Hello.

And welcome to PBS39 and WLVT community on coronavirus.

It's presented by Capital Blue Cross and brought to you with help from our community partner Lehigh Valley Health Network.

We are coming to you live from the public Media Center in Bethlehem.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Our guests today include an incident commander for LVHN mass vaccination clinics.

Also with us is the executive director of Bethlehem Area Public Library.

Our guests will be with us in just a few moments.

If you have a question, you can give us a call.

The phone number three four eight two one zero zero zero eight.

We'll answer some of your questions live.

Plus four daily coronavirus updates.

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Coronavirus Lehigh Valley.

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You can find helpful information there in both English and Spanish.

Now let's take a look at today's top headlines.

Pennsylvania is approaching 7 million vaccinations with more than 41% of the eligible population now having at least a first dose.

But the number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations also are up another 5650 cases and 56 deaths are reported today by the Department of Health.

Nearly 2600 people are hospitalized from Covid-19, a total of 25,600 22 Pennsylvanians have died from the virus going back to March of last year.

Nearly one third of Pennsylvanians say they have no plans to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

That's a finding from Muhlenberg College's 2021 Pennsylvania health poll.

The survey released this week found.

64% of respondents plan to get the vaccine.

Eventually, 6% weren't sure, but 31% said they do not plan to be immunized.

The Muhlenberg poll also examined political leanings and how that might influence vaccination decisions.

Democrats were far more likely to say they'd get the vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

60 7%, compared with 27% of Republicans and 42% of independents.

Half of Republican respondents said they didn't plan to get vaccinated at all.

According to the poll.

It was based on a telephone survey of 421 adults in Pennsylvania.

Lehigh Valley Health Network says it vaccinated more people Wednesday than on any day since the vaccine's first became available.

The vaccine provider administered 9286 doses.

It was the first time LVHN was operating its usual locations as well as the Dorney Park Drive Clinic and its new community clinics that the former AC Moore store North Whitehall and the old Sears Appliance and hardware in lower Nazareth Allentown is expanding its vaccine call center to now assist people of all ages who are having difficulty registering for Covid-19 vaccinations.

The call center is open to all Lehigh County residents are having trouble making in appointments.

The phone number is six one zero eight nine zero seven zero six nine and bilingual operators are available.

You can call nine am to six pm Monday through Friday.

The call center number again is six one zero eight nine zero seven zero six nine.

We are joined by guests today.

We are going to begin with Josh Berk.

He is executive director of Bethlehem Area Public Library.

Of course, the pandemic requiring a new way of doing things for so many libraries.

Josh, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Happy to be here.

Josh, it's great to have you.

Let's start and talk about what are you seeing that's different and what has changed over the past year.

Of course, doors were closed for some time now, slowly reopening.

Talk to us about what it's like right now at the library.

Oh, good question.

What has changed?

I mean, what right the initial days were, of course, very much on lockdown.

We were received orders from the Department of Education.

So all across the state, all libraries in the last in the state were were closed last March and then as we reopened then case numbers will go up and we would scale back and then so you it's hard to do long term planning.

It's just been a lot of sort of monitoring the situation and being responsive to that.

Right now the library's are open for browsing.

You can come in and look for books, check out Bucks.

You can use we have a small number of computers, you know, spaced apart from one another.

Normally we have a pretty crowded public computer network now.

We just have a few socially Jeff Storms ones you have to reserve.

But they're still available for people you need.

You do need them and are able to come select books.

You just we literally removed all the chairs so there's no you can't stand.

Fortunately, normally we like to make the library is welcome.

It's possible that as many people stay and spend time with us and enjoy what we have to offer and it's been a real switch because all of a sudden we have to encourage people to get in and get out.

But, you know, for our safety and theirs as well.

So we know we're back to operating in terms of being a borrowing library and a public computing station.

Some of the you know, events and those types of things have moved online.

And so you I think we've done a good job.

