaccine? That, ...

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Measles & Rubella Initiative @MeaslesRubella·

27 Oct

Powerful message from @MeaslesRubella Initiative stakeholder and friend @gavi ! https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/immunization-is-best-weapon-against-poverty-by-anuradha-gupta-2020-10?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_campaign=page-posts-october20&utm_post-type=link&utm_format=16:9&utm_creative=link-image&utm_post-date=2020-10-27

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Petrie-Flom Center @PetrieFlom·

27 Oct

A new book on a prominent misinformation campaign targeting the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has profound insights into current vaccine debates, such as those emerging around a potential COVID-19 immunization. via @doritmi https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/10/27/anti-vax-mmr-covid/

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