(gentle music) (upbeat music) - The COVID pandemic has challenged us and brought us together in ways we could never have imagined.

And now a year after all this began, there is an end in sight, a life saving vaccine so that we can keep each other safe.

Adults 70 and older have been hit hardest by this virus.

And they are first in line to receive the vaccine, but many still haven't.

And I wanted to know why and understand how we as a city can help.

Out of an abundance of caution and to respect each organization's safety protocols, we held this virtual panel discussion.

Hello, everyone it's great to see you all and thank you for taking the time for this very important conversation about your health and the health of our community.

COVID has changed the way we do a lot of things every day.

It's also had a devastating and isolating impact on our older adults.

We know that this virus is relentless and deadly regardless of your age, gender, or zip code.

We also know older adults who are already isolated by things like physical disabilities, lack of transportation, technology barriers, or illness are often left behind or marginalized when it comes to critical information about their health and wellbeing.

That gap is even greater when we talk about communities of color.

We're gonna do something about it and we're gonna do it right now.

I have assembled an esteemed panel to help bridge the generation gap for all of us and empower us to support members of our community who are falling through the cracks.

Our first panelist is Jayla Sanchez Warren.

Jayla is Director of the Area Agency On Aging and the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

And we're also joined by Deidre Johnson.

I've known Deidre for a long, long time.

We worked together at the Urban League.

Today, she is CEO and Executive Director of the Center For African-American Health.

I'm also proud to bring Roberto Rey.

He is a Associate State Director of Multicultural Outreach at AARP, Colorado.

And finally, we welcome Hillary Lum.

She is a, get this, geriatrician.

I had to work on that word there, Hillary, and a palliative care physician at the University of Colorado Anschutz's Multidisciplinary Center on Aging.

So we're gonna get started.

Each of our panelists will take a few minutes to share their unique insights on how we can better serve our aging population during this pandemic.

Jayla, thank you for joining us.

I'm so excited that you're here for this very, very important conversation.

You know, the work that you do in addressing the issues of the aging community and, you know, throughout Colorado is an important aspect, for many of us, who are caring for our parents, grandparents, we know how critical work you're doing, how critical it is for us, how has the challenge of isolation contributed to the challenges of getting our older adults in our community vaccinated?

- It is a big challenge.

You know, as you said in your opening remarks, a lot of the older adults have been impacted by this hard.

And they listen to the governor and to everyone that said, stay home, stay safe.

And so they did, but that meant sacrificing a lot of things, right?

Sacrificing going out to their friends to see their friends.

Some people didn't go to the doctor's office.

Folks are not seeing their family members.

And I think that's really difficult for people and they're feeling isolated.

The AAA has been actively responding to the needs of older adults throughout the pandemic.

We did, you know, in the early days, food delivery, lots of food delivery, still continue to do that, information assistance, it's changed, but you know, people I think we get information overload.

We watch a lot of TV and get mixed messages and people need to know where they can get services.

We've done a lot of caregiver support just like you said, you know, there's a whole lot of family members that are taking on an additional caregiver role for their parents, but there's also grandparents raising grandchildren.

And I think that's something that we sometimes forget.

Imagine how challenging that is gonna be or that is when kids are working virtually and you have to set up the computer for them, right?

That can be really challenging.

And then transportation is a big need in our community that we've been providing.

All the way through the pandemic, we provided medical trips like to dialysis and cancer treatment, to important doctors' appointments.

But now it's all about vaccines and people who can't drive or don't feel comfortable to drive, needing to get to their vaccines on a specific time.

And that's been a very big challenge.

There are a lot of barriers to getting the vaccine.

And I think it's important for us to understand first information overload.

Oh my goodness.

You hear it every two minutes it feels like on the TV.

I've talked to a person.

She said, "I got online.

There was so much coming at me I couldn't even sort through it."

And imagine that.

There's shortage of vaccine.

So people are all excited.

My colleagues across the state, they were all geared up ready to have a vaccine event.

And then they only got a hundred vaccines.

That was disappointing.

Problems with technology.

A lot of people are not connected to the internet.

Don't use it.

Don't have a smartphone.

Don't have connectivity.

That's been a problem, transportation.

And then there are some people that are really home bound and cannot go to a vaccine site.

And so we really have to work on helping those folks.

There's a lot of resources out there.

I think you'll be showing some later on in the program but reach out if you need help finding a vaccination, if you need to test, you know what?

We're still gonna to have to test.

Even if we get our vaccine, my staff are getting vaccinated before they go out and do in-home visits, they're gonna have to test because you can still carry it in your nasal passages.

If you need help with other resources or transportation, call the Area Agency on Aging, we can help you out.

- Thank you Jayla, very good Deidre Johnson I'm gonna get you in here and first of all, thank you for joining us as well.

