Second, support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.

Hello again everyone and thanks very much for joining us.

The Democrat who is seeking office.

A half dozen Republicans are also trying to claim why she's running and what she would do should she breakthrough Arkansas's Crimson Wall.

Well, that's a bit later.

For the moment we return to COVID-19.

The case count is rising again and the curve is sharpest among the youngest of us.

Joining us now for an update.

Pediatrician Dr Chad Rogers he's the chief medical officer of the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care.

Doctor Rogers, you're looking at these statistics and they have to be especially forbidding to a pediatrician.

Yeah, they are very concerning and when I talked with my colleagues, they're also very concerned about this new way.

Of course, you know we were able to get a lot of our seniors vaccinated and then we have the older teens that have been able to get vaccinated.

But really, seeing a profound impact on that younger crowd who hasn't been able to get vaccinated or that group of kids who are eligible to give any but have not gotten the vaccine?

What is at work here?

Doctor Rogers?

Is it?

Accessibility of the vaccine?

The proximity to treatment centers.

Or is it a reluctance on the part of younger people?

I think we see a combination of both and so you see a lot of reluctance among parents, maybe with some hesitancy.

Just kind of waiting to see how it is affected them.

It's kind of interesting.

I've seen parents who have gotten the vaccine, but I've been hesitant to give it to their kids just trying to give a little bit more time.

There is definitely an access issue.

AFMC had done some vaccine clinics throughout the state, and you know, surprisingly, our wins.

It's dark and saw we didn't have a lot of people come because they had a lot of access to places.

To get the vaccine, but it's some of the smaller areas of the state that we went to.

We had really good turn out because it's so it's, you know it's a two or three hour drive to Little Rock person to Arkansas in northwest Arkansas for some people, and if they had something that was close and available, more people were more likely to come, but there's still that sort of the inner resistance that you see out there people who just don't want to take the vaccine well in in connection with both of those doctors an appropriate time to pause here for some video reporting from Boone and Carroll counties.

And it involves a fellow practitioner of yours.

I still can't believe COVID infected my family the way it affected my family.

So my dad and my stepmom of I I call her mom.

She's not my step mom.

She's my mom.

I was just blessed with a bonus mom who's they've been married since I was one so 2019.

We all went to Wisconsin that summer.

They didn't come here.

We went to Wisconsin.

That's all of us.

August 12th my dad called me and told me that she had gotten COVID she went to the hospital.

She ended up in the COVID unit.

My dad finally got his test back right after she got admitted and he was positive for COVID-19.

He got admitted two days later, so they were both in the hospital.

August 19th.

I got a text while I was at work.

They said I'm sorry I love you guys, but I'm not gonna make it.

She was tired, she'd been working to breathe for two weeks and wasn't getting any better.

And every emotion I think you could feel anger.

Watching somebody pretty much suffocate to death.

It was it was sad and they were not vaccinated.

It's different when it happens in your own family.

Hey Richard, you wanna get your shot today?

But hand out about it, really or not.

Think I really need it I do.

You got a lot of lung problems?

Is there a reason why you have it?

There's a lot of people getting sick from it and.

Well, I mean the risk of a side effect from it is a lot lower than a risk of getting kovid and ending up in the hospital with you 'cause you have acid in there.

Yeah, you can think of somebody.

Go ahead and do it.

Yeah well, go ahead and do it.

Yeah alright.

Ask every patient that comes into the clinic if their COVID-19 vaccinated.

After you're right, probably right.

I put worse things in my body than a COVID vaccine, right?

I personally and medically still believe that the risk is minimal for a side effect from a COVID-19 vaccine.

Alright.

Everything, yeah.

I work for Boston Mountain Rural Health Center in Green Forest as a nurse practitioner for them.

I'm the sole provider in that clinic.

We provide care to people who are uninsured, underinsured, pretty much everybody in all age ranges from birth, who death were there to care for people.

