Hello and welcome to PBS39 and WLVT.

Community update on coronavirus.

It's brought you with help from our community partner Lehigh Valley Health Network.

We're coming to you live from the PPE Public Media Center in Bethlehem.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Our guest today include an LVHN doctor in charge of critical care medicine.

Also here is the leader of ArtsQuest.

We'll meet them in just a few moments.

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

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Let's take a look now at today's top headlines.

Hundreds of people streamed to Dorney Park today for Covid-19 vaccines.

Lehigh Valley Health Network held its first drive through clinic in the parking lot.

The goal was to vaccinate 1000 people with their first dose.

All 75 or older and all with a point ments.

Vaccines are free and more clinics will be scheduled.

But by appointment only today, the state reported 5874 new coronavirus cases, 222 more deaths.

About 3800 Pennsylvanians are hospitalized with Covid-19 down from the peak of more than 6000 and also slightly below earlier this week.

The state totals are nearly 819,000 cases and 21,100 five deaths, answering frustration over vaccines shortages, President Joe Biden announced the US will ramp up deliveries to states over the next three weeks.

He says his administration is working to buy an additional $200 in doses and hopes to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer.

He's calling the push a, quote, wartime effort.

Biden also says he'll dispatch the nation's top scientists and public health experts to regularly brief the American public about the pandemic.

Beginning today, the experts will host briefings three times a week on the state of the outbreak and efforts to control it.

It's time now to meet our guests for the day.

Dr Jennifer revilla is chief of critical care medicine Lehigh Valley Health Network.

She's also one of the first frontline health care workers in the region to be fully vaccinated.

Cassie hilgers is president and chief executive officer officer for ArtsQuest the Arts and Cultural Organization that withstood so much disruption in 2020.

We'll find out what they have in store for 2021.

Thank you, ladies.

Both so much for joining us today.

Cassie, we're going to come back to you in just a few minutes.

We're going to start with Dr revilla.

Great to have you, Doctor.

Your job requires you to be in tune with hospital resources and of course, capacity we see from the state that hospitalizations have been trending downward from their peak in December.

Based on what you're seeing now at LVHN.

Do you think we've cleared the holiday surge?

Let's start there today.

Thanks for having me.

Brittany, I appreciate that.

I think at this point we are finally starting to see the downtrend.

Peak in early January and overall emissions are down.

So I'm happy to say that.

But I don't want to say that we're out of the woods yet.

As I do know that Super Bowl is coming.

It's a time for people traditionally have loved to gather and that's still a huge concern for us.

As well.

So, yes, our hospital emissions are down.

However, we still need to be vigilant.

Absolutely.

Now, you're one of the first LVHN physicians to be fully vaccinated on December 7th.

December 17th, You're now fully vaccinated.

Tell us about the experience that you had.

Walk me through what the first vaccine was like and then Please explain to what that was like.

Of course, I was incredibly grateful to be one of the first few to get that vaccine and the first vaccine really went without a hitch.

I didn't have a sore arm, but every time I get a vaccine, I have a sore arm.

So it's not unexpected.

The second vaccine I had trepidation.

I said, well, how is it going to be for me?

Because we hear and read what if it's a little bit worse for the second?

And I did hope to be B.

For me.

I did have somebody.

I woke up with.

I didn't feel robust, very tired.

I was still able to do my activities, but my body hurt and I did take ibuprofen, I will admit.

And probably four to six hours later my symptoms were gone.

So it took overnight for me to develop the symptoms and then hours later I felt like I was pretty close to my baseline again.

So very happy that I did not have anything severe to report, although it's rare that it can happen.

That has happened, I'm sure.

Should others expect the same thing?

Is there a specific groups that are seeing side effects more so than others?

What should people expect Gamma It's a great question.

We actually don't.

We're not able to predict based upon what people's comorbid conditions are.

Who's going to have what type of reaction to a vaccine?

We do indicate what people can expect.

