Dear Governor Ducey:

As individuals active in public health agencies and organizations, and as fellow citizens, we urge you to:

1. Decline to support legislation that weakens vaccine infrastructure. Strong infrastructure prevents disease and encourages economic growth. When vaccination systems get disrupted, outbreaks of preventable diseases occur. Sick people miss work and school and cause others to get sick and miss work and school. This causes a preventable drag on Arizona’s economy as well as hardship for those who are sick and our healthcare system in general.

2. Work with our medical and public health professionals to encourage confidence in the new vaccines. Communicate openly about the benefits of vaccines and serve as an ambassador to your staff and the public. You may wish to consider being vaccinated yourself and sharing that with the public. A vocal minority may be invested in their narrative that vaccines will harm them. While their beliefs may be sincere, their evidence is lacking. These activists do not have a plan to get us out of the pandemic and are simply opposed to most public health measures. We believe that the majority of the public is ready for an evidence-based way out of the pandemic and simply needs the reassurance and leadership you can provide.

3. Many healthcare stakeholders are engaged in efforts to distribute timely and accurate information about immunization. TAPI and its partners would be pleased to work with the Arizona Department of Health Services in any statewide public awareness campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccinations.

Please visit here for a more complete version of these requests: https://whyimmunize.org/for-providers/arizona-vaccine-advocacy/