I was a nurse for only about a year before the pandemic started and I worked in the hospital at the time and it was just a completely different world.

Hey, are you here for a COVID test so you just tilt your head back?

For me it's going to go in each nostril for 15 seconds.

We also became short staffed because nurses were quitting to go take travel assignments and areas that were being hit really bad and needed extra nursing.

So we became very short staffed when we were taking care of some of the most critical patients that we've ever seen on the floor is not in the ICU.

It's definitely been high stress for a majority of my career.

I'm about to get my COVID-19 shot.

I've had COVID twice.

The last time was a couple weeks ago worse than the first time I had it.

It was absolutely horrible and I was having problems.

Breathing.

Didn't have to be hospitalized, but it was definitely a lot worse.

The second time, I'm just her basically.

Today I'm a school teacher, and so I just feel like it's my civil duty to get vaccinated.

Have you filled this out real quick?

Well, it's looking at all the social media out there and seeing what other people go through getting the vaccine.

It's scary, it's not something that I just come to the conclusion of that.

I'll pay you know what I'm going to get vaccinated tomorrow because media is telling me too.

I've been through COVID not once, but twice and second time was a lot worse and it scared me it scared me not for just my my kids, but my school kids as well and.

It's for me, it's just personal, it's just best to get it versus non getting it basically.

That's all there is to it.

So we are in lead Hill, AR on our property that this used to be an old farmhouse.

This is a kitchen in the living room.

And then in here walk around all this paint.

It's gonna be home eventually.

We decided to sell our large farm that we had.

There's only three of us, so.

I wouldn't took the shot if it wasn't for Mattie.

She's got asthma real bad and that's only reason I really took it.

I probably wouldn't have in any other circumstance this kindly protect her.

Because I had talked to him about getting it and it was no.

No, no no.

And then finally he came around when you know kids were starting.

You know, Arkansas children had sent out an email to medical providers about how they were seeing more in patients, which with kids, and that was the big impact that I think made him make his decision to get vaccinated for her.

I came down with the virus.

And then after I got over it and my mother came down with it and she passed away with it.

I'm she passed away on August 15th and I just.

I just knew that was what I needed to get it.

Let's do it on the right.

OK, since I'm sitting this way we can do that.

That there is relax.

'cause I feel like it's my duty as a health care provider knowing and seeing what can happen not only in on a medical level but also on a personal level.

I don't think COVID picks who it wants to attack.

It doesn't matter if you know what color your skin is, it doesn't matter.

You know what comorbidities you have.

It doesn't matter if you have blonde hair, black hair, blue eyes, or green eyes.

I mean you have the potential to get COVID, but we don't know.

Who's going to get super sick and who's not?

And that's the scary part about it.

Back now with Doctor Chad Rogers.

Myth and misinformation are as such as we saw in this piece.

Doctor, are you encountering it in your practice and your colleagues that you speak with?

Yeah, it's definitely a daily challenge to overcome.

There's just so much information out there on the Internet that's accessible.

That's just not good information.

People obviously kind of end up getting all information that sometimes feeds our own biases, and I thought was really good and that that video in that story about her experience, the nurse practitioner and all that interaction with her patient is that she was his trusted health care provider and that recommendation from that trusted health care provider was.

That changed his mind and we know from research that people that people are just not going to take a vaccine period.

But some people who are sort of hesitant will change their mind when they get a strong recommendation from that that that a care provider they've been working with, so that I just love that video.

I love that story that she tells about that experience well and to bring it back to the matter of children, parents, guardians obviously concerned about the most precious things in their lives and they.

And amid all the C. Of misinformation, some of it from politicians, some of it from media and a few from physicians themselves, has to be terribly confusing.

Is this stuff safe for kids?

Yeah, we know because this vaccine and the the technology that has been used have used for a long time.

People think it just sort of evolved over the last 18 months, but what we had learned from other similar coronaviruses in the developing vaccines helped create a vaccine is safe.