You know, we miss seeing everybody, especially with the young kids.

You know, there's nothing like having a group of children gather together to enjoy the story in person.

But we're doing we're doing the best we can like the rest of us.

Sure.

Josh, you say that you're up in an open to the public.

Are the hours the same as pre pandemic or other specific hours that people can come in and use the computers or use the book certain days or times Gamma The main library here and in Sam Chen Bethlehem is back to its normal hours.

We have some limited hours at the South Side branch, so some of the evenings and Saturdays are not available as previously for the short term.

So we're almost back to full to full capacity and full operations in terms of the hours.

So yeah, just check our site if you're curious about the hours at the different locations.

But the main library, it's back to back to normal hours.

I imagine engagement with the people who were originally checking out books and using the resources the library offers, that engagement has kind of changed.

I'm sure a lot of operations have gone to online checkouts and that kind of thing, which we're already open before the pandemic.

But I'm sure that a lot more people are taking advantage of that.

Could you talk a little about that process?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

It's sort of scaled up a lot of what we were what we were already doing in terms of we put fun stuff on YouTube or we would make use of our social media to talk to our patrons.

We have an e-book platform so you can download a book same as you would Barwan with your library card, just type your type your barcode number into your computer or your phone and the book comes to your device and you can read it that way without paying like you would to download a book from e-books or any of those places like Amazon.

It's only free.

Of course, it's only one person to them at a time.

People sometimes get no wonder how it an electronic book can be checked out.

It's just a digital copy.

But it has to do with the licensing.

We're essentially loaning that license to download the book from the publisher and obviously the publishers don't want us to make infinite copies of their stuff.

And so people did notice there were some long waiting times for popular titles in e-book when everyone was sort of trapped inside unable to get to the library or get to the bookstore or whatever.

So we've been adding a lot more electronic books, adding more to our online streaming platform.

There's a movie platform for some pretty neat documentaries on films, educational films and stuff that you can stream for free using your library card.

So we already had been doing a lot of that kind of stuff.

Like you mentioned, we're shifting more of our attention and resources online and some of our online, some of the events we used to hold in person are all the ArtsQuest to hold in person are being held online.

Things like book clubs work well in Zoom lectures or discussions.

One thing that surprised is our yoga group is really popular online.

You wouldn't imagine that being a huge easy, easily transferable thing.

But we have a wonderful instructor.

That group loves meeting here at the library and now they meet on zoomIn.

She leads them through their weekly yoga activities for nice thing that has been able to keep going.

So our staff has been very creative and our presenters and everyone we work with has been really working hard to try to continue to engage with the community and make stuff available and keep us all sane.

Josh, what's the best way folks can continue to support the library Gamma I imagine fees over the past year have been difficult to collect with people in the middle of a pandemic.

So how can people support the libraries at this time?

Yeah, good question.

You know, we have not been charging overdue fines at all for the past year when the library was shut down, obviously.

And also no one is quite sure how the virus transmitted.

We didn't want people's books back.

So we just, you know, closed up the book drops and everything.

And even after we reopened, there were periods of shutdowns and understanding different situations.

So, yeah, we were not collecting any overdue fines.

We're actually just now starting to roll that back into place.

But yeah, it's Muhlenberg fundraising events and things have been canceled.

I will say people have an Jenna Ellis we have an annual appeal like a letter writing campaign.

People have been very generous.

We've gotten a couple of nice gifts.

Honestly, I would say the best way to support a library is just use your library, you know, just come and take advantage of what we offer and let the powers that be from the local municipal leaders all the way up to the governor's office.

Let them know that you value public libraries and they appreciate what we're doing and they hope to continue to see us thrive in this strange time.

Some great information from Josh Shapiro from the Bethlehem area public Library.

We're going to come back to you in just a few minutes with a couple more questions.

But in the meantime, we are joined now by Terry Berger.

