BALTIMORE — With the country showing increasing signs of reopening each day, the tendency exists among some to forget the most devastating impacts of COVID-19. In many of our most vulnerable communities, the battle against the disease continues to rage on as Americans contend with not just high infection rates, but also the pandemic’s long term health implications and unprecedented economic setbacks.
The NAACP, the nation’s largest and most pre-eminent civil rights organization, in seeking to ensure that our communities continue to stay informed and get the facts they need to make best decisions for their families and communities, today announced the creation and launch of an essential and exciting new national initiative, ‘COVID. KNOW MORE.’ The campaign, which kicked-off this morning, has been conceived with the intent of providing to Black Americans the most comprehensive suite of relevant information and resources on COVID-19 available, curated specifically for them.
The mainstay of the NAACP’s ‘COVID. KNOW MORE’ effort is a now live, multifaceted online information hub housing a broad array of features designed to empower African Americans’ decision making as they navigate the pandemic—at their own convenience. The hub, which can be accessed at naacp.org/covidknowmore, stands as one user-friendly, central place for individuals, community groups, partners, and NAACP branches alike to find the latest news and information, research, resources, science-based guidance, and updates from medical experts. The platform further reinforces the NAACP as the most visible and trusted resource for African Americans on the health crisis.
“The NAACP is continuing its work to help our most vulnerable citizens and communities safely navigate back to normalcy while countering the ongoing devastation of COVID-19,” said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO. Through our pioneering ‘COVID Unmasked’ virtual town hall series, local mask distributions and other COVID education efforts, the NAACP has been dedicated to fighting this pandemic from the outset. COVID. KNOW MORE is the natural evolution to continue to expand not only the information provided to our communities, but also to address the long-term implications and impacts of the pandemic and systemic disparities.”
The NAACP has commissioned proprietary research, which will be featured and updated bi-monthly, taking a consistent pulse of Black America’s status and progress as we collectively progress toward full recovery. African Americans surveyed have expressed ongoing concerns about the vaccines, the rise of COVID-19 variants, public adherence to guidelines, jobs availability, safely returning to work and other factors affecting their daily lives. The key learnings from this exclusive polling will serve to fill in the information gaps, and further strengthen our communities as they build back given the expressed need for reliable updates on the factors impacting their daily lives over the coming year.
Other specific highlights to be found on the branded site are a running news feed, infographics illustrating proprietary NAACP COVID-19 research, an information-rich video series, public service announcements and testimonials plus a customizable messaging toolkit which partners, NAACP branches and units can use to pique awareness of the ‘COVID. KNOW MORE’ initiative in the organization’s key regions across the country. Among the partners who will be engaged in facilitating the rollout of the national campaign are J.P. Morgan Chase and international rideshare operator Lyft.
Lyft has launched a Universal Vaccine Access initiative in partnership with the NAACP with the goal of providing a total of 60M rides to help get people vaccinated. Lyft users can easily secure transportation to and from their vaccine appointments by requesting a promo code, and then adding that code to the Rewards section of their Lyft app before requesting a ride to the location.
