Hello and welcome to PBS39 in WLVT community on Coronavirus it's presented by Capital Blue Cross and brought to you with help from our community partner Lehigh Valley Health Network.

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

I'm Brittany Sweeney.

Our guests today include the chief of Infectious Diseases at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

Also with us is one of the top administrators in the Allentown School District where students just came back to the classroom.

Our guest will join us in just a couple of minutes.

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

The phone number is 484 or eight two one zero zero zero eight.

We'll answer some of your questions live for coronavirus 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 in English and Spanish there.

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

Pennsylvania is lifting all Covid-19 restrictions except it's masking order on Memorial Day.

Governor Tom Wolf made the announcement yesterday capacity restrictions on bars, restaurants and indoor and outdoor gatherings will go away just after midnight on Monday, May 30.

First, more than 14 months into the pandemic, Wolf said the order on wearing masks will be lifted once 70% of people aged 18 and up are fully vaccinated today.

Muhlenberg College became the latest in the Lehigh Valley to require vaccinations for students returning to campus for the fall semester.

Lehigh University announced the same last month.

Meanwhile, other schools such DeSales University have said they will encourage students to get vaccinated but they will not require it to sail.

Says it's in keeping with the university's core value of gentleness.

Today, Lehigh Valley Health Network will begin accepting walk ins without an appointment at all of its Covid-19 vaccine locations.

It applies to everyone 16 and older.

Anyone under 18 will need to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.

The Pfizer vaccine will be administered.

LVHN is also planning another mass drive through event at Dorney Park, though appointments are required for that one to Moderna site.

It will be held from eight am to four pm next Wednesday, May 12.

And finally, the State Department of Human Services has set up a vaccine hotline for people with intellectual disabilities or autism and their caregivers.

The vaccinations are being scheduled with Rite Aid.

You can find appointments through the hotline and arrange transportation or accommodations.

The number is one 804 two four four three four five.

That hotline is operated from seven am to seven pm Monday through Friday.

The phone number again is 800 for two four four three four, five.

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

Dr Mark Knouse is an infectious disease specialist and leader of the Infectious Diseases Department at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

Also with us is Brandi Sawyer, executive director for Secondary Education and Alternative Programing in the Allentown School District.

Thank you both so much for joining Miss Sawyer.

We are going to have you join us in just a couple of minutes.

We're going to begin today with Dr Kenhorst.

Great to have you again.

Good to be here.

Thank you, Doctor.

Governor Tom Wolf made headlines and brought us a big step closer to normalcy yesterday when he announced Pennsylvanians Covid-19 restrictions will be lifted on Memorial Day.

Now masks will still be required, but business like restaurants and bars, they'll have no more limits.

This is 14 months in.

Let's ask and start here.

What's your thoughts on all of this?

Is this the right move at the right time?

Well, certainly at some point we have to make that move.

I think people and the general public are getting very frustrated and fatigued with this pandemic and that's worldwide.

So that will if it's not lifted to an extent that could backfire and create more problems.

I believe that have downstream consequences.

So, you know, as long as we keep the push to appropriate masking and distancing within the context of the lifted restrictions and continue to strongly encourage vaccination, I think it could go well.

And there is new CDC guidance as well for those that are fully vaccinated.

So I think in the right setting it may be a beneficial thing to do, especially as the weather warms and people can separate and at less likely transmit outdoors.

Sure.

I also wanted to talk about that 70% of people vaccinated across the state in order to get rid of that mask mandate.

Do you see that happening?

Oh, boy, I hope so.

It's a challenge, you know that still 70% is sort of the lower And that's an estimate that varies could depend a lot on transmission variance.

But I think we're inching closer and in some populations we're 70%.

But statewide it's going to depend on getting the adolescents immunized and encouraging those.

And having gone through the first few rounds to get their vaccines to hit that threshold, I think it's going to take effort.

Sure.

And I did want to mention, as you just said, certain areas could reach 70% before other You know, rural parts of the area of the state may not reach that.

Is it kind of a blanket for the entire state or say we reached that here in Lehigh Valley?

Do you see that mask mandate ending in certain regions or just across the state as a whole?

I believe it's a statewide, but I'm not sure what they actually will implement.

Know in some sense it could be regionalized Lehigh County has done a very good job with vaccine rollout in terms of percentage take.

As you said, it's not true everywhere.

So I think as we inch closer, hopefully they'll reassess and see how to implement that.

So it makes sense for everybody.

Sure.