You know, Jayla mentioned barriers and as a leader of the Center for African-American Health you certainly are facing and dealing with, you know, the barriers that African-Americans face everyday particularly when it comes to their health and one of those barriers is distrust in the healthcare system and one reason, one of the motivators for us to do this type of series was people of color weren't stepping up and say, saying I wanna take this vaccine can you talk a little bit about how particularly older African-Americans who may have a more clear memory of the Tuskegee experiment and understanding what happened and the devastation that community and the pain so many of them felt and have experienced such discrimination how we can help that community that demographic begin to overcome and the importance of taking this vaccine.

- You know, it's interesting, very true with regard to the historical mistrust we have.

But, you know, I have to say when we look at vaccines in general the best numbers I've ever seen for the white community is no more than 59% so there's, nobody's run into vaccines historically.

However, we're the one group that has historic reasons for really distrusting the medical system because of different atrocities.

One of the things we've been trying to do is give people as much information as possible.

I liken it to because of history, because of people's current day, running into biases within the healthcare system there's a haze around this and so anything we can do to kind of clear that haze so people can make the best decisions for their family is what we're trying to do and so as much information we can but we've also so we've moved into our own building.

We have been using that kind of for COVID response we've been offering COVID testing, so we have standard dates, flu vaccination we did that 'cause we just wanted to start that discussion about you know, vaccinations are important.

This is important and even with regard to the COVID vaccine I'm very clear to let people know here's what it is and here's what it's not.

Its not a silver bullet, Mike has mentioned earlier you might still get it, but it prevents death and when you look at the disparities we are more likely to be infected more likely to be hospitalized and we are dying the most across the nation.

Last time I checked it was four times as much as far as the death rate and so I think just letting people understand we don't know everything right now but we know the efficacy of this and that it's safe and how can we help remove the barriers to get to it?

'Cause that's been the hardest thing, because to be honest I've been receiving calls since December from seniors or ran into folks and King Soopers, Deidre how soon can you help me get this vaccine?

And so there's a desire to have it.

There always be some folks that need more information.

- Well, I'll come back to you in just a moment 'cause I think I wanna explore a little more how do we equip the community with the tools to help inspire to break down the barriers of fear and distrust?

- Well, two things along that line about information like one of the first things we assume is, wait a minute, if we have trials we're typically not included.

So finding out that not only were we included but there were black doctors involved who'd been doing Facebook lunch and learns and I had a wonderful conversation last month with a doctor who was in the trials and for an hour he just took questions from community and that's the thing.

Ask any question, anything to make folks feel that they understand what this is, what this isn't so they make the best decision.

- I appreciate that.

I can't wait to explore that a little more we bring, Roberto Rey, the AARP thank you for being here with us and can you talk a little about what, you know the nation's largest older adult association is doing to help encourage folks to get this vaccine and begin to break down some of these barriers?

- Certainly we have a significant number of members in Colorado in the Denver Metro area.

We have about 20,000 Hispanic members, 8,000 African-American members and significant members in the Asian Pacific and Indian community and we're able to reach out to them by mail, email and we've been doing that.

We've done a number of webinars and to reinforce what Jayla and Deidre have mentioned, there is a significant amount of education that's gonna have to be done because a significant number of people either indicate that they are not gonna get the vaccine maybe 25% of in some polls that we've done of our members or that they wanna get more information and so it's gonna call for a concerted effort on all of our parts to reach out to them.

We know that people like to hear and trust information from people in their community and are willing and trying to work, to recruit our members as volunteers to work in their community, to talk to their family, to their neighbors and provide information on the importance of getting bags donated and, you know, there are some special communities in particular the immigrant community that face special hurdles there's fear in the community that in some cases the misperception that if they get the vaccine they may have issues later on getting a green card or have issues with immigration.

So that there's a lot of education that needs to be done in particular to the Hispanic immigrant community.

- Thank you, Roberto we look forward to engaging you more in this conversation as we bring in Dr.Lum, and Dr.Lum, thank you so much for being here and let me just say that UCHealth has been one of the institutions in our state that has just gone above and beyond in making sure that people have access.

So this is your chance, we've been talking about barriers.

in the medical professional on this call, you know, the start that I laid out at the beginning of this is that 80% of all deaths are people 65 years or older, and of course the barrier is, we don't know if it's safe.

We don't trust that it's safe.

Can you talk a little bit about the development of this vaccine, the protocols that were in place, the trials and convince everyone that this is a safe vaccine.

- Thank you so much for having me, it's great to be here in partnership, as a scientist and a doctor, this amazing past year of partnership between scientists and public health agencies as well as pharmaceutical companies has been very rigorous and has been very evidence-based, and I think the vaccine is safe and now it's available because no corners were cut, processes were done simultaneously which I think is the key difference in terms of why we can have vaccine being delivered on a daily and weekly basis here for Coloradians.

