By Delilah Alvarado
(AUSTIN, Texas) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with WhatsApp to start a COVID-19 chat in Spanish to work against misinformation.
The chat is part of an effort to get more Latinos vaccinated, according to NBC News.
The Department of Health and Human Services will be partnering with Facebook, the parent company of WhatsApp, for the National Month of Action as part of the Biden administration's initiative to get 70% of adults at least one COVID-19 shot by the fourth of July, per NBC.
The chat is called “Mi Chat Sobre Vacunas COVID” or “My Chat about COVID vaccines." The chat can be accessed by a QR code or link. Once a person responds with “hola” (hello), a menu will pop up listing vaccination sites, transportation information and answers to frequently asked questions.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, as of June 14, 36% of Latinos have received at least one vaccine dose compared to 45 percent of whites.
People of color, including the Latino population, have been disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 virus, with a lack of access to vaccines, a higher death rate and more job loss.
Many states have produced different efforts in order to combat these factors and to try and get marginalized groups vaccinated. But one persistent problem has been misinformation and a language barrier.
Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been doing their best to try to remove false information from their platforms, but most anti-vaccine conspiracy theories continue to spread in closed chats such as WhatsApp.
The new chat is currently live.