Hello and welcome to PBS.

39 and 12 year community ue 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 live m the Public Media Center in Bethlehem.

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Our guests today include an infectiousisease doctor to discuss vaccines and answer your questions.

And with Easter just aroune corner, we're checking in h the local makers of Peeps,r guests will join us in jusa few minutes.

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

The phone number is Fauci r eight two one zero zero zeo eight.

We'll answer some of your questions live plus four Dy Korona virus updates.

Be sure to sign up for our newsletter.

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

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

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

The State Department of Heh is reporting an increase in daily coronavirus cases and hospitalizations at the sae time.

Vaccinations also are on te rise through yesterday.

More tha4.7 million vaccine doses have been administern Pennsylvania, but the state also counted 4927 new infections and 36 more deas today.

Northampton County is the state's highest rates of nw infectns and more than 50 cases per 100,000.

And people, families who lt loved ones to Covid-19 last year will be able to applyr reimbursement of funeral cs through a new federal assistance program.

It's part of the 900 billin dollar relief bill approvey Congress in December.

FEMA will provide up to $90 per funeral more for famils who lost multiple people te virus.

The agency is still settinp the application process but expects to have it up and running in April.

Outdoor programing and in-person wildlife programs will return to state parks starting April 4th.

The loosening of restrictis was announced today by the Department of Conservationd Natural Resources.

The state also will expand occupancy limits in state s and state forest buildingso 75%.

Masks and social distancing guidelines remain in effec.

Visits to state parks have risen by more than a millia month since last spring.

Meanwhile, New Jersey will expand covid-19 vaccine eligibility beginning April 5th.

To people ages 55 and olde.

It applies to millions of residents and to those whok in New Jersey under the orr from Governor Phil Murphy, people 16 and older with intellectual and developmet disabilities also will be eligible.

Over the past two weeks, Nw Jersey is the number one se for New Covid cases per ca.

Let's meet r guests for the day.

Dr Erik Young is an LVN specialist in infectious diseases.

Also here is Ross Bourne, O of Just Born, the Bethlehem based maker of Peeps and or candies.

Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Mr Bourne will be with youn just a few minutes.

We're going to begin with r Young Doctor again.

Welcome to the show today.

You're so covid-19 cases.

They are on the rise in Pennsylvania and in our ars more and more people are getting vaccinated.

So what do you think is bed these increasing numbers, n though people are getting e shots Gamma I think there e two things to consider her.

One is that we know that as exposures occur, there's ag between exposures in casesd then cases and hospalizations.

So when we see cases go up usually a few weeks beforee start to see hospitalizatis and unfortunately deaths gp even even further after th.

So as more people are gettg vaccinated there, just dont like to see that effect.

Additionally, though, and I think perhaps the biggest driver here is that we are targeting primarily older individuals and people with health problems right now r vaccination.

And if you actually look ao is getting getting Covid te highest incidence groups nw are younger people in the d say 18 to 55, age 18 to 45 range.

When you look at graphs ofe pandemic age and that's ben going on for several monthI think that we're vaccinatig one group but another grous getting sick.

And unfortunately, also bringing their illnesses he to family members and other older people who are at ri.

So I do think that vaccinan is very important and I thk that as we're able to expad vaccination that weill stat to see that reverse Dr You, what does it mean to see te numbers growing?

Does it mean people are leg their guard down, doing moe things, maybe not following social distancing?

What do you think this mea?

I think that maybe also plg a role, you know, for the t year now everybody has been getting tired of staying at home or limiting their activities and not seeing r loved ones.

It was perhaps a little bit easier, though not by any s easy during the winter tim, especially during the frome snow that we had.

But as the weather is starg to warm up and get very niI think that more and more pe are going to be going out.

And again, we have seen sus associated with holidays.

We have Easter coming up.

I think that we do have toe careful about not letting r guard down because we realy are at a point where we cae this thing turn around anda very good way as vaccinatis rise, as vaccines become me more widely available to al groups of people soon, I h. Sure.

And ong those same lines on April 4th, Pennsylvania wil allow more people in restaurants, bigger gather, a lot of kids are heading k to in person learning as we head into the new month.

So so what do you thinkeope So so what do you thinkeop?

Do you think this is goingo contribute to more cases as well?

I think we have to be very careful.

I think that it is good tht people are getting to see h other more, but I think wee to go about it very cautio.

I think that masks are stil very helpful at preventing spread.

And at this stage of the pandemic, I think far more useful than the vaccine bee the vaccine you really neea large number of people.

We don't the exact percente of people we need a large number of people vaccinateo widespread, whereas with m, if twoeople are talki to each other at a decent sixt social distance and they're wearing asks, the chances f spread are very, very low.

