Hello.

And welcome to PBS39 in WLVT community update 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 PPE Public Media Center in Bethlehem.

I'm Brittany Sweeney our yesterday, including LVHN doctor keeping a close eye on infection and vaccination rates in our region.

Also with us is the head of the Allentown Health Bureau.

Our guests will be with us in just a moment.

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

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

We'll answer some of your questions live.

Plus for coronavirus updates, be sure to sign up for our newsletter.

Now, you can do that at our website coronavirus Lehigh Valley Dog.

There you'll find helpful information in in both English and Spanish.

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

Pennsylvania, a vaccine providers have surpassed 8 million shots give in with more than 47% of the eligible population receiving at least a first dose.

Over 3.2 million Pennsylvanians are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

The state ranks fifth in total doses administered and 10th for total shots given by percentage of population.

Today, the State Department of Health reported 5000 new infections and five more deaths since Saturday.

All told, Covid-19 has claimed just shy of 26,000 lives in PSEA the Allentown Health Bureau's vaccine clinic at the fairgrounds is now open without an appointment to anyone 18 and over.

Walk ins are being accepted at this time at the Agrippa X as long as vaccine supply permits hours are eight 30 am to two 30 pm tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday.

To date, the health Bureau has administered over 40,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine vaccination appointments are also available later this week.

For a drive thru clinic at Northampton Community College Lehigh Valley Health Network plans to administer 3500 first doses of the Moderna vaccine for free.

The clinic is set for eight am to four pm this Thursday, April.

29th appointments are required for this one on a first come, first serve basis, you can book five four six to eight three with many looking ahead to summer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance for summer camps.

Kids can be within three feet of each other but should wear masks most of the time, including outdoors.

Vaccines aren't authorized for children, so the CDC says prevention measures like mask wearing and distancing remain a necessity.

As for the rest of us, President Biden is expected to announce further new CDC mask in guidelines come tomorrow.

It's time now to meet our guests.

Dr Robert Murphy is an administrator and chief physician executive at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

He has provided great guidance and answered our questions in the past.

Also with us is Vicki Kistler, Allentown health director and the leader of the Allentown Health Bureau.

Thank you both so much for joining us.

Vicki will be with you in just a few minutes.

We're going to begin today with Dr Murphy.

Doctor, as always, thank you so much for joining us once again.

Thanks, Brittany.

Great to be back with you.

It's great to have you.

And we spoke Friday with Dr Rhodes about reaching a tipping point where supply may be finally catching up with demand.

We just heard about appointments still being available later this week.

That's a good thing.

But I'm wondering if there's also any concern and having readily available appointments with still less than half of the state's eligible people vaccinated at this point, Peter Brown.

I think to Dr Rhodes point, it's not that we've reached a tipping point.

We may have actually tipped in that now the supply of vaccine seems to be much more predictable, gets in the hands of the vaccinators much more readily.

But there seems to be a little slower uptake on the part of the community to avail itself of that opportunity, which we find a little bit concerning at this point.

Sure, of course, last week and the week before we were hearing all about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and what's the latest with that?

I know LVHN does not have the J&J shot at this point, but what's the latest in how that impacts the rest of the demand for vaccines?

Well, I mean, in one way, happily, at least in our area, as we just mentioned, the supply seems to be outpacing the demand.

So at least in our greater Lehigh Valley community, we don't seem to have much need for it.

That said, J&J does have the very big benefit of being a single shot vaccination wherein we could be able to deliver it much more effectively to folks who have a difficult time getting back for a second vaccination or in those communities where it's really difficult for us to be able to bring back multiple doses.

So there is an advantage in a place for a vaccine like J&J Chuck Schumer.

And of course that vaccine is back in circulation.

But what about the confidence in vaccine that sort of took a blow when Johnson and Johnson came out and said a small portion of the people who received that J&J shot developed blood clots.

So what does that do for confidence in vaccines?

Well, unfortunately, it really shakes the confidence.

I think particularly among those people who were feeling that the vaccines were who were problematic for them for one reason or another, that there was a rush to vaccine, that safety hadn't been fully proven.