She is administrator for Infection Control and Prevention Lehigh Valley Health Network.

She is joining us this afternoon from one of the newly opened community clinics in Northampton County.

Terry, it's great to have you on the show today.

Hi.

How you do it?

OK, thank you so much.

For joining us.

So tell us the big question here.

These newly opened clinics, tell us how it's going out there.

I think it's going absolutely great.

It's like with anything new, we have to make adjustments.

We're doing a much larger volume than we did inside the hospitals.

So we had to change things up a bit.

But the great news is that the footprint and square footage is much bigger than it was inside of hospitals.

So we've got a lot more social distancing capability.

We can have more throughput aside from it being cold today and being outside, everybody inside is warm and comfortable, Terry.

So how do these clinics work Gamma There's two new clinics you are at the one located in Nazareth Moore Township right now, lower Nazareth Township.

How do these work?

Do you just walk in?

Do you have to make appointments?

How are these working Gamma You absolutely do need to make an appointment.

You can either call in to our call center, you can go into LVHN or open your portal and schedule an appointment.

The good news is there's a lot more available because the vaccine is coming from the state a lot more readily.

So the crowds have been consistent.

They are to wait in their car for 15 minutes so that they're not standing in line for long periods time.

We've got an ample observation area for 15 minutes after the shot.

So there are no walk ins.

Everything is scheduled by appointment.

But again, there's lots of availability.

That's great to hear.

Terry, how many are you equipped to administer per day?

They're the numbers vary based on whether or not their first appointments or second appointments.

So if their second appointments, it's based on what we did the first time when perhaps they were at Muhlenberg Hospital.

But we do have the capacity to do between 1,500 and 2000.

Good to hear.

And I just want to reiterate that these clinics are at the former AC Moore store in Whitehall and the old Sears appliance and hardware in lower Nazareth.

And does this work the same way as if you were signing for a vaccine, say, a Dorney Park or at one of the other locations?

Do you go on my LVHN Gamma Yes.

Exact same way.

Or you call center the difference between Dorney Park and NACAC and Pocono is those are drive through.

These are up clinics.

So that's the biggest difference that drive through are, as I mentioned, McAdoo, Pocono and Dorney Park and those will continue at least until the summer and these are going to continue Monday through Friday.

They're open from eight to six every day and we'll continue to provide shots as long as our community still needs them.

Terry, with these clinics opening two more clinics in addition to what was already happening, it seems like vaccine supply is increasing every day.

Is that true?

Well, we only get notifications twice a week.

So our allocations are based on what the state determines.

We're going to receive each.

And that has definitely increased since the beginning.

So that's allowed us to up our cadence in terms of delivery.

And we're excited about that because the more people we can get vaccinated, the faster we can get back to where we used to be.

Although masks, social distancing hand hygiene are still going to be required even with vaccination.

Sure.

And of course, we heard about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine being halted.

LVHN is not giving that vaccine at this time.

But do you see any delay or a crunch of of people coming in for those vaccine because of that delay at this point, we really just don't know yet.

We're not sure if they may really some of the Pfizer and Moderna doses that we were scheduled to receive to these areas that we're scheduled to deliver J&J so we should know either by later today or early next week exactly what impact that will have.

Everybody's just anxious to get vaccinated.

And I encourage everyone to continue to seek out an appointment.

And there are appointments available at multiple locations.

So go on W-W w dot LVHN .org and look for an appointment and we'll be happy to take care of you.

Great.

We are speaking with Terry Berger at the Lower Nazareth Moore Township clinic that just opened up and we continue this community update on coronavirus on PBS39.

You can hear the rebroadcast on the radio tonight at nine 30 on 91.3 WLVR.

Terry, we have a couple of quick questions for you in the headlines.

Today.

We talked about people who are hesitant or who say I'm just not going to get the vaccine.

One in three people in Pennsylvania won't get that vaccine.

Do you find that disheartening at this point?

