<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1617043954570.png" alt="The families of National Beef meatpacking plant employees wait in line for COVID-19 vaccinations in Liberal, Kansas. Courtesy, Enrique Rodríguez Franz" />
 <figcaption>The families of National Beef meatpacking plant employees wait in line for COVID-19 vaccinations in Liberal, Kansas. Courtesy, Enrique Rodríguez Franz</figcaption>
 </figure>By DAVID CONDOS <a href="https://www.hppr.org/post/latino-leaders-southwestern-kansas-fight-overcome-myths-and-hesitancy-about-covid-19-vaccine">Kansas News Service</a>LIBERAL — One woman thinks the COVID-19 pandemic was planned, man-made.A man won’t get inoculated because he suspects other countries are using Americans as test subjects for their vaccines.Three-fourths
 of this focus group gathered at a Liberal community center had heard 
the shots might contain microchips so the government can track people, 
even if most said they don’t buy that myth anymore.The worries 
are bogus, but they’re worries all the same. And overcoming dangerously 
misinformed rumors about the vaccine could go a long way to getting more
 people vaccinated in this community of about 20,000.The 
overwhelming concern in the room revolves around a lack of clear 
information that would build trust in COVID-19 vaccinations.“I still keep asking questions,” said Edgar Galindo.Rodrigo
 Calderon said he worries the shots were developed too quickly. He 
thinks seeing more people get vaccinated might change his mind, but for 
now, he said: “I don’t plan on taking it.”Indeed, of the 16 people in the room, just two want a vaccination.&nbsp;<h2>Fear and mistrust</h2>Even
 as much of the country thrills at the prospect of getting their 
COVID-19 shots, sizable pockets need convincing. In the immigrant and 
refugee communities of southwestern Kansas, cultural barriers and access
 to the shots could leave those hit hardest by the pandemic in ongoing 
peril.So town by town, county by county, public health officials
 find themselves shooting down unfounded fears about the shots that 
could finally beat back a virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of
 people in the United States and millions around the world.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1617044033354.png" alt=" Janeth Vazquez of Southwest Medical Center in Liberal, Kansas. Credit Bethany Wood / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption> Janeth Vazquez of Southwest Medical Center in Liberal, Kansas. Credit Bethany Wood / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>“COVID has been very challenging for a lot of people,” said Janeth 
Vazquez, the marketing director at Southwest Medical Center in Liberal. 
She convened the focus group. “And so hearing rumors about the vaccine 
just terrifies and scares them more.”Vazquez has been promoting <a href="https://fb.watch/4pIK8E3ne5/" target="_blank">social</a> <a href="https://fb.watch/4pIZJrwMQD/" target="_blank">media</a> <a href="https://fb.watch/4pI-9URU57/" target="_blank">videos</a>
 with Hispanic doctors, posters with vaccine facts in Spanish and 
anything else that might help more people understand the facts about the
 vaccination process.Not all of the vaccine myths she’s heard 
are as easily pushed aside as the conspiracy theory about microchips. 
Some of the people Vazquez has talked with are afraid the state is 
working in conjunction with immigration officials.“So, they’re scared,” Vazquez said. “They’re scared to go get the vaccine because of their undocumented status.”Among people of color nationwide, there’s also some justified <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/for-americans-of-color-considering-the-covid-19-vaccine-heres-why-trust-is-so-important">mistrust</a> of how the government has cared for their health over the past several decades — from the <a href="https://www.tuskegee.edu/about-us/centers-of-excellence/bioethics-center/about-the-usphs-syphilis-study" target="_blank">Tuskegee syphilis study</a> that withheld medical information and treatment from hundreds of Black men in rural Georgia to the Indian Health Service’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1185911?mag=the-little-known-history-of-the-forced-sterilization-of-native-american-women&amp;seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank">forced sterilization</a> of thousands of Native American women.Even
 during the current pandemic, public health agencies have often 
struggled to close the gap in caring for people of color. The latest 
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics show that 
American Latinos are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html" target="_blank">2.3 times more likely</a> to die from COVID-19 than their white, non-Hispanic neighbors.Vazquez
 is starting to see some of her vaccine-hesitant relatives change their 
minds as she talks with them. But she thinks it’s going to take time to 
overcome the many barriers that might keep people in her community from 
getting a shot.“It’s working,” Vazquez said. “We just need to continue that community effort, that communication.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1617044088604.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure><h2>Tailoring the message</h2>Vaccine hesitancy isn’t unique to Latino communities. A recent <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/03/12/976172586/little-difference-in-vaccine-hesitancy-among-white-and-black-americans-poll-find" target="_blank">NPR/PBS/Marist poll</a>
 found that 37% of Latinos said they would not choose to be vaccinated. 
