US Recruits Popular Online Streamers To Promote COVID-19 Vaccination Among Youth - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd August, 2021) The White House has engaged an "influencer army" and bloggers in its personality-driven campaign to promote immunization against the coronavirus among youth and combat misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines that has flooded the internet, The New York Times (NYT) newspaper reported.

The NYT has learned that the White House invited through a third party over 50 Twitch streamers, TikTokers and YouTubers, as well as the 18-year-old pop star Olivia Rodrigo, with enormous audiences to partake in the campaign.

State and local governments also followed suit, focusing on "local micro influencers" who have 5,000 to 100,000 followers. The authorities pay them up to $1,000 a month for promoting coronavirus vaccines to their audiences, the newspaper reported on Sunday.

The US authorities started considering the influence of bloggers back in January, changing the influencer marketing tactics that President Joe Biden had used on the campaign trail toward promoting vaccinations. As a result, the White House decided to team up with Village Marketing and Made to Save, a national campaign aimed at promoting access to coronavirus vaccines.

After the authorities held several online briefings on the vaccines with online creators, singer Olivia urged her fans earlier in July to "actually get to a vaccination site."

To date, fewer than half of US citizens aged 18 to 39 are fully vaccinated and about 58% of those aged 12 through 17 have yet to receive a shot at all, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.