Facebook Canada works with the Government of Canada to help reach millions of Canadians with COVID-19 vaccine information

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, joins Facebook Live to answer Canadian's COVID-19 vaccine questions and engages Canadian creators to help build confidence in COVID-19 vaccines within their communities.

TORONTO, March 23, 2021 /CNW/ - Working with the Government of Canada, today Facebook Canada is launching a number of initiatives to support Canadian health authorities' efforts to reach millions of Canadians with trusted COVID-19 vaccine information. This includes hosting Your COVID-19 Vaccine Questions Answered, a Facebook Live event with Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, and engaging Canadian creators to empower them to speak to their communities about the COVID-19 vaccines.

"The Public Health Agency is committed to providing Canadians with accurate information on vaccine safety and effectiveness. I know that Canadians also discuss and share health information they receive from friends, family and community leaders. That is why we are working with content creators to make sure they feel empowered, and have access to credible information, to have conversations about COVID-19 vaccines with their communities," said Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada.

Your COVID-19 Vaccine Questions Answered - Facebook Live with Dr. Theresa Tam
March 31, at 1PM ET, Dr. Theresa Tam and Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada's Chief and Deputy Chief Public Health Officers, and Dr. Evan Adams, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Indigenous Services Canada, will go live from Facebook Canada's Page to answer Canadians' COVID-19 vaccine questions. The discussion will be co-hosted by Samantha Yammine, a neuroscientist, molecular biologist and popular science communicator better known as Science Sam, along with Danielle Nadin from CIHR Institute of Gender and Health. Click "Interested" here to RSVP and join the Facebook Live discussion.

Empowering Canadian Creators
Creators can play an important role in the conversation about COVID-19 vaccines within their communities by reaching a broad spectrum of Canadians with accurate health information. In collaboration with the Government of Canada, Facebook will host a virtual event focused on empowering creators to have constructive conversations with their followers to help and connect their communities with credible health information. Featured speakers include Dr. Onye Nnorom, President of the Black Physicians Association of Ontario, and Olivier Bernard, creator of Le Pharmachien.

"We want to make it easier for people to find accurate answers to their questions about COVID-19 vaccines. Creators are trusted community leaders, and through this event we're hoping to connect them with credible scientific information they can then share with their communities," said Samantha Yammine, PhD, neuroscientist, molecular biologist and popular science communicator better known as Science Sam. "We want to normalize sharing science, that way everyone can be empowered to make an informed decision when their opportunity for a vaccination arrives."

Helping Health Organizations Reach Canadians & Fighting Misinformation
Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic last March, Facebook has connected over 2 billion people all around the world to COVID information from health authorities. Now, as COVID-19 vaccines begin to roll out, we're using our scale to connect billions of people with accurate health information to help build confidence in these vaccines.

Today, Facebook is launching additional supports to help do this in Canada:

• We will begin bringing content from provincial health organizations into the COVID-19 Information Centre understanding that Canada's vaccine roll-out is provincially led.
• Giving ad credits to help Canadian health organizations reach people across Canada with COVID-19 vaccine and important health information, as part of our commitment announced earlier this year to give $120 million in ad credits to global health authorities.

These initiatives build on Facebook's work with global health officials to connect people to accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines across our platforms and remove harmful content that could put people at risk. This effort includes removing millions of pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram that violate our COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation policies – including 2 million since February alone. We've also labeled more than 167 million pieces of COVID-19 content, while making accounts that discourage vaccines harder to find. More on Facebook's work promoting authoritative information about COVID-19 vaccines can be found here.

About Facebook Canada
Founded in 2004, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. More than 24 million Canadians use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them. Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. All other brand or product names mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

SOURCE Facebook Canada

please contact Erin Taylor, Communications Manager, Facebook Canada, [email protected]