They can expect the potential for the sore arm at the injection site, redness, swelling body aches, chills, low grade fevers.

That feeling itchy.

So those are not unexpected.

Some people have had the second vaccine and have had no difficulties whatsoever.

So there's a potential range that you should be aware of.

But certainly it should not prevent you from getting the vaccine.

Absolutely.

For many frontline workers, receiving that vaccine has been a very emotional experience.

Of course, working non-stop over the past 10 months to a year.

Talk to me about what you and your staff felt when you finally got that vaccination.

It was incredible.

It was that moment where we said this is the light that we're seeing at the end of the tunnel.

It's still there.

It's coming.

We're approaching it.

And we are all doing our part to protect ourselves and to protect our communities.

So such excitement that we have finally gotten to this point in the pandemic and hopefully as we continue to get more vaccines rolled out, depending upon what the state allows.

We will continue to move forward and end the pandemic.

Sure.

Is there any idea amid the medical community about when we will start seeing that vaccine kind of take effect in this pandemic kind make that turn for the better?

Do we know do we have a month Gamma We have, you know, a guess as to when that will happen?

Another great question.

No one has the exact timeframe.

I wish I could predict that.

We do know that we need to have the majority of our community vaccinated to show that.

the vaccines, we still need to be vigilant with our usual what we preach hand-washing mask wearing social distancing.

So until the majority of our community have been immunized, we still have a ways to go.

But we are on that path to success.

Sure.

And that's been a question for many of our viewers.

Once I get the vaccine, will I still have to wear a mask?

And if so, why?

Can you kind debunk that?

Absolutely.

Yes.

It's imperative that we still wear a mask properly, our nose and mouth, although the vaccines are safe and they're highly effective.

There are still those instances that we can potentially contract Covid depending upon who were exposed to and pass it along.

So it's our ability to protect.

For other people that we still need to wear the mask.

It's very important tool.

The majority of those in our community are vaccinated.

So I do want to confirm that we still need to wear the mask.

Absolutely.

And we talked about in the headlines that LVHN opened a mass vaccination site today.

Dorney Park the first day for that by appointment only.

How was turnout today Gamma I think it's hugely successful.

They planned for 1000 vaccines to be delivered.

So we will see by the end days and where they ended short.

And what's the process for people who maybe want to go there to get vaccinated and what should they do in order to get an appointment Gamma The one thing we've asked our community members is to sign up for my LVHN and it will ask you some questions such that you can determine where you are for your tendering process, whether you're a health care worker or a frontline worker eight, 75 and older or those in the less than 75 category hybrids co-morbidities.

So you can be in the queue once you have an account through my LVHN.

Be put into the queue so that when we do have the vaccines we can roll it out and let you know through the account or in messaging that it's time for you to come.

Sure.

Dr.. You are the chief of critical care medicine at LV.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what your job entails and what your department does in the intensive care unit?

I am one of the physicians along with my colleagues that takes care of the most critically ill patients.

So the patients that we take care of are different forms of Weissport mainly for the Covid pneumonia patients.

They require their ventilators which are breathing machines where we have to put you under anesthesia in a way to put you into it, to make you sleep, to tolerate a breathing tube into your windpipe that we can give you the air that you need when the pneumonia is so bad.

The Covid pneumonia kind of does not kind of it does affect most organ systems at times and my team is able to work closely with all the bedside nurses, the rest, which therapist or physical therapist to care for these patients and support them as much as they can through their illness.

Sure.

Let's talk about providing care and of course, treatment.

Where were we in the spring versus where we are now?

How far have we come and treatment Gamma We have so far, I would say even though there's no cure for a virus, we know that the virus infects the body where revs up the inflammation in the body.

And we have found an antiviral as well as a steroid that we have routinely used to help combat those things and have had success.

Sure.

And you mentioned, of course, we talked about the holiday surge and then you mentioned the Super Bowl coming up and kind of that fear that maybe there will be another surge because of that.

Let's reiterate the importance of mass wearing and that kind of thing.

