Four-Part Talk Ten Tuesday Series “Vaccination Nation” Debuts

The series will highlight the dangers of vaccination hesitancy, which is causing concern among health experts hopeful for herd immunity from COVID-19.

In response to deep concern over widespread “vaccination hesitancy” – an issue the World Health Organization (WHO) says is one of the top 10 global health threats – ICD10monitor and Talk-Ten-Tuesdays are jointly producing a four-part series, “Vaccination Nation,” with the first installment part of today’s regularly scheduled Talk-Ten-Tuesdays Internet radio broadcast.

The series, the brainchild of Erica Remer, MD, cohost of the broadcast, and Chuck Buck, publisher of ICD10monitor and executive producer of Talk Ten Tuesdays, is intended to generate awareness of the need to be vaccinated while correcting misinformation and mitigating fears that contribute to hesitancy.

“We recognize the imminent peril our nation faces during the current pandemic, due in part to a resistance by many to be vaccinated against this deadly virus,” Buck said. “Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Adviser to the President and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is reported to have said herd immunity might not be achieved until 90 percent of the population has been vaccinated.”

Buck added that he is hoping readers and listeners will share information presented each Tuesday in February with friends, colleagues, and family members. “Maybe we can generate a critical mass so that we could say February is Vaccine Month,” he said.

The Talk Ten Tuesdays February lineup includes the following episodes, the topics of which will also be covered in ICD10monitor, the long-running weekly online news service for hospitals and physician practices:

“We are encouraging our readers and listeners to submit any and all questions they might have concerning this topic” Buck said. “This vaccination effort reminds me somewhat of early efforts that general media took to mobilize Americans to rally around a cause associated with current events. This current event is really a matter of life and death.”

The global COVID-19 pandemic has now resulted in more than 100 million cases worldwide, as well as 2.23 million deaths. Nearly 27 million of those cases and more than 450,000 deaths have occurred in the U.S. alone.

Two companies, Moderna and Pfizer, have had their COVID vaccines approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since vaccine distribution began in the U.S. in mid-December 2020, more than 29 million doses have been administered, reaching 7.2 percent of the total U.S. population, according to federal data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and reported on by NPR.

A third company, Johnson & Johnson, is expected to apply for FDA approval for its single-dose vaccine shortly, and company officials have said they will be able to produce 100 million doses by June. Officials with both Moderna and Pfizer have reportedly said that they plan to have produced 200 million doses apiece by the summer.

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