So unfortunately, it does give that story some some some Pfizer in reality, however, it doesn't really add much to the conversation in an objective science because as tragic as having some complication like a blood clot is when it's less than one in a million, that's less than occurs in women who are on birth control.

So so putting things in perspective, the risk and benefit of having a vaccine that prevents fatal complications on a fairly regular basis for those who contract the disease versus a not not negligible but very, very, very infrequent complication.

Certainly is has to be weighed objectively.

Sure.

Do you think people are going to still, though, even though it's such a small percentage, do you foresee people maybe passing on a J&J shot and just saying, you know what, I'm going to go with Moderna or Pfizer just because they are readily available Gamma Yeah, we have seen that in Lehigh Valley maybe not quite so much because we don't have J&J in down in the Philadelphia market.

We have seen some some folks saying they would prefer to wait, whether it's in Philly or Delaware down that area where there are both both doses.

There have been sampling of the population say that at this point they would prefer to go with a two shot.

Morenae Vaccines.

Sure.

Let's switch gears here.

As I mentioned a little bit earlier, in the show, President Biden expected to make an announcement tomorrow.

He's changing the guidance.

Is the CDC guidance is en masse swearing, saying vaccinate people won't have to wear masks outdoors.

So what's your what's your feeling on this?

Do you think this is the right call at this point?

Well, I think at this point the answer would be no, because we haven't quite reached the population penetrance for vaccine to render herd immunity.

Plus we're not quite at that time of year when folks are gathering outside.

We're still gathering inside a great deal of the time.

So I think President Biden earlier projections of wanting to be able to have a society that has some degree of normalcy by July 4th certainly is something that most of us feel we can get behind and support.

I think, you know, this may, May 1st may be a bit early to be encouraging that type of more carefree behavior.

Sure.

Along the same lines.

Can you talk to us about the case count still kind of going up each day just even if it is slowing a little, it's still increasing.

So what's it like at Lehigh Valley Health Network at this point?

Well, happily, again, in our area we've been able to get doses in a lot of arms, which has been a great benefit to keeping things under control.

The stressors that we faced in January say where we had 480 Covid positive patients in bed in beds in the hospital and we were overflowing in the regions.

That's come down to a much more mangeable reason.

Know no.

That said, we are seeing cases in in our counties.

Last week, Monroe had a spike that seems to be now slowing down again.

So we have to remember that is as much as we're seeing hopeful signs in the population, the curves go down, curves or averages, curves or reports.

But there are still people who are vulnerable because they haven't gotten either one or both shots.

So our communities are still at risk.

Sure.

What do you think the biggest challenges are that the network faces over the next few months?

Well, I think that's the drive to really be able to touch those folks are reticent to get vaccine for one reason or another.

The folks who believe that vaccines are not safe or don't give them any ability to have the benefit of herd immunity apply to them.

And also I think one of the great challenges is what Vicki Kessler, the Health Bureau and other people in her position and those of us that in the health care community faces is really being able to to get these vaccinations in folks who really are disadvantaged for one reason or another, either culturally they have no trust and not as much trust in health care or they don't have accessibility to traditional means.

I think that's the population.

We don't want to lose sight right now.

The disenfranchized and the disadvantaged.

And as we talk more about that case count, of course, concerning news out of India, the numbers there are just huge when it comes to case count.

350,000 new cases a day.

Does that have any bearing on what happens here?

Will that impact us in any way?

Well, that's an excellent question, Bernie.

And I think, you know, when you look at the world's most populous country, 300,000 cases is still a huge number of cases.

But what's more important is that this is a pandemic.

And just to remind your viewers that what makes an epidemic different from a pandemic is that a pandemic is pan.

It's across the entire globe.

It's global and we are a highly global society any more.

So the more that you have countries like India or Brazil or South Africa, the more you have that virus able to replicate itself in large numbers, the more likely you are to come upon a variant.

And as we know, these vaccines that we have currently are very, very good against the variants that we've seen.

Thus far.

But the more mutation, the more variation in the virus population, the more that puts humankind at risk.

