Hello and welcome to PBS.

39 in W Elba's community ue on coronavirus.

It's presented by Capital e Cross and brought to you wh help from our community partner, Lehigh Valley Heah Network.

We are coming to you from e PPE Public Media Center in Bethlehem.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Our guest today, includingd doctor overseeing the expan of vaccine eligibility to of vaccine eligibility tot.

Also with us is the head oe Pennsylvania restaurant and lodging Association.

Our guests will be with usn just a few moments.

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

The phone number is four et four eight two one zero zeo zero eight.

We'll answer some of your qutions live.

Plus four daily coronavirus updates.

Be sure to sign up for our newsletter.

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

And there you'll find helpl information in both Englisd Spanish.

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

The State Department of Heh reported that more than fie and a half million vaccine doses have been administerd through yesterday.

least one dose.

While vaccinations are ris, so is the number of hospitalations from Covid-9 20.

200 people are in the hospl from the virus.

The state reported a two dy total of more than 6600 new coronavirus cases and 12 me deaths.

As of today, first responds and essential workers like Postal Service and manufacturing employees in phase one are eligible fore Covid-19 vaccine.

It's all part of the states quick in time line to makel adults eligible for vacciny April 19th.

Next Monday, people in Phae one CDC become egible, including construction and communications workers.

Allentown paramedics and te City Health Bureau are partnering on a project to provide vaccinations to homebound residents.

Those eligible must be Allentown residents and mut have a healt condition that makes leaving the house vey difficult.

The homebound homebound vae hotline six one zero two sx zero zero three six zero callers should leave their name, phone number and adds that number again six one o two six zero zero three six zero appointments are still available for a mass clinic planned Wednesday at Pocono Raceway in Monroe County.

Up to 3000 first doses of e medicine.

A vaccine will be given ben A vaccine will be given bee through appointments can be made through the VHA portat my LV Chenega or by calling eight three three five eigt four six to eight three.

That phone number again is eight three three five eigt four six to eight three.

Let's meet our guests for e day, Dr Robert Murphy is executive Vice President ad chief physician executive, Lehigh Valley Health Netwo, Elva Chen and other vaccine providers today are opening vaccine appointments to sential workers in the state's phase one B catego.

Also here is Mr John Long, street president and CEO oe Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association and a p whose members have been ona roller coaster ride this pt year.

Gentlemen, thank you both o much.

For being here.

Mrongstreet, we will come o you in just a few minutes.

We are going to begin today with Dr Murphy.

Since today is the first df the state's rapidly acceled timeline for getting everye vaccinated, Dr Murphy, thak you for joining us once ag.

Always a pleasure toe with you, Brittany.

Thank you.

It's great to have you.

Of course.

Today, essential workers in manufacturing and public transit are now eligible fr Covid-19 vaccines.

Doctor, the state is expang eligibility in a way that l adults in Pennsylvania wile eligible by April 19th.

I guess the big question he that everyone has is will e be enough vaccine supply tt this done?

What's your feeling on tha?

Let's start there today.

Well, you always ask the th questions me.

So it's I always have to ce with a good answer.

You know, it's just somethg we've talked about over the last many months that it'sr primary goal to get as many vaccinations and as many as as fast as possible.

And that's our goal.

That's how we that's how we That's how we that's how w. That's how we beat this pandemic and that's how wet back to near normal so we n be fraternizing in the restaurants that Mr Long St represents.

The unfortunate reality is eligibility does not mean reality of vaccine availaby or availability to get into arms.

By that I mean the presidet made a proclamation that he expected to have the nation vaccinated by around July h so that small gatherings wd be would be accessible, wod be possible so that we coud get back to our restaurantd up near a near normal to hp stimulate business.

And that's that surely is r goal.

But in point of fact, openg up the rolls to have people eligible does not provide s with more vaccine or incree our capabilities to delive.

So we have to always temper that enthusiasm with a dosf of what is real and what ce expected.

So for example, we is as we talked about before, we gie about 36,000 vaccines a we.

18,000 and 18,000 second ds at this point.

And that's through our vaccination clinics like in Monroe County that the Poko Speedway Authority Park orw moving as they're startingo come into season.