I do.

I am a very strong believer in vaccination.

I believe it saves lives.

We've demonstrated that the number of lives affected by Covid and Moore Township has gone down as a result of vaccination hospitalizations have gone down.

Visits to doctors' offices.

So absolutely I can understand those concerns and some anxiety.

But considering that I have been at the hospital through the entire event, the outcomes associated with Covid are much, much more severe than getting a vaccine.

Terry, you've been a spearhead for these mass clinics for years for the flu vaccine Dorney Park.

Do you think this is the way of getting vaccines into arms for the future?

We are very fortunate that for 24 years we have been doing a drive through flu vaccines annually and that set us in an excellent position to make small modifications to deliver mass Covid vaccinations and that was one of the reasons besides the fact that we wanted to get a large number vaccinated with seasonal influenza.

We've had a multitude of different agencies.

The Departments of Health, the armed forces come and look at our model and they have adopted it in multiple states across the country.

So it does work.

You have to practice and we were able to practice for many, many years before we had to do a mass distribution for a% different illness.

Terry.

This is a huge undertaking for the people who put these mass clinics on.

Can you talk to us, please, about that undertaking?

What goes into getting these clinics off the ground and shots into arms essentially, it's round clock work.

It's a very dedicated group of health care professionals.

It includes my team from infection control, infectious disease.

We've got security patient care services, the pharmacy, every department registration that you can think of, food service, waste management all has to be a collective part of this team to assure that we have safe traffic control that we have safety in the event that there's any type of outcome.

We do providers on site and all of our clinics.

We have Emmaus.

We have medications here, epi pens.

It does require a tremendous amount of effort.

Again, we're lucky that we had all that experience with the flu.

We were able to make significant changes.

Obviously everything for flu was paper this time everything's electronic.

We also have to have an observation area.

We don't do that with the flu, with the flu.

We didn't have appointments this time.

Everything's schedule.

So we had to do a lot of Givati, but we did.

And I believe that we've been very successful and we're going to continue to give vaccine every day until we can get our community protective.

Terry, you're also a nurse as well as that administrator.

Have you seen anything like this before?

The vaccine being developed so quickly as many people getting vaccinated?

Have you seen anything like this before?

Well, I think we've all lived through all the trials and tribulations with respect to HIV and how quickly thankfully they were able to come up with very successful medications.

Then we've dealt with Ebola.

There have been a large number of infectious diseases certainly in my career of 43 years at LVHN I gave great Kutztown goes to the scientists who recognized and realized how critical was to get a handle on this.

And I have full faith in the scientists that they did come up with a vaccine that will safe and we were able to administer it so quickly.

Terry, one more time.

You are one of the new walk in clinics.

You need an appointment, of course, one of the walk in clinics for the Covid vaccine in lower Nazareth Moore Township one more time.

If you could tell folks how to get one of those appointments, that would be wonderful.

So they can go to LVHN board and they can make a register and a portal.

They can schedule their own appointment.

They can also call through our hotline and it's eight three three LVHN N, C, v, d for Covid and they can also help you make an appointment.

They are open seven days a week.

Obviously the portal is open.

24 seven.

But everyone does need an appointment in order to get vaccinated.

Great.

Terry Berger, administrator for Infection Control and prevention at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

Thank you so much for joining us from the field today.

Thanks, everybody.

Get vaccinated.

Great to have you, Terry.

Thank.

We want to bring Josh Berks back in from the Bethlehem Area Public Library.

A couple more questions for you, Josh, before we let you go today.

Sure sounds good.

Let me just say thank you to Terry for all your work.

It's really inspiring the effort that you and your team put into making us all safe.

So thank you lately a huge effort on the part of all of our health care workers.

Josh, what are some of the safety measures that you have right now in place at the library?

I know you said that some of the chairs are spaced out.

What are some of the other safety protocols do you have there?