So the more we can control this pandemic globaly, the better off we are as not only a nation but as a global society.

Is there anything we can do here in the Lehigh Valley to kind of prevent that and continue to prevent the case from going up Gamma Well, again, and thanks to folks like you getting the message out to people that they should be really, really, you know, signing all those open vacancies as much as we can and then as a nation and as a global health care community, having those countries that have the resource, being able to assist those countries who are maybe more challenged on a more global global scale, does those the world the benefit?

So I think on those to the micro and the macro, how we have to approach this pandemic going forward.

Dr Murphy, we do have a caller question.

This is from Mary in Broadhead.

Still, she says she's 80 to with health issues like congestive heart failure and blood clots in the past, is it safe for her to get the vaccine at this point?

Well, Mary, I want to I want to assure you it is absolutey safe for you to get seen.

As a matter of fact, it's the type of you're exactly the type of person that we wanted to get the vaccine to at the very onset of having vaccine in our hands at AZ to you are a higher risk with the conditions you mentioned are at higher risk and particularly to Britney's good point.

Before in the Valley, we have mostly Moderna and Pfizer and neither of those have been really associated with blood clot complications.

So I'd encourage you and friends like you to to seek out the vaccine at your earliest opportunity.

Thank you for answering that, Dr Murphy.

Of course, the beautiful day today and warm weather expected this week has all of us dreaming of the summertime.

But can we safely make plans at this point?

Should people be booking their vacations at the shore as they typically would in a non pandemic year Gamma Well, I think we're moving to the point where if they can encourage their neighbor to go get shot will be better off.

But having said that, I think under the conditions that we've now been through this pandemic for about 15 months and we have to realize two things.

We are at a relatively good position because we do have many people vaccinated.

The summer months are times when the virus seems to just because of nature and being outside seems to dissipate in the population a little bit.

So that's both of those for both of those reasons, I think we can look forward to spending on near normal summer.

But I wouldn't say it'll be completely normal.

It'll still be those situations in which we'll have to be a little cautious because we're not sure whether the person sitting next to us, you in the with the asking for the ice cream cone on the boardwalk in Ocean City has been vaccinated and that person still could be a vector for disease spread.

So so with that in mind, things like social distancing may be a modified social distancing as we're starting to see in schools and as the CDC may come to recognize modified mask wearing, maybe maybe indicated.

But the days of Bucks of expecting to be elbow to elbow with folks without masks, I think it would be premature to the plan on a summer like that at this point.

Definitely a topic we will be talking about in weeks to come.

Dr Robert Murphy from Lehigh Valley Health Network, as joining and thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

And we continue this community update on coronavirus on PBS.

39, you can hear the rebroadcast on the radio tonight at nine 30 on 91.3 WLVR.

Now let's bring in our next guest.

Vickie Kessler has been with us before.

She leads the Allentown Health Bureau, which has run a vaccination clinic at the Vickie, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

And we reported earlier in the show that walk ins are now being accepted at the fairgrounds without an appointment.

Is this a result of what we've been talking about?

That supply is finally catching up to demand?

Let's start there today.

Yes.

Last week we started to see our numbers drop and we took down our by appointment only sign and we found that we had 300 individuals who walk through the door.

So we decided that was our new norm.

So we have three vaccination clinics this week and then we have 11 vaccination clinics scheduled in May call and all of them will be without an appointment.

OK, do you think this is the best approach for for most places to start to go where people can just walk Gamma And do you think more people will turn out because they don't have to take that step of making an appointment Gamma We're certainly hope so.

We're certainly hoping to make it as flexible as possible to fit into schedules will be helpful.

We're also employers are imploring and reaching out to all of our Allentown employers ask actually Lehigh Valley employers asking them to allow their staff to go on work time to be vaccinated.

We found that a lot folks go right from their job to their child care and write home so that if they can step out of work very briefly during the workday, that very often that will increase their willingness and their interest in obtaining the vaccine, that we're hoping that more of our employers will do that.

And by having no appointment necessary, they can stagger when the employees actually leave work and come into us.