We have alternative sites t will be using as well and transitioning to.

But with that, that's 36,00 doses ofaccine we can put n arms.

It doesn't mean that we're going to get enough vaccino put into people's arms by l 9th.

When we then expand yet agn in a few days to to an even wider population.

So we'll be there where wee just this afternoon, just before I got on the call, e talking about how to starts for the long haul.

Of several months to make e we vaccinate all our citizs and why we welcome the expansion of the eligibiliy criteria.

We still have to face th reality that there there'sa limitation to doses.

Just a few days ago, we hed that change had had several million doses contaminated.

So all of these variables e challenged operational scie that we bring to the table.

But we're going to gete're going to get our population vaccinated and we're goingo get them back Mr Longstrees restaurants as soon as possible.

Sure.

Dr Murphy, of course, that announcement of the sped up version of these phases foe vaccines we heard that come down the pipe last week.

Since then, have you seen e supply of vaccines ramp up?

Have there been more vaccis coming into law and to thet into arms since that announcement was made?

No, certainly we're at a se cadence.

While it's encouraging bece just four weeks ago or so e were talking about not receiving enough vaccine to meet those numbers.

The state has been able to supply it for the last sevl weeks with a dose that refs our ability to maximize production without it.

Since we've been able to deliver it effectively undr the state guidelines, they continue to be impressed wh the work we do and so conte to commit to that.

18,000 or so first doses in 18,000 or so.

Second doses every week.

So so at least now we're ia certain reproducible caden, but we don't have more vace available than that recogne that there's several hundrd providers of vaccine acrose Commonwealth, each of whom we're trying to max their potential and the state hao to look at its numbers ando its math and decide how thy want to distribute it among health care providers.

Physicians offices, and pharmacy as well.

So so there's a lot of pree to to have many resources available to put these in r arms.

So, of course, you know, he we're proponents of maximum operational efficiency to deliver the highest numberf doses and the quickest numr of time, the quickest amouf time is possible.

And that would seem to be concentrating the most dosn the biggest the biggest ara is with the best track rec.

Sure.

And you mentioned, of cour, staffing these arenas, thee mass clinics as well in tes of infrastructurend Mulvany Chen's ability to get shots into arms.

Can you give us an idea oft percent Kappos city you'ven operating at, whether it be hospitals and trying to man these different sites?

What capacity is aviation t this point?

Breaking capacity?

Brittany because we're at e door.

Normal job at the same time that we're asked to provide this extraordinary resourco our community.

So right now we've had we't a higher rate of of virus admissions to our hospitaln we had in the fall.

Unfortunately, in the last three weeks we've seen an upturn, as you so nicely presented in the beginning, presentation in their we'vd an upturn in Covid cases ie Commonwealth and the natio.

Many of these being a vari.

So why we were just cominga nice a nice pace of getting back to to a stressful but manageable level of inpatit business, a number of beds filled by by patients, whis 100%.

We're having to again rampp to be able to provide 36,00 doses a week.

So up to this point in tim, we've been able to manage t we've been able to manage y efforts of our front line providers who not only work their normal shifts but ofn volunteer to help cover the other shifts that are requd to inject folks.

So just extraordinary, sels work on their pt and also n the last couple of weeks, e been bringing on a volunter force, not only retired physicians, nurses, but alo using nursing students, pharmacists and the like as were as we were allowed bye governor's proclamation sel weeks ago.

What we're looking at at ts point, however, is lookinga a long term plan or deliveg 36,000 doses a week and tht simply would exceed our aby to do that.

Based our current workfore and volunteer force.

So with that, we're lookino do is two things as never n our back on our commitmento those 36,000 doses.

So what we're prepared to s to is to augment as necessy beyond the volunteer forceh agency personnel but also y taking our own personnel fm other care sites and puttig them on the front lines too this, we think it's very important to preserve the health of our community ano also stimulate our economyd get back to normal.

So work on we're going to e there no matter how we havo shuffle forces.

Sure.

And as you get ready to tan more people, as you're vaccinating more and more people, when it comes to getting those shots, the as are the mass clinics.