Well, I think the library kind of looks like most small stores and other places we've gotten used to going to.

So we're pretty strict about mask wearing and, you know, the main thing is, is just keeping people far apart as much as we can.

Libraries are all about sharing.

We're all about shared spaces, shared materials, shared collections, And so it really is challenge for us to know figure out how to use this space and still achieve our goals without, you know, without putting anyone at risk.

So just for abundance of caution, really, we're still quarantining Bucks after they come back.

And so some people don't necessarily comfortable, understandably, taking a book that just came from a stranger's hands.

So we have a whole large section in our first floor.

It was supposed to be a meeting room and event space, but now it's our materials.

Botham Jean Handling's, which are words I never thought I would say as a library, but we that's the reality.

And so we're still like, you know, we're still careful about keeping those items in isolation just to make sure that nothing's being transmitted that way.

And our children's area, a lot of the high touch interactive children's spaces which like we're really proud of here, we have a really wonderful, beautiful interactive children's space at the Bethlehem Library.

But that is that's still not accessible.

We were kind of feeling really good about the numbers trending downward.

But before we were able to open that space again, things have sort of gone the other way.

So I'm with Terri.

I want everyone to get vaccinated so we can all get safe and healthy and get back in here and share some of those spaces, like I said, especially for the little ones.

But yeah, we're definitely still continue to share materials and so on without putting anyone at risk.

Josh, you mentioned waiving late fees when we talked previously.

That's got to hurt financially and fundraisers are really hard to do right now.

What kind of financial toll has this pandemic taken on the library?

Yeah, yeah, good question.

I mean, the I always try to remind people, especially when I was mentioning Beau Biden fines are like they're not meant to be punitive, like we're not trying to hurt people.

We're not trying to balance our budget on nickels or dimes, although it does add up and it does help the libraries operating revenue.

But really they're just keep the flow of things coming in and out.

Everyone needs a little incentive to get things back on time and especially when there's someone waiting for it.

So that's really what fines are for.

But then over time, yeah, they do become a piece of our budget and our friends, the library GALLA that was canceled last year like so many others.

So we're pretty fortunate in regards to the fact that our local municipalities have continued to support libraries.

The state of Pennsylvania has continued to support libraries so we've had to make some Kutztown changes here and there.

We do make money from room rentals in addition to refunds, fundraisers, little things have really been put on hold.

So, you know, we've had to cut some hours, reduce some spending.

You know, we're buying a little bit less of a little, you know, smaller backorders, just sort of doing our best to balance our budget while we get through this time.

And like I said, some people have been enormously generous.

We've been really fortunate with some community, no gifts over the past year or so.

So that's been a real blessing to help us continue to keep the doors open and do what we do.

Josh, we only have a little bit of time here, but one final question for you.

What are some of the things you've had to change that you think will will stay for the long haul here?

Oh, like for example, I kind of think that some Zoom events are kind of great.

Like our we've had people zooming in from all around the world, you know, so we've had speakers, experts and as well as attendees be able to be involved in conversations and events at the library.

So we're looking to sort of come up with some hybrid type events.

So in our meeting rooms we can have cameras and screens and we can have speakers from outside the you, the world, anywhere in the world and continue then also offering in-person events.

So we're trying to hopefully take the best of both worlds.

I mean, sometimes for sure.

But yes, Josh, I have to say I like your optimism there.

Thank you so much.

Josh Berks from Bethlehem Area Public Library.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Thanks for having.

We want to thank you for joining us for Community Update.

Coronavirus will be here at 4pm each Monday, Wednesday and Friday on PBS39 and on the radio at nine 30 those same nights on WLVT.

Our news.

We'll be back Monday at four to talk more about vaccines and the fight against Covid-19.

If you have a question, you can always give us a call.

The phone numbers 44 eight to one zero zero zero eight four PBS39 WLVT Dan Newhouse.

I'm Brittany Sweeney have a great weekend and CDC.