You know, at this point noe can say that about two peoe who are vaccinated and mige vaccinated, fully vaccinat, all doses of whatever vacce they have and then wait anr usually two weeks afterwar.

So getting one dose of the vaccine by itself is not enough.

And then, you know, so I tk that if we expand our activities ABC more peoplet at the same time, do cognit at the same time, do cognio to mitigate those risks.

After I'm sorry after gathering's are safer than indoor gatherings, but thee still not.

You can still catch Covid outside.

I know that.

I think when people are oue they often feel that it's o to take off their masks and maybe when you're in spreat groups.

But I think we have to be careful.

Sure.

I think that's absolutely n important point to make, especially as the weather'o nice like today.

I think people do kind of t thr guard down when they're outside.

Now, if these cases contino climb, do you think looseng those restrictions is the t move?

Do you think that the gover will make a different decin from an infectious disease standpoint?

What do you think the right decision is Gamma I think e have to follow the epidemiy if we start to see that a particular activity is associated with Covid-19 c, I think we have to look hoe can mitigate that, whethers ideally we put controls in place at whatever t locatin , whether it's moving peope You whether it's moving inr activities more outdoors vs you know, I certainly don't want to see us going throuh another another shutdown a have for I don't think thas that anybody wants to see .

But at the same time, I thk if we see where the cases e first appeal to the public, good sense to to do the rit thing and to be careful and understand the risks.

understand the risks.But te area perhaps target that.

Dr Young, let's talk about what's happening.

And as I mentioned, cases d hospital patients are goinp across the state.

Are you seeing the same thg at elevation?

And if you are seeing hospitalization ins go up,e they sere cases of Covid-19 Gamma So overall we just ce off of the big surge in the wintertime in January and.

That I think still fresh in most of the medical staff's minds here at elevation ano it still feels like we're n the midst of a respite.

I do see the numbers are creeping up.

They're not skyrocketing as they did at that time.

And I hope they don't do t. And I do hope that vaccinan I think vaccination will pa role in helping prevent tht from happening.

But at the same time, you , as I said, there's always a lag.

So I see the numbers goingp when I go to work every da.

I don't feel it yet.

And again, I'd like to see those numbers, you know, tt they're not quite quite a p climb.

I'm hoping to see them flan out and hopefully they wil.

Let's talk about vaccines.

Do you feel that vaccine allotments are increasing?

We keep hearing about somef the mass vaccination clinis that is holding.

that is holding.The next og is that Northhampton Northampton Community Coll?

That's the next big vaccinn event.

Does it feel like there's e coming through and more cog into the Lehigh Valley thau can then offer to patients, you know, as you know, we'e still in phase one a vacci, As far as eligibility.

That said, I know many peoe have been having difficulty getting online, getting appointments.

I don't know that a lot.

They have been increasing.

We can'tredict because thee are a lot of by the state e can't predict you indefiniy into the future.

I know that they have becoe more steady and I think the can predict that over at lt the next several weeks we'e getting at least as much vaccine as we've been gettg d that makes it a lot easir to offer vaccine to our community.

Dr Young, we have a caller question.

This is from Vance in Allentown.

And he was asking he said e got he got a first dose ofe vaccine yesterday, took 600 milligrams of ibuprofen abt six hours beforehand.

He's asking if that will re the effectiveness of the vaccine at all.

So there is a theoretical u want to say risk.

I think there's a theoretil effect of antiinflammatory drugs like ibuprofen on on vaccine it efficacy.

I don't think it's going to play a major role in causig people's vaccines to fail.

So I can say when I had my vaccine, I didn't take ibuprofen beforehand.

I certainly took some afterwards because I had se side effects.

I think that if you don't d the medication, ideally you shouldn't take it.

But I don't think that the caller who has a question should worry that his vacce is not going to work.

I think that in all likeli, yes, I was just going to cr at up.

So it's better to take it afterwards than beforehand.

Is that the best advice the Gamma I think so.

OK, I just want to get baco how things are at LVA and e were asking those questiond you were answering them, It to ask about what the feelg iswhat the morale is like.

You know, in the beginningf this pandemic, it was real, really hard on the health e workers and throughout.

It has been really hard on health care worker care workers.

Nobody is more a more hopel than I'm sure you and your colleagues with the vaccin.

So how would you describe w you're all feeling at this point?

It's been that it's been an interesting year.

You know, a real roller coaster.

And I think what I sense is we're at one of those phass where, again, we're breathg some relief from the last g surge.

I think people are more optimistic because of the vaccine, but also because e seeing fewer cases right n. Again, I know it's going ua bit, but over the past few months there's certainly ba drop in cases.

So I think we're still feeg some of at.

Absolutely.

We thank you for everything that you and your colleagus have done throughout this.