The bt way to do that?

Is that what you're going o continue?

We're going to see more of those mass clinics happenio that more people can drive, get the shot in the arm and kind of go from there.

I think that if you've head any of the testimonies of e folks who've gone through , we really have the operatil signs of this down.

So that folks who are sched for a ten 15 appointment ae driving up to the vaccinatt ten 14 getting their shotsd from getting in line to geg out and being observed fore amount of time you have toe observed.

It's it's an incredible and incredibly productive way f doing it.

And congratulations to the folks at the Lihi led by Le Fuentes and his group.

But we really have this do.

We had 20 years of experiee with normal flu vaccine clinics.

This took to another leveld happily we're able to meete to meet the charge that wee given and just very efficit that we have an extraordiny number of testimonials from happy, happy patients and y community members who not y were relieved to get the vaccine but gets get it provided in such an efficit manner that they weren't kt waiting or there was very litt stress to it at all.

So I think, you know, whenu look at any productivity ad production model, those tht have the best assembly lins with the least amount of e, we continue to waste just e minimal and we've only hada handful of doses that haven based out of the hundreds f thousands doses we've been provided.

But that's the type of peoe that you want to be able to give the vaccine.

West Virginia, it's a testt to that, putting most of te doses in the hands of their five health systems and had incredibly efficnt distribution rates.

So so the model's proven tf there in the community.

And I think that speaks weo our ability to to get folkn line with President Biden's promise to to a near normal summer.

Absolutely.

I have to attest to that.

Was actually one of the patients through one of the drive thru clinics.

And I was in and out.

I was very impressed by how efficient it was.

It just drove right up.

The only time I had to wais those 15 minutes with to me sure there was no side effc from the vaccine.

But it was a very smooth ad easy process.

So it seems like it's going really well for you folks.

We do have some color quess for you.

So if you could take off te executive and put on the physician hat for us here,s is Jim from Delco.

He is saying I got the Ginr Zee through the VA. Should I be concerned about contaminated doses?

As you mentioned last weeke heard about some of those s from Ginger Zee being contaminated.

Well, Brudenell, reassure u that I always have the physician hat on.

The exact one is the one It on after m priorities, my priorities on that.

But to to our friend Jim, u don't have to worry about t all.

This is an internal control mechanism that identified e problem right on as it was happening.

It was a center that handld both the Moderna and the of vaccines.

And so it was some cross cs ingredients, if you will, contamination.

But the problem was identi.

The product was never ship.

So anyone who's received TJ vaccine at this point i tie n rest comfortably and know that they're protected.

Absolutely.

Thank you for that, Dr Mur.

We have another question.

This is Mary from Landsdowd she's saying her daughter n Aaryn who recovered from Cd but experiences fatigue shd she get the vacne Gamma Excellent question, Brittay and unfortunately, her daughter's one of those fos that we were talking abouts being a long haul, someoneo has suffered from the disee and has some sort of some t of complication of the vir.

It's incredibly inflammatoy virus.

And so we've noted a lot of issues with folks who haveo haven't recovered as expeditiously as we would .

So the answer to her questn is yes, because we've actuy seen some just that I justw some publication today that says that folks who have tt type of slow, indolent recy have actually benefited and they're recovery's been enhanced by receiving the vaccine.

So by all means, please, ae appropriate time get that vaccine.

Wonderful.

Dr Robert Murphy from Lehih Valley Health Network, as always, thank you so much r joining us today.

Always a pleasure.

Brittany.

We continue this community update on coronavirus PB's.

And you can hear the rebroadcast on the radio tonight at nine 30 on 91 3W Elver.

Now let's bring in our next guest, John Long.

Street leads the Pennsylvaa restaurant and lodging Association, a group that advocates for those in the hospitality and tourism industries.

It's a segment of our econy that has sufferd so much in the past year.

Mr Longstreet, thank you an for being here.

Of course, yesterday the Wf administration and loosen e restaurants allowing up to% capacity and resuming bar service.

So I'm wondering from your perspective, is it the brek your members needed or is a case of too little too latt this point?