The trial studies have been good.

The safety data has been good for kids at the very young kids have really had very minimal side effects.

We saw a little bit of you know what was called myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart.

A muscle that resolved without any complication, and our older teens, but the kids actually have pretty much tolerated and vaccines much better, and the other thing at grade at kids and just great about the practice of Pediatrics, vaccinations.

It's kids respond really well to vaccines and I get a really strong immune response and so it will be interesting to see what happens over the next several months as we see the impact of vaccination for younger children.

I want to stay with her for just a second doctor because this involves your your professional demographic.

Anyway, it's not authorized for youngsters between the ages of five and 11.

Any reservations on your part as a practitioner?

I have zero reservation and you know it's been pretty amazing parents.

I've been waiting for this vaccine.

We gotta sort of our first shipment last week and you know we had gotten the go ahead and we were at a vaccine and no time and waiting for our next shipment.

So parents are very eager to get their kids vaccinated to protect them, protect them in school and you know to protect their family members, protect some of our most vulnerable populations.

I had a question doctor about the very youngest Arkansans, those in utero.

Or for women who are attempting to conceive, should there be any reluctance on their part to be immunized?

Yeah, there should be no reluctance on the side of the newborn mother or someone who's thinking about getting pregnant.

We know in the research and during the vaccine development then they're also afterwards that women became pregnant or were pregnant during the pregnancy had no adverse outcomes.

The American College of Abstracters in Ghana, Koleji had made a really strong recommendation that women who are pregnant go ahead and get vaccinated.

Or if you're thinking about getting pregnant because then you can actually.

Like you do with your other parts of your community, you can pass on some protection to your baby to the to this virus by getting vaccinated during your pregnancy.

Yeah.

And with less than a minute remaining doctor, we've got 10s of thousands of kids in school that heightens the stakes in terms of immuniza, congregate settings, schools, cafeterias, etc.

Yeah, and around this country as we see the next spike.

That's what you're really seeing.

Schools are beginning to kind of shut down and kind of the north and east to us because of this surge of vaccinations.

So we want to try to keep kids in school.

A big thing we've learned in the last year and a half.

That important school is to kids development and well being.

And then we wouldn't make sure that they're going to school in a safe environment.

And then we can protect those kids with the most effective way we know how, which is vaccinating Dr Chad Rogers.

Thanks very much for your time.

Come back soon, please.

Thanks for having me, as always, absolutely and will be back in a moment.

We're back now and we're a bit less than a year from the next general election, and but a few months from the primaries, and already we're seeing some new faces enter the arena.

Thus far, they seem mostly on the democratic side.

Certainly those seeking statewide office.

The Lieutenant governor's chair, for example, it's an open seat, its current occupant being term limited.

So a question.

Can a candidate with limited political experience and none in elective office crack Arkansas's red ceiling?

Joining us now, Kelly.

Crowd of Lowell social activist and mother of seven Miss crowd.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Why do you want to be Lieutenant governor?

You know that's a great question and thanks, thanks for the invite.

I'm happy to be here.

You know, the Lieutenant governor.

It's a unique position.

As you know it's to serve as the governor if they can no longer do so and then preside over the Senate.

Use be a tie breaking vote.

What's interesting to me and the most appealing to me about the office is the ability to advocate for issues that are important to Arkansans.

So I was a foster parent for many years and just got to see the front lines of how many families are being left behind.

And some of these systems.

And just really want to be able to advocate for Arkansas families and children.

And I think it's a really unique way to be able to do so.

So it's a how should I style it.

A bullet, pulpit, campaign, or objective?

I'm sorry, can you say that one more time?

Yeah, that is so.

So you're running to.

As for the office as a sort of bully pulpit.

Bully pulpit I don't like.

I do think it's a unique office, but I mean it is one with with limited powers obviously, and it's just a unique, a unique position and we've seen it used well and maybe maybe not utilized as much and I think it could be used to advocate for Arkansas families and children.