It's not easy.

It doesn't look easy.

And we thank you for that.

I just have one more questn for you.

The governor is saying thae may make the vaccine open.

He might open the vaccine o all adults by May 1st and w out the phased approach.

What are your thoughts on t approach?

I have mixed feelings, as u might imagine.

As you mentioned earlier, e people who are suffering te most from this disease are older peoe and people with health problems.

And these were the people t were targeted very early ie vaccine rollout.

And at the same time, whenu look at where is Covid comg from, how is it circulatins more more young healthy pe, people who perhaps don't fl that they're at risk for hg serious consequences.

Now we do see some young pe who have no underlying heah problems who have come in critically ill.

But certainly the people wo are getting vaccine right w who are eligible for a vace right now are at the highet risk foretting getting sic.

The ideal situation, of co, is there's enough vaccine r everybody, number one.

And number two, that when e is enough vaccine for every that a large number, a lare proportion of people chooso get the vaccine.

So I do I would like to see vaccine more widely availae to larger groups of peopled perhaps even young healthy people.

I also think it needs to be done in a way that's fair d that that's a challenge.

Wonderful.

Dr Eric Young from Infectis Diseases and LVMH, thank yo much for joining us today.

And we continue this commuy update coronavirus on PBS.

39, you can hear the rebroadcast on the radio tonight at nine 30 on 91 3W Elvir.

Now let's bring in our next guest, Rossbach.

Morns family owned companys been churning out peeps for decades.

They're the nation's numbee non chocolate brand this te of year.

But they have not been imme to the pandemic.

An interruption in product.

It turns out there's a lot going on with peeps right , but let's back it up for a minute.

Mr Born Again, we are delid that you could join us tod.

Brittany, it's good being h you.

It's good to have you in.

Even though Just Born was deemed essential business,u decided to shut down the pt for several weeks last spr.

Let's talk about why did yo that and how did it affecte 2020 season?

Well, Brittany, what we did back a little bit over a yr ago is we heard all about e virus and we were concern d we didn't know what we didt know.

So rather than continuing h our production, we our focs making sure that our peopld we have 600 associates aree and healthy.

That's priority number one because if they're not safd healthy, then we can't maka product.

We can't be in business ane have amazing people.

So the decision actually ws quite easy.

We shut down.

We were the actually the largest thonly large confectionary company in te country to shut down and we shut down for six weeks and with the ramp down and wite ramp up, we lost a considee amount of capacity.

We reopened on May 4th.

Our people did a wonderful, wonderful job of figuring t during that six week periof time that we were shut doww to reconfigure our operati, manufacturing protocoln orr to opera safely and follow every CDC guideline.

And we're very, very proudf our people.

They did such a wonderful b and we thought it was goino take many months to get bak our to a production capaciy output that we had had prio the pandemic took us abouta week.

That's because of our can o attitude.

So I can't thank our people enough, our suppliers, our customers that work with u.

But we've had basically a y a wonderful a wonderful crf people that have not gotten sick for the most part.

And we've operated safely.

Sure, Ross, they're still Covid-19 restrictions set n place.

You're not back to fully business as usual.

From what I understand, ths still people who are workig remotely like yourself to e sure that everybody kind of social distances and nobodo needs to be there is in the building.

That's true.

I haven't actually been ine facility working during the time that people are workin the office for a year and a month since last Valentines Day.

That's 2020.

But you would ask a questin about how would it affecte?

We had to curtail some of r product lines, Halloween ad Christmas for peeps.

We chose not to run them ts past year and we eliminatea number of items because we wanted to make sure we were satisfying our cusmers nees for our key items.

And we decided that it was really in everyone's best interest to to curtail somf the some of the items that we're making.

And I want to get right bao that.

But before we do, I want to talk a little bit more abot the employees.

Were you able to take partn the Paycheck Protection Lon Program and what did you dr the employees who were laif during those few weeks earn the pandemic?

Well, when we shut down, te was nothing, nothing that e knew about PPE.

It wasn't around.

That wasn't even a consider when we shut down, we had decided and it was easy fos to decide we're a family business.

Weare about people.

Everybody was paid regardl.

And later on, a number of months later, we did manago apply for PPE.

But we had that had no beag on our decision to to pay r people.

Sure.

And along those same linesu know, making sure your peoe are taking care of voluntem and philanthropy, huge parf the business as well.

That culture there at Justn and I understand that you donated 100 thousand dollao the United Way for Covid-19 community response and that fund.

So can you talk to us about Why was that important to e that donation Gamma We've n part of the community since 1932.

Community is everything too our families.

That's the Shaffir family.

The Warren family and quite frankly, to all of our associates who live in the community and many people e outside the community.

