Covid Adviser Says Biden Administration’s Door-to-Door Vaccine Effort Will be Led by ‘Trusted Messengers’ Going ‘Person by Person’

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients said Thursday the Biden administration planned to engage “trusted messengers” to proselytize about Covid-19 vaccines on a “person-to-person” basis.

“The best people to talk about vaccinations with those who have questions are local trusted messengers,” Zients said in a White House Covid-19 briefing. “Doctors, faith leaders, community leaders. So as part of our efforts, trusted messengers may go door-to-door.”

The comment followed up on President Joe Biden’s promise this week make a “door-to-door” effort to convince Americans to take a Covid-19 vaccine. “We need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oftentimes, door to door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people,” Biden said.

“We’ve seen movement by going person-by-person, community-by-community,” Zients added on Thursday. “As the president said, we will do this by going community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, person by person. By partnering with local leaders, governors, mayors, doctors, school administrators, employers, faith leaders and community organizers, leaders that people know and trust. One shot at the time, one person at the time.”

He said those who took issue with the initiative were “mischaracterizing” the administration’s efforts.

“For those individuals, organizations that are feeding misinformation and trying to mischaracterize this type of trusted messenger work, I believe you are doing a disservice to the country,” Zients said.

Despite criticism over privacy implications stemming from the initiative, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra doubled down on the president’s comments in a Thursday interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar.

“I wonder if you can answer that criticism — that it’s none of the government’s business knowing who has or hasn’t been vaccinated,” Keilar asked Becerra. He replied, “It is absolutely the government’s business, it is taxpayers’ business, if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting COVID and helping reopen the economy.”

Watch above via the White House.