So it's been terrific to see how we can now be working to get shots into arms and especially for our most vulnerable populations.

We've loved partnering with many organizations and at Seniors Clinic we have really worked to be the extra layer of support to overcome that information overload, to ask if individuals, our patients, have questions about the vaccine, to give them straightforward answers when they do have concerns, and we've really appreciated how many seniors are actually interested in getting the vaccine.

When we started back in early January with the ability to vaccinate individuals over age 70, we knew that less than 5% of our immigrant population and only 8% of our persons of color within our clinic were vaccinated, whereas the total was 20%.

Now, six weeks in, because we have made specific phone call outreach to ask if our populations are interested with vaccines, we've increased our overall rate to 56%, and specifically our persons of color rates to be 45% and our immigrant population to be 40%.

It's been a specific emphasis of ours to really mobilize our students from nursing, pharmacy and medical background to be doing one-on-one calls just like AARP, trying to engage volunteers, so in this case students as volunteers.

We've really found it to be very meaningful work.

- Yeah, I appreciate that, Dr.Lum, let me ask you a question as we start this Q and A phase with the panel.

I wonder, do you know what the percent of our community or just general population that actually take the flu vaccine?

- Oh, that's a good question, you know I think nationally, we often are aware of about 50%, 50 to 60% of people get a flu vaccine, incidentally this past year, especially among older adults, there has been lots of uptake of the flu vaccine and pneumonia vaccine and shingles.

So at least in the older adults that, compared to perhaps other age demographics, there's been such eagerness for vaccination while waiting for the COVID vaccine.

- I appreciate that, and there's a reason why I asked that question because I wonder if people's status quo, thoughts around taking the flu vaccine impeded our ability to encourage folks to take this vaccine.

And what I mean by that, particular our older adults, I don't ever take the flu vaccine, I don't get sick, so I don't have to worry about taking this one and I'll be okay, I remember, and I opened this up to the panel about what we need to do to begin the break down some of these barriers.

I would love some of your individual thoughts and I'll take it from I'll share my personal experience.

You know, I took a personal interest in making well leadership and making sure my mother got vaccinated.

My wife did the same thing with her mother, Both of our parents are mothers are in their eighties and I remember calling my mom saying, hey, listen your doctor and you're up to get the vaccine this weekend and she says, I'm not ready to get a vaccine and I got this medicine, I'm taking it home and I said, listen, your doctor would've never called knowing what medicine you're on and he thought this would be a problem and she said well I'll wait, I said listen, I come in and have to come and throw you over my shoulder carry you personally to get this vaccine you're going.

And so I'm just curious, I'm open up to the whole panel.

I would love to hear your thoughts and maybe personal anecdotes, but Jayla do you have any thoughts?

- I think you're right at that personal connection makes a big difference, right?

I've talked to people who said, I'm just gonna wait and see what happens to my friends who get it (Jayla laughs) you know, and that talking about it, I think being honest, you have to be honest, you know, and tell people what, you know, get as a leader in the community, I think it's really important that we get as much information as we can and stay abreast of all the new information so that we can provide good quality information to people because that trust is important and then make it as easy as possible, you know, make the phone call with them in our office, I tell people if they're nervous and they want your help, make it with them.

To help, do whatever you can just to facilitate that and I think that's what we tell family members to sit down and make the call together, figure out a good time, I know it is difficult.

- But Deidre in your capacity, if you're running an association that is focused on African-American health, give us the tools.

I mean, as an African-American, what do I say to, you know an African-American adult who maybe says "My history is too fresh with this sort of thing."

How do I help break down that barrier with them?

You say, raise awareness.

How do I do that?

- You know it's kind of both and it's interesting because I agree with what Jayla is saying.

It's those trusted messengers.

And so we've been working with Dr. Terry Richardson, Dr. Oswaldo Bernardo, folks who just have name recognition of being in our community and being supportive as a leader of an organization.

Because early on I was on the fence, I'm like "I need to know a little bit more."

And I had promised I will not encourage others unless I myself am ready.

But part of it was, there was so much happening, every day there was new information.

One of the things we're doing while we're still trying to make things easily available is we're working with some researchers to come up with our own culturally relevant marketing.

And we're just gonna test different messages 'cos this is going to go on for awhile.

So how can we get the folks who are really staunch, "I'm never gonna get this done."

I think one challenge has been the accessibility of it because right now we've got these big events happening.

When we even knew through the COVID testing, it's more effective to reach diverse communities, if you make them small community events.

So it's easy access.

And my mom's a retired nurse, so she's been vaccinated.

