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DENVER (KDVR) — It’s clear that to build trust in the COVID-19 vaccine, communities need trusted people.

The group “Immunize Colorado” has recently formed a Colorado Vaccine Equity Taskforce comprised of over 30 people across the state, ranging from doctors, pastors, educators and even former state legislators.

The Colorado Vaccine Equity Taskforce exists to ensure that all communities of color have the facts they need to make informed decisions about the safety of vaccines for their families and to hold leaders accountable for ensuring access to these vaccines for all.

The taskforce will work throughout Colorado communities to help build trust in the vaccine and answer questions people may have. Representatives also plan to work with schools and churches.

“There will be one on one conversations, some will take place via text, on email,” said Rev. Dr.  James Ellis Fouther Jr., senior pastor at Denver’s United Church of Montbello since March 2003. “The kind of public service announcement and videos out there that are relevant, I’ll use some of those in our virtual worship experience too.”

Approached by the taskforce, Fouther has taken on the role of helping his congregation feel comfortable taking the vaccine when it becomes available to them.

“We know there are health inequities for people of color, we know the outcomes for health with people of color,” said Fouther. “We have to be critically aware of comorbidity issues that many of us as people of color deal with.”

Fouther, who has full faith in both the Pfitzer and Moderna vaccine, will highlight the faith that others have too.

“I am grateful to folks like former President Obama who already said he would get the vaccine as soon as he could,” said Fouther. “I am looking towards other celebrities, artists, singers, dancers, folks who are in the public eye.”

This week, the Archdiocese of Denver announced that the Bishops of Colorado affirm that the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are morally acceptable, noting that both vaccines do not use aborted fetal cells.

“Vaccines need to be developed according to ethical criteria. Human cell lines that come from aborted fetuses should not be used in the design, development, production, or lab testing of vaccines. The development of vaccines and other medicines using aborted fetal cells is ethically unacceptable,” stated several Colorado reverends in a public letter Monday. 

The reverends continued to explain how the Pfitzer and Moderna vaccine were created in a way the Catholic Church morally supports.

“In the case of COVID-19, eight vaccines were developed by the United States’ ‘Operation Warp Speed’ and six of those vaccines do not use aborted fetal cells, including vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna that will soon be available,” the reverends said.