And as you just mentioned, that 70% threshold is kind of a low end for herd immunity.

So what happens if we don't reach herd immunity?

What's the next approach we can take?

Well, part of the equation, too, includes natural infection.

So we may have 10, 20% people.

The population may have been infected whether they knew it or not.

So technically it actually builds up that herd immunity as well.

So if you got 70% vaccinated and we don't have a super problem with variants, I suspect that's probably more in the 80% range due to some residual natural immunity as well.

Sure.

And when it comes to vaccines, whether we have herd immunity or not, do you think they're still the best defense against fighting this pandemic and getting through it either either sooner or later Gamma Absolutely.

It's the best defense.

It's the major science.

It has been through the ages for numerous disease.

And so it will hopefully then.

Sure.

And as children are getting vaccinated as right now 16 and older and on the table is the possibility of maybe 12 and older soon being able to get vaccinated.

What do you think for the next school year?

Do we think that this is going it impact the next school year?

Will enough students be getting vaccinated as we head into that new year?

My hope is that is true and I Pfizer currently running studies in two different age cohorts and Youngsville children and the children that adolescent market 12.

So we hopefully will have that answer.

And depending when they submit to FDA that could roll out through any way as early as the fall, hopefully we'll see.

And if there's another surge like we saw when vaccines first rolled out here across the Lehigh Valley, if there's another surge, LVHN be able to handle that.

Get getting kids 12 and older vaccinated, we'll be able to handle as long as the vaccines have emergency use, we'll be able to handle it.

Now we're doing thousands a day.

We have the capability to vaccinate and have in the past and will in the future.

We have multiple sites I don't see that is I just see getting it through hopefully in time.

So our colleagues in the school districts will have a significant number that their students vaccinated.

And I wanted to talk not just about vaccines today, but also about what's happening in the hospitals right now.

Can you give us a snapshot of what's going on?

I know you're on the floor day in and day out.

What are you seeing right now in terms of hospitalized patients and infections?

So we're still seeing patients hospitalized and unfortunately, still seeing patients who had opportunity to be vaccinated.

And unfortunately, those some of those people came in very sick and almost on ventilators, on ventilators.

So it's a tragedy when I see that in personally the numbers overall across the country here and in Pennsylvania unfortunately improve.

We since that winter PPE we've come down quite a bit.

As you know, we've sort of hit this plateau some call to swell, but it's there, it's real and is sort of inching up.

But the last couple of days it looks better.

It looks like some good news, maybe hospitalizations down and a number of new tests positive for positive seem to be trending the right way.

So always with some fingers crossed there.

But I'm optimistic.

But we're still seeing cases every day Dr Knouse.

We do have a viewer question for you.

This viewer says he recently had Covid and is asking if he still needs to wait the 90 days to get the Covid-19 vaccine or can he go right away and get it Gamma It won't hurt to get it sooner.

It's in first when vaccines all that we were suggesting a waiting period in part due to shortage of immunization and understanding that having Covid will create some immunity.

You know, 90 days is a rough ballpark for that.

But I think it's not an absolute certainly after a ten day isolation and general overall significant improvement, there's still reason to say wait a bit, but 90 days is not absolute.

So if there's reasons or availability that it suits well, it could be moved out of that.

Sure.

So if they just had it and they go to a clinic about a week, they can get the vaccine.

No problem.

Take a week is too short.

I say nine weeks too short, two weeks probably too short because we have to make sure those patients don't come in shedding virus.

So that's the main concern.

And there's still that ten day isolation rule after symptom onset.

So I think that several weeks minimum but 90 days doesn't have to be exactly Dondi.

All right, Dr Mark Knouse, thank you for answering that.

I also wanted to ask a little bit about when we will know if there's any answers yet to has to how long we are protected under these vaccines.

We get them now.

Do we know yet if we're going to need a booster in the fall if it's one and done that kind of thing?

Any answers yet?

No definite answers.

My opinion has always been we will likely need booster doses.

The fall is against we had Pfizer data for six months.

There's still 90% effectiveness which is outstanding and many people are rolling up to six months in a few weeks or so potentially.

So those studies are still ongoing.

So Moderna Pfizer they're still carrying patients in these trials to determine when the antibodies might fall below a critical level and then hopefully have a booster with or without variants substrate to immunize with.

As I mentioned in the headlines at the top, the show, many colleges and universities requiring vaccinations for the fall.

Other schools saying they encourage it but won't require it.

From a medical standpoint, what would you say?