And this is open to anybody, correct?

Not just Allentown or Lehigh County residents.

It's open to absolutely anyone who's 18 years of age or older.

And we stress that because we do not have the Pfizer vaccine.

So at this time we can't take the 16 to 18-year-olds.

But anyone who has reached the age of 18 is welcome to walk in.

Sure.

And should people be bringing anything with them when they come to get that vaccine?

Do they need an ID or do they need their insurance card, anything like that?

They do not need a thing.

They just need to come in and fill out a very, very quick form and get their vaccine.

They have a 15 minute observation period and they're on their way.

Most people are in and out within half an hour.

And of course, the Allentown health Bureau has vaccinated hundreds of people to date through that vaccination clinic.

I want to ask about what you're doing to reach some of the popular nations that are most at risk.

The people, the population of color, the Latino population.

What are you doing to reach them and get them in the door and get vaccinated Gamma Well, actually, what we're doing right now is trying to talk with as many of them as we can to find out what is keeping folks from being vaccinated.

Is it transportation and is it convenience?

Is it fear Gamma We participated with LVHN and St Luke's in a discussion with the Hispanic Business Chamber and we've spoken with the NAACP in an effort to get questions answered and to determine why folks are hesitant if they are hesitant.

We've also looked at dates and times.

We're making sure that there's always one provider in the valley that's open on the weekend or open on an evening or open early morning to make sure that there are options for folks if they do have a limite schedule.

We're very fortunate in the Lehigh Valley we have rich hospital networks.

We have two health departments in in Lehigh County and Northampton County.

So people do have options for where they can go and when they can get an appointment.

All four of those entities have taken their vaccine on the road.

So going to high risk neighborhoods, going to senior centers, going to high rise is going to church groups.

Anyone who's interested and we encourage any group or organization who needs vaccine to reach out to either one of the hospitals or either one of the health bureaus to make their needs known.

We all meet together to be sure that if someone makes a request, one of us can can be there.

Sure.

And from what I understand, some people, if they if they're homebound, you have ways to get to them that vaccine to get to them.

Correct.

We do the Allentown Health Bureau all you have to do is call the homebound hotline if one zero two six oh three six 00.

And if you dial that number and you leave your number, a paramedic will come to your home and administer the vaccine, come back a month later and bring you your second dose lanta has offered door to door free transportation to seniors, to any of the vaccination sites in Lehigh or Northampton County.

And we also have a regular call set number of six one two eight nine oh seven six nine that if you call, you can find out exactly when we're vaccinating, where we're vaccinating or where everybody else is vaccinating.

You used to be able to use that line to make an appointment, but now they'll simply tell you what days of the week you can walk right in.

Sure.

Vicky, I did want to ask about that call center.

What's volume been like through that?

I know in a few weeks ago volume was so high the call center was being inundated with callers.

What's it like now?

It's very low.

The call center volume dropped off with the attendance at the vaccination site.

So now you will reach a live caller if you call between those hours in both Spanish and English and you will be able to talk directly and find out the answers to your questions directly.

I'm hoping we get a surge that you reach a recording.

I doubt it.

But if you do reach the recording, the recording will have a person call you back as soon as they're available.

To answer any questions you might have.

Vickie, let's move on and talk about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

Did Allentown ever receive any shipments of the J&J shot or do you plan on receiving any shipments of the J&J shot?

Where do you stand with that?

We did not receive the J&J vaccine.

We had just thought about placing our first order and inquired because we do have some citizens who were looking for the J&J vaccine and we did think it might be a viable solution for our homebound that paramedics would make one visit instead of two.

But we never received a shipment.

So we've never we've never administered any J&J vaccine.

Great.

Thank you so much, Vicki.

Of course, Lehigh requiring their students who are going back in the fall to get vaccinated any Lehigh County other Lehigh County schools that you are working with to get their students vaccinated so that they can return in the fall.

Any efforts there?

Yes, in fact, we saw a large number of our Muhlenberg College students come through the clinic the last week and now again this coming week we've reached out to all of our local colleges to inform them of our walk ins status, make sure that they're aware.