Well, Brittany, first, thak you for having me on the s. I really appreciate you covering restaurants and restaurants.

Certainly have been the hat hit of just about any induy and hotels rht behind them who we represent as well as travel and tourism.

The restaurants are very hy about what happened yestery and those that are still tt managed to survive this log are very gratified that the able to operate at at a hir level than they were before this is the most they've bn able to do as far as capacy since over a year ago.

Now, if you think about tht and most of the year in Pennsylvania, they've beent 25% capacity.

So to get to go to 75% to t the bar seating back, whics even more important in our service because restaurants count on that seating for dining customers and they t even get to 50%, let alone% without that they sort of t the bar seating back to the alcohol curfew lifted.

They had to give last callt 11 o'clock for most of thet year.

That's no longer in place.

And they also can serve a r or a glass of wine without having to buy a meal.

So those are all very welce to the industry.

And they've been met with t of excitement, frankly.

Sure.

It's been really a tough yr for restaurants and bars nw that the crisis is over fot over, but it's loosened.

Those restrictions are loosened.

The crisis now turns to staffing.

I know that a lot of these employees from restaurants, waitresses, waiters, they d to go on unemployment.

So what are some of the obstacles now you have with finding people to work at e restaurants after a pandemc Gamma Well, interestingly, Brittany, and we think of e old days, which is only a little bit over a year agot going into the pandec, onef e most difficult problems that restaurant had was staffing them, too.

And it is even worse todayn it was back then.

And there's a couple of res for that.

The good news is that may t with that is there is a lit at the end of this tunnel t year, last February, Janua, before the pandemic when we could not get enough peoplo staff restaurants because e were so many new restaurans opening and unemployment so low, there wasn't really a solution.

Unfortunately, now there ia solution.

The solution is going to be less restaurants open in te future, at least for a whi.

But right now, employees ae they have enhanced unemplot benefits through some of te Covid packages out of Washington, which we're grateful for the fact thatr people are well taken care.

Restaurant employees are le family members and for theo be struggling where they've been struggling over the lt year is really sad.

So but they are on enhanced unemployment and some peope are finding it's better toy home and come back to work.

I don't think that's the majority.

But some some folks feel tt and the others have found r jobs.

They had to go through the stops and starts of the restaurant standards over e last year, restaurant induy was shut down two or three times since last March.

And consequently people ine cases went to other indust.

They'll eventually come bak when they realize that the shutdowns for restaurants e over.

That'song behind us now and it's going to be a stable industry again.

We think they'll come back.

And unfortunately, as I san our most recent survey, whh was done in February, it ls like 20% or greater of the restaurants in Pennsylvaniy not make through this.

They haven't reopened yet.

They may not be able to re.

That's very sad.

But it also means that thes going to be people, more pe to fill less jobs.

Sure.

And I wanted to talk a lite bit about that.

Some of the restaurants tht we've lostnd is there any y of knowing how many more we will lose before all of ths said and done and we're bao normal, so to speak?

Frankly, we've on six survs since this started last Ma.

Both in Pennsylvania and oa national level with our partners the National Restaurant Association andn restaurants are open and yu ask them about the probabiy of them surviving for a ped of time, they can answer i.

But unfortunately now the s that are answering servicee only those that are still .

We undoubtedly lost quite w over the holidays with the Christmas shutdown, which k place on December 12th andt was a really a bad time for restaurants to be shut down because that's their primee for the year.

That's when they so-callede for the January and Februay slower months.

So when we did theurvey in November, 45% of the restaurants in Pennsylvani.

45%, that would be over 120 restaurants said that they didn't think they could mat another six months withoute significant financial aid r with a change in restricti.

So we don't know how many e lost between then a when we did the February survey.

Most of the experts on a national basis think we're going to lose somewhere ben 15 and 25%.

The restaurants in Pennsyla will certainly be higher.

It's been one of the more heavily mitigated states ie United States.

That's sad.

And the sad part about it s it's those independent operations that we love soh that we've made all of the great memories that absoluy it has been a tough one for restaurant and bars.

What about some of those establishments that defy te governor's ordersnd stay on because they had to they ho do what they had to do to p their businesses open.