Talk to us about how real this virus still is and how much of a threat that it still is.

The vaccine is around, but like you said, it's not the cure, correct?

It is.

You know, I can't impress on everyone enough.

We must we must do our part to social distance to maths to wash your hands and less Covid has affected you.

You hear about it.

You read about it.

But being on the front lines, I've had to watch too many people die.

And I hear the stories again and again.

We just had Christmas dinner.

We just did this.

We got together here and most of the times we can go to the families and people recover very well.

Keep in mind my patients are those that have not done very well and a smaller portion of the community comes to me.

But they are so sick and I have to be to help them through that.

Half of the people that end up on life support actually don't make it.

And that's the part we struggle with.

Sure.

Dr Ravello, we're hearing about these different variants.

Of course, the Brazil variant was confirmed in Minnesota this week.

Are we seeing any of that in our area?

Right now at LVHN or in Pennsylvania in general?

.

I think that we are expecting to see a variant.

I think that when we are testing Covid, we have not been regular basis for every single patient But I wouldn't be surprised that if it's already here in many different areas, we just have it tested for it specifically.

But knowing that the natural course of a virus can cause mutation, that would not be surprising.

It's still as one of those things that we need to continue, whether it's one variant or another.

We still have to follow the same processes of washing your hands mask wearing at social distancing.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I truly mean it absolutely.

Just one more thing I wanted to ask what the protocol is if it's still the same thing where you call LVHN, if you are experiencing symptoms of the coronavirus.

What's the protocol Gamma Absolutely.

You can certainly call the 800 number and we can connect you and get you set up for video visits that you don't have to even leave your house, do everything on your phone, your tablet that you can get connected to a provider and they can help direct what level of care you may need or what you need to do at home.

Wonderful.

Dr Jennifer Ravello from Lehigh Valley Health Network, thank you so much for that vital information today we continue this community update on coronavirus PBS39.

You can hear the rebroadcast on the radio tonight at 9:30 on WLVT.

News.

91 three FM Let's bring in our next guest, Kasey hilgers heads ArtsQuest, the Lehigh Valley organization that brings us music.

Festen organizes literally thousands of events and programs each year.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

We appreciate you having I.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Absolutely.

Let's talk a little bit about the approach.

20 was a devastating year for many organizations, hard for ArtsQuest as well.

How did it serve to shape plans for this year and what should people expect this year in 2021 for ArtsQuest Gamma Well, first of all, surprised really early on in 2020.

We had a hunch that 2021 would actually be worse and that is what we're experiencing right now, anticipating some of the spikes from the holidays.

No winter is very tough for us as it is for all arts cultural non-profit.

But 20 taught us is a need to be flexible and to be nimble and most importantly consult with the experts on anything we want to do.

So any programming that we're putting on, whether it's virtual or in person, we are consulting with the city of Bethlehem Health Department to make sure that our capacities and our practices are well within all the guidelines for our attendees.

Feel safe Gamma Sure.

And although Covid tried to stop many in their tracks, ArtsQuest was able to pivot in 2020.

Talk to us about ways you were able to safely put on some of your events.

Sure.

So the first thing we did was obviously to offer at home streaming programming.

So a lot of our visual arts and our After-School Arts Education programs that we normally did in person, we switched the virtual very quickly.

The benefit that was we were able to expand no in school districts and children, we actually served during a pandemic which was fairly remarkable.

So our home school district and our heart is with the veterinary school district.

That's a we work with and serve on a day to day basis.

But Covid and streaming has allowed us to reach out to six or seven other school districts during those time during this time to offer free programming to those families to keep kids and families connected in hope through the arts.

So that was our virtual platform in person.

We were able to offer outdoor dining at SteelStacks all summer so that campus can typically hold three to 5000 people when there are no Covid restrictions.

So if you're looking at 10 to 50% capacity yourself, look, looking at a pretty decent number of people down there.

Again, working with the city of Bethlehem Health Department each weekend over the summer and throughout the fall and early winter, we were allowed and able to have about 500 guests outside.