Well, how would the office enable you to do something that you cannot do as a mom of seven?

And as a you're pursuing right now?

I believe your graduate degree in social work.

Am I correct?

Yes Sir.

Yes Sir, I am.

And you know what?

That's a great.

I will do this win or loose.

I will continue to advocate for Arkansas families and children.

I just think the position would provide a really unique opportunity to do that.

It's of course an important leadership position in the state and would have the megaphone to be able to speak some of these issues.

Would you be granted?

How much of a megaphone would you be granted if, for example?

The governor was of a different party than you and also a majority if not a super majority of the Arkansas Senate.

The body over which you preside, how much of a voice can you have?

I guess that I guess time will tell on that one.

Sir, I can't be 100% sure, but I would really like to think that I would be able to work well across the aisle with people I don't necessarily share all of the same political values with.

I actually used to be super conservative and I feel like a lot of conservative voters in my area relate pretty well to me because I understand, kind of why, why they think the way that they do, and I've I've sort of shifted my beliefs, but it doesn't mean that I don't understand how others operate, and I think we could do a whole lot more work in our state.

If we would start being proactive rather than reactive, and I think the reactive solutions are where we start to see a lot of disagreement between the parties on proactive, I think we could actually find a lot to agree on, so I think I could work together with a Republican governor.

Well, if if you if it is a policy voice that you want why?

Why not a legislative race, for example, where you are actually in a policymaking position?

That's that's fair enough.

You know, I did run for the state legislature in in the last cycle and I knew that my my district would change just a bit and I did consider that, but I was.

I was asked about this position and the more I thought about it, the more appealing this was to me.

Because of the way that I chose to campaign in the last cycle, I sort of gained kind of a platform that allowed me to speak to to a lot of people across the state, and we've got.

We've got a lot of people that are invested in the campaign and excited statewide, and so I'm just.

Excited to be able to take the message to a bigger a bigger audience, the whole state.

Well, you note that you had a previous legislative campaign in which you were not successful.

What?

What would separate a statewide race?

If if your issues weren't successful there in a legislative district, why would they be successful?

Do you think?

On a statewide basis.

Well, you know, a lot of people don't win their first elections.

You gotta get up and and try again.

It's a.

It's a fair.

It's a fair criticism, but I'm just gonna keep.

I'm gonna keep trying and keep putting myself out there.

There's a question and not a criticism.

Oh no, you're fine.

You're fine, I just I I think that I'm kind of uniquely suited to a position like this because of my personality and my ability to communicate and educate about issues.

And I'm just excited to be able to to speak for Arkansas families and children for the last half dozen years or so.

Although most on the well on both sides of the ideological spectrum, there seems to be a role from the outsider in just in the election.

Just passed a couple of very noteworthy.

And veteran and powerful incumbents were ousted.

So do you see a role for the outsider in the current climate?

I think sometimes what we need is an outsider.

It's sort of a fresh a fresh face and something something different and I you just never know.

You never know what could happen.

We, I know that Arkansas gets a lot of, you know it's a red state.

Oh, it's super conservative.

Well, we've got one of the worst voter turnouts like we've got a lot of people who are registered to vote and are not getting out the vote.

We have a lot of people who are eligible to be voting and who are not registered.

And so I think I think it's a little early to decide what what people can and can't do.

Based on the electorate, because we've got a lot of people who are not as involved yet.

Let us have your thoughts on why they're not voting.

Well, I think often they think what's the point Mike and that could go both ways.

What's the point?

My candidate is never going to win or what's the point?

My candidate definitely will win.

And so I, who's to say what would happen if we had every single eligible voter out there voting?

And that's that's going to be one of my goals is just to talk to more people, get more people involved in the process, get more people engaged in their government because everybody should be taking part.

This impacts all of us on two issues.

Now, if we may, you have said that you believe that the.