What would you advise these schools Gamma That's a challenging question.

Because I want to say that if the schools themselves, each school I'm sure is very unique, each school system and things that I don't understand, I think the science behind the immunization is very strong in terms of reducing disease, reducing transmission to a lot of people.

So the data is there.

I, I don't know of the medical teams necessarily dictating what happens within schools to to be honest, I think we'd love to consult and make recommenations on individual basis, but have a blanket statement for everyone.

I, I have all my kids vaccinated.

They're out of the primary school system, but I'm a strong personal believer, obviously Dr Knouse wondering if you can shed some light on the ethical considerations in the medical world, giving vaccines to low risk populations like children while other high risk populations in the world are being widely infected by coronaviruses.

They're kind of a dilemma there right now.

It's sounds like on paper.

Yes, but I'm not sure there is a line in my mind, at least in the US, I think there's a reason to target younger individuals.

They often act as carriers of the virus and several sites that a lot of the carriage of and transmission runs through younger age groups.

Although the older and higher risk are more vulnerable, the younger individuals can serve as transmission vectors, if you will, to so so it's important to get those individuals, I believe, vaccinated.

Dr Mark Knouse and back to those vaccines talking a little bit more about that.

So many people skeptical at this point.

It seems like those who wanted to get it got it.

And then the other half of the population, they're kind of skeptical about this.

And is there reason to believe that because we may not reach herd immunity, many people are saying, you know what, if we're not going to return immunity, why should I get vaccinated?

Are you hearing that at all?

And what do you say to those folks?

one on one.

We do this in our meetings.

We have we call vaccine hesitancy and a blanket term as to what's going on with why 20% of educated people don't feel a need to get vaccinated despite the excellent scientific data.

And there's a lot of reasons some of it has to do with fear of side effects.

No one reason, no.

Two reason is they felt it was Rush.

I can tell you the trials were very solidly done.

I don't feel there were steps at all and it really has to do with education, I think.

And reach out to those high risk vulnerable groups, those that sort of separate from mainstream medicine don't have good internet capability cars.

We've got to get and we're trying hard here Lehigh Valley really reach out.

That was very vulnerable groups to get us as close as we can.

And as a doctor, of course, I'm sure you're doing that every single day.

What about the average person?

What can they do to encourage their friends and family Gamma Any advice for them to get vaccinated Gamma I think they would say, you know, I got it because I want to feel safe around my friends and family.

And I think you have a right as a citizen to say, you know, I'm not so sure I want unvaccinated people around me.

I worry about our health and this is a serious virus and still is.

And I make no mistake, even though the numbers are down quite a bit, it's a serious virus.

So I think they can be strong advocates.

They did well, the Sinopharm were transient, went away and rest assured that most of those people will never get Covid chief of infectious diseases at Lehigh Valley Health Network.

Dr Mark Knouse, thank you so much for joining us once again today.

Thank you.

And we continue this community update on coronavirus PBS39.

You can hear the rebroadcast on the radio tonight at nine 30 on 91 3W Lev Parnas.

Let's bring in our next guest now.

Brandy Soyer leads secondary education and alternative programing in the Allentown School district.

The district serves 18,000 students and they just started coming back to the classroom for the first time this school year.

Miss Sawyer, thank you so much for joining us.

Today.

Thank you for having me.

And let's start their kids back in the classroom.

What's it been like to have teachers and students finally back Gamma I tell you, it has been it has been a really, really enjoyable time getting back in the buildings, having kids back and just you seeing their faces and they really enjoy being back in the building, seeing their teachers and just being there.

I think a lot of it is just missing the regularity of being in school and being with their teachers.

Some normalcy absolute normalcy is, I think, what we're all striving for at this point, especially the children.

So what went into the considerations that went into overcome to get kids back into the classroom?

What did you have to do to prepare for that?

So like most districts, I think Allentown faced a number of challenges when planning to return to in person one of the biggest challenges that we face was the age of some of our buildings.

We had a lot of time to plan very strategically and ensure that our buildings were able to open safely.

We had to plan to upgrade airflow systems, HVAC systems, air filtering in our buildings, ensure we had hand sanitizers installed in every all of our AZ classrooms at the school levels.

Our teams worked very, very diligently to make sure that all of our entrances and hallways had plenty visible signage to remind students to wear masks, stay socially distance and not congregate in areas around the building where normally they would congregate or socialize in those areas we had to rethink a lot of things about transportation, cafeteria layouts, how they ate lunch, how they arrived to our buildings, how they were dismissed, the flow of traffic in these places, hallway dismissals and just to make sure that in all of those places they were following CDC guidelines and to make sure that our students, staff and our entire community was able to stay as safe as possible.

