Businesses encourage vaccinations in states with high rates of COVID-19 variant

As COVID-19 cases swiftly multiply in states where vaccination rates are low, businesses are stepping up to encourage vaccine-hesitant residents — including their own clients — to roll up their sleeves. 

It's a logical effort, health experts said, as some people who are vaccine-wary are more likely to trust information coming from a community source with whom they have a relationship than they are information from, say, a government official or pedigreed doctor. The Biden Administration's "Shots at the Shop" vaccine initiative, designed to encourage Americans to get their jabs in nearly 1,000 salons and barbershops — spaces that are intimately familiar to many— has helped bump up vaccination rates in African-American communities across the U.S.