We had strict mass wearing guidelines just recently.

We have implemented with indoor concerts that the music has Kathay presented by youngling every person who enters the ArtsQuest Center has their temperature taken.

We have been fortunate to receive some Brighton's that have allowed us to install planers in our H vacc systems and in hand-held cleaners.

So every time we have people in a room those rooms are cleaned before and after every event.

So last year taught us a lot in how we can appropriately socially distance, how we can put on programming in a way that makes people feel safe and that has launched us into 2021 where we're expecting to have at least 100 outdoor concerts.

Once the weather gets a little warmer for us and an ArtsQuest this year, summer is going to go from April 1st to December 30 first.

Sure.

And you just mentioned the ArtsQuest building.

Things look a little bit different there.

2021.

You've had some renovations there lately.

Yes.

We actually renovated the entire first floor into the palette and for we've got a brand new performance stage there and really stage.

We had just finished construction on that in March of 2020.

So we did immediately was while we still indoor dining we reduced the capacity to 50%.

We have shut down that first floor for right now.

We are looking at relaunching that in February.

We are so thankful to all the frontline workers, the doctor you had on earlier plus everyone else helping us get through this.

We're watching those numbers and making a determination as to when we it is safe to go back to 50% capacity shows are certainly starting in the cafe next month.

But we also anticipate that Hellertown and for on the first floor will open next month as well.

In the meantime.

Every weekend we are offering kerbside pickup service, all the Christmases Succarieh for each weekend.

So you can also still get your ArtsQuest fix our culinary partners Cassey So much of what you do relies on gatherng and bringing people together.

I imagine that the rollout of the vaccine can't come soon enough for you.

Are you taking that into consideration when you're planning for later this year in 2021 and if so, how Gamma We would certainly love 01 vaccinated tomorrow.

And again, we applaud the efforts of our health care workers working so hard to make that happen.

I don't think we can bet on anything right now.

The best we can do is to watch and to make sure that whatever it is we offer is completely safe and in that era, we are not going to push the low.

We're going to make sure that everything we do in consultation with health experts and the city.

But that being said, we are making some assumptions that as the vaccine continues to get rolled out, we will at least be able to do the capacity that we did last year with outdoor dining.

We will be able to do more than what we did at Music Fest last year, which was 6 outdoor concerts.

So long as we can guarantee social distancing temperature taking, mass wearing.

And again, working with all the officials needed to make sure we can do social distancing.

So we're excited for the And I think at the very least we're gonna make sure that we can build out at least with the capacity we had last year every week.

If that changes, we will adjust to that.

Absolutely.

And speaking of music fast, I know it's still early.

We're still about 6 months out.

But are you hopeful for more in-person concerts?

Do you have any headliners lined up or any acts who are planning to be there this year?

I don't know why I'd be excited about music.

Yes, we are actively planning right now what music that's 2021 will look like.

That's life for us in a regular year.

Music Fest would already be planned a year in advance.

We do have headliners that are so announced.

Darius Rucker and Lil Willie Nelson, a number of others.

We got to wait and see what the ability will be to put on a venue of that size.

What I can tell we are planning for and managing every possible scenario to what we did last year, which was limited indoor or outdoor shows about six.

A lot of broadcast thanks to our great partner discerns.

But we're also planning for something a little bigger than that.

What we learned during those six outdoor shows last year is that we can do that if we can find space around Bethlehem where we can manage that capacity safely.

That is what we're actively investigating and look to have answers in the next several weeks to a few months to be able to announce.

Sure, I know a lot of people looking forward to that and hopeful that can be more in-person concerts for sure.

And I mentioned that you did a lot pivoting in 2021 of those pivots was Chris Kendall.

Mark, it opened a lot earlier than typically would.

The season was a little bit different.

Talk to me about the success of that.

Was that a good success for ArtsQuest?

You Gamma Chris Ilhan Omar was a tremendous opportunity not just for us but just like music best.