That’s seven points higher than the average among all American adults. 
But in the same poll, even higher rates of white evangelicals (38%) and 
Republican men (49%) said they didn’t want the vaccine.The 
challenge in southwestern Kansas is that boilerplate public health 
messages are unlikely to reach many Latinos in a meaningful way.It’ll
 take more than merely translating information from English to Spanish. 
Ernestor De La Rosa, chairman of the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American
 Affairs Commission, said the messages need to meet people where they 
are.“And I don’t necessarily mean by place,” De La Rosa said. “I
 mean by their thoughts, their culture, how they go on with their 
everyday life.”De La Rosa, who lives in Dodge City, said it 
could be as simple as featuring the voices of native Spanish speakers or
 playing Latin cumbia music under an ad — anything that lets Latinos 
know this message is for them.“It’s not 100% buy-in,” De La Rosa said. “But most importantly, we get their attention and we at least get them to think.”For towns like Liberal and Dodge City, which are more than <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/liberalcitykansas,dodgecitycitykansas/PST045219" target="_blank">60% Latino</a>,
 the stakes are high. If messages about the vaccine don’t speak to 
Hispanic residents in ways that they’ll take to heart, pockets of 
unvaccinated people could incubate future outbreaks.In 
particularly vulnerable populations like Dodge City’s Guatemalan 
community, the person delivering the message can be just as important as
 the message itself.The Rev. Daniel Armenta has been the pastor 
of Iglesia Bautista Emanuel in Dodge City for more than 30 years. It’s a
 Spanish-speaking congregation of roughly 100 people. Half are 
Guatemalan, a group that Armenta said is particularly difficult for 
outsiders to reach.“I’ve found that they are very reserved, 
cautious people,” Armenta said. “They do not want to learn more than 
what they bring from their land, from their culture, and that makes them
 very fearful.”On top of that, he said Guatemalan culture 
teaches that they should live without vaccinations. So, with help from 
local government and community leaders, Armenta recently began sharing 
vaccination information during Sunday services.“It’s too soon to tell the full story,” Armenta said. “But I think it can work if we give them education.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1617044124426.png" alt=" Employees of the National Beef meatpacking plant get their COVID-19 vaccinations at the Dodge City Civic Center. Credit Courtesy, Blanca Soto" />
 <figcaption> Employees of the National Beef meatpacking plant get their COVID-19 vaccinations at the Dodge City Civic Center. Credit Courtesy, Blanca Soto</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>‘All this garbage’</h2>Another trusted figure in 
these parts is Enrique Rodríguez Franz. He’s the on-air host and general
 manager of La Mexicana, southwestern Kansas’s largest Spanish language 
radio station.When the National Beef meatpacking plant wanted to
 get more people to line up at its vaccine clinic in Liberal, they 
invited him to come by and get his shot. On the same day the vaccine 
focus group met, Franz live-streamed his vaccination to over 20,000 
Facebook followers.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/3/1617044169100.jpeg" alt=" Radio host Enrique Rodríguez Franz live-streams his vaccination to La Mexicana's Facebook followers. Credit La Mexicana's Facebook Page" />
 <figcaption> Radio host Enrique Rodríguez Franz live-streams his vaccination to La Mexicana's Facebook followers. Credit La Mexicana's Facebook Page</figcaption>
 </figure>But Franz knows that the challenges he and other Latino leaders face 
in their communities won’t be solved by one social media video.After getting his vaccination, he went to visit his mother.“And she was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’” said Franz, “‘you know that you’re going to have consequences.’”His
 mother doesn’t want to get vaccinated because she’s afraid of 
fictitious side effects she’s heard about from one bogus source or 
another.“How can you fight all this garbage?” Franz said. “I don’t have the answer.”But
 Franz plans to keep delivering this message in as many different ways 
as he can. The same week he got his vaccination, he hosted an interview 
with an Hispanic doctor, live-streamed from a church that was handing 
out COVID-19 safety kits and went back to National Beef’s vaccination 
site for three more Facebook Live videos.“How can we connect better?” Franz said. “That’s the challenge every day. That’s my challenge every day.”And after he goes back for his second dose, he plans to pay another visit to his mother.“I ain’t giving up on this lady,” Franz said. “She’s my mom.”David Condos covers western Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on Twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/davidcondos" target="_blank">@davidcondos</a>.

Latino leaders in Kan. fight to overcome myths about COVID vaccine