I have, because I'm at least the first part because of being in the response space, but the other part is, you know, yes a lot of things have happened and yes there are multiple things that have been done to us, but even the Tuskegee it's like a false comparison because in that comparison, you had many who had syphilis and they were denied treatment, where here there's something that is killing us.

And early on, I was, you know, just watching things.

I have lost multiple family members, mostly men on the East coast.

- I'm going to ask you to talk about that because I think that this give, obviously give all of us a greater motivation to kind of engage and express the importance of taking this vaccine.

- Yeah, I had, and you know, one of my cousins couldn't, he worked in construction and he was self-employed so he couldn't stay at home.

And he was in Philadelphia and within 48 hours of being in the hospital he was gone, and his brother was telling us, you know, "Hey the CDC was there.

This was COVID."

Despite that I've got some other folks in my family who are like, "I still don't know."

And so all I can do is my best to give them as much information as that I know.

And so I think it's for those who are willing, connect them to the vaccine, as soon as possible.

And the others we just keep repeating that message 'cos even if you're selling somebody a car, you don't take seven times.

So that's why I've been telling people, let's start now.

We were trying to start talking about the vaccine in the summer, in the late fall, because we knew, yeah, it will be available widely until next spring but we need to till the ground now.

So people even think about it.

- Absolutely.

Roberto, you all at AARP find that your collateral material has or at least you get response from your members in terms of seeking information about the vaccine?

- Yes, it is.

Especially being able to reach out to people via mailings has an impact.

You know, just reinforce the fact that a lot of people don't have the computer technology access that others do.

And to reinforce the importance of people in the community reaching out to their neighbors and other community members respected, you know, in addition to medical professionals, entertainers, you know if an entertainer gets the shot, I think that'll have an impact.

I believe the neighborhood vaccination sites that you are opening up are a tremendous step forward.

Having a place that people know that they can go to in their neighborhood and that groups like ours and other grassroot groups can use to inform people in those communities.

This is where you can go.

- Thank you for saying that because those fixed sites as Deidre alluded to, make a difference in our communities.

Once we left or closed down the big testing site at the Pepsi Center, we saw a greater efficacy or reach with communities of color in particular when we moved into the communities and brought testing to them and we continue that today.

So it does make a huge difference.

We don't have much more time left but I want to get to Jayla real quick.

And the one last question for Dr. Lum.

Jayla, there's transportation available for our older adults who may have access challenges to the vaccine?

- There is, DRCOG funds a number of transportation, seven different transportation companies.

And we've been providing free trips and they'll even wait there with you, right?

'cos we got to wait that 15 minutes.

So you don't have to be sitting there for a long time.

You know, it's been pretty smooth.

We did the big SLC event at the Stock Show Grounds.

Wow.

Oh, it's huge.

- I was there, it was awesome.

- And transported about 350 people there through our transportation provider.

So yeah, you can call your health network.

They can set up a ride for you or you can call DRCOG we can help you set up a ride.

You know, don't let transportation be a barrier, please, because there are ways to get you there and home safely.

- Thank you, Jayla.

Dr. Lum the last question is for you, you know.

Everyone's talked about the side effects of taking the vaccine and we've heard the gamut.

The first shot people were either fine or it was bad sore arm.

Second vaccine maybe some flu like symptoms.

Can you talk about that for a while?

What I noticed with my mother is that it didn't last very long.

She said one day after the first shot, no problem.

Second shot, that day, she felt crummy or the day after she felt crummy and then she was fine, but there are side effects.

Can you talk a little bit about those?

- You just did my job because what I would say when I talk with patients and their families is exactly what you just said.

And it's actually so helpful to hear someone else's experience because it isn't in the medical jargon.

So I agree with your mother's experience that for some individuals, they may have a sore arm.

And in the study that was a pretty high percentage of people.

60 or 75% had one symptom like a sore arm being the most common.

And then we have as a community in Colorado seen that the second shot often had more of an immune response, which for some people felt like mild flu-like symptoms, might be feeling more tired, headache, just not feeling their 100% self.

And I've heard from many people it's lasted about a day, day and a half.

Everyone is different.

So I really appreciate the leadership of our older adults who have gone first and gotten the vaccines and are actually sharing it in their families, I have deeper appreciation for families who are sometimes providing that transportation even though they themselves may not be ready for it yet.

And once it becomes available and yet they'll be able to point to the fact that their older adult family member got the vaccine and that might actually encourage all adults to be vaccinated, which is ultimately what I hope for.

- Yeah, we all do.

(pleasant music) Hey, I want to, again, thank the incredible panel of experts who joined me for this important conversation, and our partners at Rocky Mountain Public Media for helping us reach as many of you as we can.

And thank you for continuing to wear your mask, socially distance and avoid gathering with people outside your households.

Together, we will move from rescue to recovery.