There are about 300 small businesses that rely on our programming year around and food vendors, crafters, vendors and whenever we can't have that full footprint, they too suffer.

So music fest we were at least able to have 10 of our favorite food vendors offering kerbside pick up during that festival.

Chris Kimball, Art We pulled together literally in 35 days from the first team meeting we had internally until launch early.

No know going to have to be outside and we weren't able to allow an offer.

Opportunities for 60 vendors and crackers to be able to make revenue during a year that there were no shows, there were no Chris Kinlow marts around the country.

So for so many of those small businesses, it was a critical eight or nine weeks that they did not have for all of 20.

And I will tell you that the response from the community was amazing.

Many of our crafters and vendors recorded robust sales.

So while we had about 42 43,000 people over those eight or nine weeks, which is less than half of what we would have in a normal Cressona mark those patrons still spent about as much as if we had had a full 90 plus thousand people there.

So great support for small businesses and we just heard an outpouring of support from those businesses and patrons who thanked us for offering socially distance outdoor lots of ways to sanitize opportunity to feel normal and to feel some hope during a pandemic.

And that's where we think we have at least our role to play.

Well, all of our heroes in health care are taking care of us.

Well, we can do is offer hope and connect our communities through the arts during this time.

Absolutely.

A wonderful opportunity for small businesses for sure.

During 2020 at the end of the year, ArtsQuest learn it was receiving 3.5 million dollars in state aid for an expansion and a cultural center at the banana factory.

Can tell us a little bit about that project.

That's exciting.

It's very exciting.

And why you want finish out a year that was not a lot of fun and didn't have a lot of hope with that kind of news really was a boost morale for our staff or our volunteers boards.

We are in the early phases of designing a brand new cultural center on the site of the banana factory and this new cultural center will have brand new amenities, brand new programs.

Look around our community and say what are we not addressing right now and how can we be more inclusive?

So we had been on a silent quest to raise some of the money for this building for the pandemic hit and understandably that had to be put on the back burner.

However, we continued our outreach during 2020 to our elected officials and I have to give a special shout out to Governor Wolf to Senator Pascola, Senator Brown.

Steve Samuelson.

So many elected officials came together to keep carrying the flag and let Harrisburg know that, look, we're gonna get out of this.

And when we do, we have got to be in a position again that we are building cultural amenities that are going to recruit and retain the creative workforce that we've all learned anything during this visit for a number of jobs.

You can be anywhere, which means where you choose to live is going to be very important in those places where you choose to live.

Need to have the kind of cultural amenities and attractions that make you feel welcome and connected.

So you put down roots and stay and that's why that was so important to the new cultural center to keep that momentum going.

And the pictures of that new cultural center look absolutely fabulous.

So hopefully that project is a success for you.

Kathy, we only have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about recruiting and maintaining your volunteers who are so crucial to your organization.

Yes, we have an army of about 800 people who volunteer for us on an annual basis and they're all over the map right now.

During Covid, we've had a robust turnout of volunteers through all of this, through Mulvaney Cinemark Music Best Music Fest Cafe shows presented by younglings.

They're there now.

But certainly we are concerned about their health.

First and foremost, that's why we make sure we have sanitize stations.

We require masks and not just for our volunteers but our staff.

So any gifts that comes down there, there's very little wiggle room as to whether you have to wear a mask and maintain social distancing.

There are a robust group, but I couldn't be happier that the vaccine is coming out.

As you can imagine, with many organizations volunteer based all over.

I'll tell you the robust, most robust people I have met in my it has been a pleasure having you on today.

The president and CEO of ArtsQuest.

Thank you so much for joining us.

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 9:30 those same nights on WL vr News.

We'll be back Friday at 4:00 and discuss the return of students to college campuses.

If you have a question, you can leave it out on our website, PBS39.org.

On social media or give us a call the phone numbers 44 8 2 1 0 0 0 8 4 PBS39 and WLVT news.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Stay safe.