HHS launched a national ad campaign on YouTube Dec. 4 to promote awareness about COVID-19 vaccines, according to CNN.
The $150,000 ad campaign is the department's first of various educational spots, which it plans to spend $250 million on in the coming weeks. The additional ads, which will start next week, will be featured on digital and social media platforms with the goal of helping "prepare the nation for the vaccine when it is available for public distribution through the states," an HHS official to the network.
The YouTube ads include clips from a nearly seven-minute public service announcement video featuring Anthony Fauci, MD, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, MD, and Moncef Slaoui, PhD, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed. The officials are shown explaining the vaccine approval process and how vaccines have beaten diseases such as smallpox in the past.
"One of the great triumphs of medical science in dealing with infectious diseases has been vaccinations," Dr. Fauci said in the PSA video. "It has saved hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of people's lives."