But Bethlehem has been very supportive of our company r these many, many years.

We really appreciate everyg that's done.

We have wonderful organizations, agencies tht are caring for people who e not so fortunate and we're doing well and we anticipae that our community is goino take care of the people tht are not doing well and all we're just trying to do isp out.

We're trying to do our par.

Absolutely wonderful part r sure.

Now I want to get back to e candy, the good part.

The sweet part, right.

About 6 million marshmallow those were made in your fay e Covid.

e Covid.Are you back up tor yet?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

We've done quite a job ands because of our wonderful associates.

They've really done a job.

As I said before, can do attitude how we're going to it.

There wasn't one complaint about how we can't do something.

We figured out how we coulo it and I really admire our folks, everyone, and we've hired a lot of new people because we've had a lot of folks that have retired.

We have a lot of old timers that it was time for them o retire.

And we have just wonderful people.

I can't say enough about or folks.

Ross, would you be able to share with us any examplesf how production is differenw than it was, say, a year g?

We're more effective.

We're more efficient.

We figured out how to do ts that we probably should hae thought about a long time .

Where we're focusing a lote on maintaining our equipme.

We're we've taken much betr care of our customers of l. We're communicating more.

We have new systems that ae communicating when our customers ordering product, they're getting confirmatin they're getting their orden time.

And we were always a good company.

We're a better company tod.

We've decided that there ae things that we've done automation wise.

We have a lot of new equipt that we put on stream and e have a lot more equipment that's on order to make our product more effectively.

And we're making all our ps right here in Bethlehem.

It's very exciting and what we're doing is we're making sure that our people are operating safely, which mes not only with the Covid restrictions, but we're mag sure that we have equipment that is facilitating safe operation.

We've always done at.

We're enhancing our operats in a lot of different ways.

That's great to hear, especially because it's ben such a hard year for so may businesses.

And in addition, to that, u have some new things happeg at the plant to new flavor.

I want you to talk about te flavors, if you will, and o your teaming up with Pepsi.

So tell us about the flavos first and then we want to w about what's happening with Pepsi, what we have all kis of flavors.

Actually, I set up a little studio in the house here.

You see all the every one f that's all different there.

Duplications they are of course, we have our see tht commodity peeps.

They're they're great.

We have root beer.

We have lots of flavors.

In fact, many years ago whI was a kid just born was knn as the flavor wizards'.

That's what we were known r in our industry.

And there were many other y companies in those days ane were a small company.

Now we're the 10th largest candy company in the count.

But we really focus on flas and delivery of flavors and texture and color and fun, great packaging.

Look at these Mike and Ikew that's a great package.

We have these Mike Pence Mn McCain sour and then of co, I can't forget about our Filatov factory.

We have golden birch peanut chews.

They're pretty famous and e have a new package here.

But as far as the relation, a partnership that we haveh Pepsi, we have a lot of partnerships.

We have a lot of licensees.

43 of them actually a Pepsi came to us and how excitin, how fun.

And I want the viewers to w you can't buy the Pepsi ine stores.

All right?

They're not for sale.

You have to go to the webs, the Pepsi website, I guessd you have to enter a sweepstakes.

This is a very special offg that Pepsi decided that thy wanted to to do to have fuo add a little excite them to Easter and Easter spring.

It's colorful.

It's sweet,oyous time.

And there are a lot of peoe that are suffering.

And the good doctor talked about all the issues that e going on with the virus and boy, if we can bring some sweetness to people's eyesd that's what just born is al about, bringing sweetness o people's lives and if we co some of that, we're succes.

Sure.

And Ross, I just want to me sure we throw out there the hashtag that goes with thaw drink hashtag hanging withy peeps.

You put that on Instagram, Twitter.

So that seems like, I don't know, something.

I definitely want to take p of it and see what it tasts like.

It seems like an interestig one.

Sodium you haven't even trd to get.

Well, you have to check bak with us when you do.

with us when you do.One lau today.

Before we go.

Are all of the candies thau make back up and running te Halloween and the Christmas candies, will they be backs season?

Oh, yes.

In full force.

We have a beautiful new prm for Christmas and for Halln and we are very excited abt the prospects and we're aly selling.

And truth be told, we've already sold product for Er for next year.

Why Gamma Because Easter is selling so well this year.

We have some of our big customers that have alreadt their orders for next year.

That's exciting.

That is really exciting.

Rosewarne from just born in Bethlehem saved me some pet chews.

William Barr you got them .

Have a nice day.

Thanks so much for joining.

We want to thank our guestr being with us today and wet to thank you for joining ur community update on Coronas will be here at 4pm each Monday, Wednesday and Fridn PBS.

39 and on the radio at nin0 those same nights on VR Ne.

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