Salvation Army, UnitedHealthcare answer your covid questions

If you have covid-19 questions, UnitedHealthcare and The Salvation Army of Western Pennsylvania have answers.

The organizations collaborated on a video that features doctors and health care providers addressing common inquiries about virus vaccines.

It’s called “Understanding Your Options: Covid-19 Vaccine Educational Townhall.”

The video is below. There is also a code that can be accessed from a smartphone.

Questions for the project were gathered from people receiving services from The Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army, based in Carnegie, provides food, utility and rental assistance, and youth programming. Last year, the local Salvation Army provided more than 700,000 meals and 382,000 groceries, and assisted 732 people with housing and 2,375 people with utilities across 28 counties.

Major Gregory Hartshorn, divisional commander for the local division of The Salvation Army, said in a statement that more than ever people have questions about vaccines, appointments and other covid-19 concerns.

“We know this video town hall will provide convenient and much-needed information to local families who are making the best decisions they can for their children and for themselves,” Hartshorn said.

Speakers in the video include:

Dr. Brian Parker, Allegheny Health Network physician; Dr. Maria Dahl, chief medical officer at UnitedHealthcare; Patricia Canela-Duckett, medicaid and CHIP community outreach manager at UnitedHealthcare; and Lauren Fair, The Salvation Army’s director of social services.

The need for education about which vaccines are available and how people can access them is more important than ever, said Corey Coleman, vice president of community and strategic partnerships for UnitedHealthcare.

“We want to get as much effective information out there so we can accurately inform people,” Coleman said. “Through this video they can hear from Pennsylvania physicians how the vaccine works. We hope it’s a useful tool.”