The state childcare mechanism, as governmental mechanisms are fundamentally disordered, even broken.

Could you elaborate on that?

Well, that may be kind of a harsh way to put it.

I I'm a, I'm a big supporter of DHS.

They have an incredibly difficult job and they are working like everybody right now with short staffed and so it makes it really difficult for a big system with so many people involved to work efficiently when you one don't have enough people working it and two if they're just trying to do such a difficult job.

So a lot of these people are brand new, or you know, just getting trained on the job.

And it's a real.

You see some really difficult in in hard things in that position, so I'm.

You'll have to forgive me when a video comes to me.

I can only see me and I'm behind by like 5 seconds.

I wish I could just look at your face, but no, you know you don't.

But I understand the technical problem but but it's trending well from a policy standpoint.

What would you have the government do?

I mean, what?

What does you site at DHS?

What needs to be done?

They they need more support.

They need to be able to pay their workers more.

They need to have access to the resources that allow families to be successful, so getting access to counseling.

Not a super easy thing to do, especially in a timely manner with the staffing shortages that we have access to rehabs incredibly difficult to find, I don't know if you've ever tried to help get someone in rehab.

It's hard, there's not a lot of them, and they have to do everything on a timeline, and so it's they don't have access.

To what they need to be able to do their jobs well, and then the obvious glaring problem is we don't have enough foster families and so workers are spending most of their time trying to find placement for all of these children because they're still kids and care whether or not we're in the middle of a pandemic.

But we've lost a lot of foster families.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Just saying, if they're all looking for families than they don't have time to do the preventative work and and helping support families that they would like to do.

I would ask your thoughts on the current foster care situation in terms of undocumented or unaccompanied children.

Which Governor Hutchinson has addressed himself to in in recent days?

Could I have asked your thoughts on that?

Is this a federal problem or a state problem?

I'll be honest with you, I had to look more into that one.

I have not heard of that as a specifically huge issue in in regards to the foster care system in terms of other issues, abortion seems to be a very.

A significant issue to a great many Arkansans and obviously the current political trend is to a complete ban on abortion, even up to and including rape, incest.

Life of the mother.

What what's your position?

My position is that abortions need to be safe, legal, and accessible.

I think something that we can all focus on, though, is if we want to lower the number of abortions.

We know how to do that, we can reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies because we know how to do that, so this is back to the proactive versus reactive.

We know that access to health care, access to affordable birth control and sex education drastically reduces unplanned pregnancies, and so I think if we really want to talk about lowering abortions, we need to be having those conversations and not conversations like like the fact this bill you're you're not uncomfortable then being identified as pro choice.

No, Sir.

Onto another issue.

Well, go ahead, sorry no, that's fine, not uncomfortable at all.

Go ahead.

Well, we have this cyber leg here to which you refer.

Immunization and vaccines should mandates what give me your thoughts on mandates.

Absolutely, I'm super thankful for the vaccine.

I think that we should always be looking to health care professionals for healthcare advice, not necessarily elected leaders.

I would.

I would advise not your elected leaders actually.

So if a doctor in the health care professionals are saying hey, these are safe, these are effective.

These are keeping people out of the hospital, keeping them from dying, which we are seeing.

They are safe and effective.

This is true.

Then yes, I'm going to defer to to health care professionals on vaccine mandates.

I was very comfortable getting vaccinated.

Getting my children vaccinated and we've had no noil effects.

You are vaccinated and your seven children.

Yes, almost the youngest have had their first their first round.

They only just got that.

I did have to buy an ice cream to be fair, but they did it Kelly crowd.

I want to thank you very much for being with us and I'll ask you to stand by.

We want to continue our conversation in just a moment.

We are out of time on our over the air edition of Arkansas Week, but we would advise our viewers too if you want to stay with us.

We're going to do a little bit more with this crowd and you can go to the web and find the conclusion.

Of this interview, that's it for us.

For now, see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.