But we also realize that the kids are in finals, are getting ready for their finals.

So they're carefully plotting out their dates and times.

We're just encouraging them not to wait that if their college does go mandatory vaccination, we don't want to see them in a crunch or getting a dose in one place and then having to scramble when they're home to try to find their second one.

So we're encouraging all of our college kids to come on out and get vaccinated now so that they have that under their belt.

Are you seeing a lot of those younger folks come in at this point?

Who are you seeing walking through the doors to get vaccinated now?

It's very interesting.

Right now we have a very diverse group of folks coming through.

We have some young we have some old, we have some in the middle.

We have some who have had Covid in the past and they were hesitant to be vaccinated.

And now their physicians have instructed them that it is definitely to their benefit to be vaccinated.

And we have some folks who were, as I said, holding out for the J&J vaccine who now have chosen to come in to be vaccinated.

Wonderful.

Vickki, thank you so much for sharing that information.

I just wanted to point out that you were recently presented with a key to the city and honored for your work during the pandemic.

So congratulations to you.

I wanted you to think about go back if you could, and think about the beginning of the pandemic and what the last 15 or so months have brought.

What sticks out most to you over the past year and a half?

What sticks out most for me is the total level of cooperation that resulted from this pandemic, the cooperation of my own staff who said, you know, we can do this part of the investigations and we can do as part of the immunizations and we can do the contact tracing.

And they they cooperated magnificently.

And it was easy to look good when you have kind of a team behind you.

But then the cooperation of our volunteers, we have over 4400 volunteer hours logged in less than four months of community member volunteers, physicians, nurses, an engineer was architects.

Anyone who stepped away and said, I want to be part of this volunteer effort and they've helped us administer those close to 41,000 vaccine.

But then also the cooperation that went on between our hospital networks and our health departments and how they all kind of came together to make sure that anyone who really needed or wanted vaccine could get it.

We have that snowy night where we were going to lose 300 doses of the vaccine and said, hey, if you can get them here, we'll make sure they're not lost.

And you know, everybody just coming together in partnership has been amazing, especially now when it seems that people are so divided over so many topics.

It's just been a wonderful experience to watch the level of cooperation and support that has gone on among the partners.

And of course, that's really good to hear.

What about moving forward in the future?

Especially if we need booster shots come the fall or years every year after this?

Is the health department equipped to do that?

Was the Health Bureau equipped to provide those booster's year after year?

Well, I think what we're doing we may not realize it at the moment, but what we're all doing is learning to live with this virus just like we learned to live with flu and we learn to live with measles, mumps and rubella.

And it feels as though this is very novel and obviously it is a novel virus.

It's novel that it's been a pandemic.

But the response to it, the heart and soul of the response to the pandemic is a vaccination program and that isn't novel.

We've had those for hundreds of years.

So yes, we're going to have to add Covid vaccination to the repertoire of vaccines that are available.

But you know, it certainly has been done.

It's been done in our doctor's offices, our hospitals and our health departments for decades.

So I have no doubt that the future will bring us that brings us additional vaccination programs and so be it.

But we'll rise to the cause and make sure that folks want vaccine can get it.

Vickki, before we let you go, can you just let us know one more time if folks want to get vaccinated, how can they do so at this point?

Anyone who wants to be vaccinated can go on my LVHN and register.

They can go on my St Luke's and register.

They can contact the Allentown or that Bethlehem the Health Bureau's either through their websites or by their phone lines and their schedule an appointment or in the case of Allentown, they can just walk in our dates that we're vaccinating are posted on a city website so you can just pick your date, walk in and get your vaccine.

It's also available on many of our retail pharmacies and grocery stores.

So you just have to ask around or Google Vecsey near me and very often the sites will come up that will tell you who's vaccinating wonderful.

Vicki Kessler, the Allentown health director, as always, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

And we thank you for joining us.

For community update on Coronavirus will be here at 4pm each Monday, Wednesday and Friday on PBS39.

And those same nights on WLVT our for PBS39 and WLVT.

I'm Brittany Sweeney CDC.