We worked with our teachers to outfit our classrooms with technology packages, providing professional development, allowing them to be successful in the hybrid model, which is was a huge undertaking going from a district that was not one to one to a district that was now one to one and allowing all of our teachers to embrace the hybrid model, teaching students virtually at home and in the classroom at the same time, and then keeping our community informed of every step of the process along the way.

So it was a huge undertaking, but every ounce of everything that we that we did had every everybody involved in the process.

Sure.

And for a lot of people, this was the first time back in school since last March, more than a year ago.

There's also this problem of a gap or concern about a gap in learning about just in person is not in person is better and virtual is just not the same as that in-person learning experience can you talk about that?

What the students are facing right now in terms of where they should be in the learning process?

As to where they are because of this pandemic Gamma So I mean, the pandemic has caused a lot of I mean, a lot of gaps and it's not just because of the pandemic.

It's a natural a natural loss that now the pandemic has caused to be a little bit larger werf focusing on addressing learning loss.

We have grant funding that's address that learning loss.

We are working on planning a targeted summer program for students that have fallen behind academically and also fallen behind, just engaging students re engaging students in the fun of learning.

We're in the process of finalizing those plans and communicating that out with families in the coming weeks.

What are you seeing that gap across the board throughout all families or is there a specif group that you're seeing that it's been worse for some over others age group wise Gamma I believe the gap exists across the board.

I've talked to AP teachers and they see the gap existing and in AP classes with AP students as well as students that are underachieve.

So I do believe that gap exists in all different forms, in all different ways.

Sure.

And of course there's a psychological toll here as well.

Is the district offering anything in terms of mental health help when it comes to both students and families?

This has taken a big toll on all of our mental health, especially children.

It's definitely taken a toll on everyone's mental health.

We have a team of very highly qualified counselors at every school that work to provide mental health support.

They work both with our in-person and our online learners to best meet the socio emotional needs of our students.

And we know that there are the needs to address a lot of what's happened in the last year and we're just working to build the excitement of being back in the classroom and build our spirits up and to bring our teams together of being back in the buildings.

And we have a lot of supports that have over the course of the year.

We have a lot of supports that are built into the system from a lot of different entities around the city that are helping us to fill the gaps.

And then in addition to summer learning academically, we also have supports that we're building in to help social emotional needs as well for summer learning.

Brandy, I know that this pandemic has been step by step get a little bit at a time.

But any prospects or hopes for next school year?

Are we thinking that kids will be in person?

Do you think it'll still be a hybrid with virtual learning and in person?

Can you tell us anything about the 2021 2022 school year Gamma So right now we are so looking forward in the immediate future to graduation.

We are very excited to be able to celebrate our seniors this year with an outdoor graduation ceremony at J&J, Bernie Krumm for all of our three ASD high schools.

We just announced those ceremonies and socially dist.

Following CDC guidelines.

So we're very excited about that.

But moving past the pandemic and addressing the impact of what's happened, we haven't passed this summer learning.

We have not really announced any concrete plans for the fall at this time.

We're continuing to work with our pandemic planning team to to determine what's best for our students.

Students moving best, moving into the fall.

All right.

Thank you for answering that one.

And as we wind down here, I wanted to ask about vaccines when it comes to students, there has been talk that maybe a vaccine will be approved for 12 to 15-year-olds and in the next few weeks with the Allentown school district ever require your students to have that vaccination in order to come back to school to in-person learning Gamma So we haven't discussed we require the regular CDC guideline, the PPE guidelines required vaccines.

So we haven't discussed any requiring vaccines or anything like that.

It's just the required the normal required vaccines at this point.

So there hasn't been any discussions past that.

Sure.

And like I said, before, everything in this pandemic has been step by step a little bit at a time.

So I can understand Randy Sawyer from the Allentown School District, thank you so much for joining us.

Today.

Thank you so much for having me.

We want to thank our guests for being with us today.

We also want to thank you for joining us for community update on Korona.

Virus will be here at four o'clock PM each Monday, Wednesday and Friday on PBS39 and on the radio at nine 30 those same nights on WLVT News.

We'll be back Friday at four to discuss senior issues with the director of AARP, Pa..

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

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PB's 39 in WLVT news, I'm Brittany Sweeney stay safe.