Some of them were even cit.

What about those business a what's your stance on them?

We never encouraged memberr nonmembers to violate the .

There were people that said that what the governor dids unconstitutional.

The reality was that the ct system upheld his authorito do that at every level.

So we never would encourage anyone to violate the law.

And throughout the pandemi, some some open, but they oe when they weren't supposedo open using all of this safC guidelines and it said we e to open in order to surviv.

But there was financial aid available for most restaurs through PPP loan, through different grant programs tt we were able to access in Pennsylvania.

And we never would encourae anyone to violate the law.

That said, when the Christs shutdown came with about oe day's notice two weeks befe operator say, look, I'm the employees are my family.

I'm not putting them out of work two weeks before Christmas, I would never ly off an employee two weeks before Christmas.

And so consequently, some f those violate the governors order.

They did it with all of the safe CDC guidance that hadn in place and they were very careful about that.

Didn't make it right.

But I did understand why ty did that.

Wuhan operator in western Pennsylvania said if they e to take me away in handcuf, that's OK because I've been working with these people r 27 years.

I'm not going to e them out of work.

Another operator in Harrisg followed the governor's ors and she and her husband who owned the restaurant toget, took a personal loan, not r first one, through the panc to pay their employees whie they weren't working over e holidays.

So it's a really difficult time.

A lot of difficult decisios that people had to make.

Absolutely.

I was just going to say a t of tough decisions that pee faced over the past year.

I wanted to ask about restaurants and bars being targeted as super spreadery the administration.

They had cited different studies.

Was there any evidence of ?

What's your take on the sts that were cited were excitd when they were really calld upon to to come up with soe proof, if you will, the secretary Levine at a press conference, if they were ue to trace the cases in Pennsylvania, they didn't w where they were coming frot the next press conference,y mentioned three so-called studies.

There weren't really studi.

There were mathematical formulas.

They were there were diffet hypotheses, not based on al data and certainly not in Pennsylvania.

It was unfortunate, but the reality of it is none of te elected officials knew whao do in this case.

They've never been through anything like this before.

I think a year into this, a year later, unfortune or fortunately now we know restaurants were not the sr spreaders.

We have the data from stats around the country, some tt were heavily medicated like Pennsylvania, some were liy medicated like Ohio and Florida.

Where the cases were actuay lower and the deaths 400,00 were definitely lower thany were in some the more heavy medicated states, the deats per 100,000, I believe the highest state in the casesr hundred and I believe was Illinois the most heavily mitigated state in the cou.

So I think we now know thae targeting restaurants wasnt the right approach.

But again, I understand tho one knew what they were dog and they were trying to cop with some solutions.

So New York State, we saw e data in New York State from September, October and Novr last year where they could actually trace cases and in that case they said 1.4% oe spread came from restauran.

And Iemember at that time% most of New was open.

50% only Manhattan was clod and 74% came from household spread.

74% from household gatherio 1.4% from restaurants in Montgomery County and Bucks County.

Where the health departmens have been able to contact rates.

The cases both of the healh professionals there said te was negligible to no spread that they could attribute o restaurants that John, we y have just a little bit of e left, but what's the best g people can do?

How can customers help buy?

The best thing they can dos support the restaurant.

One of the most beautiful things of this of the very negative part of this whole tragedy was how people went in support of their restaurants.

They ordered takeout.

Restaurants he learned howo make a take to learn to mae takeout meals that are just about as good as at the restaurant.

They can buy gift cards ify go out to make sure you tae good care of the servers.

They're not making as much money as they used to make.

So think of those tips.

And lastly, wn you go out w you're going to have a lite bit of trouble getting a te because there's a huge amot of pent up demand.

People, I think realize restaurants are safe and ty want to get out to restaur.

So maybe try to go on and f peak time if you want to et eight o'clock, maybe go atx 30.

If you want to e at six 30, maybe try going five o'clok and that you're a lot quicr for your table.

Absolutely.

Some good information ther.

John Long straight from the Restaurant and Lodging Association, thank you so h for joining us today and we thank you for joining us fr community update on Coronas for PBS.

39 Lev Parnas.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.