- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The jobs of tomorrow are not the jobs of yesterday.

- Look at this.

You get this?

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- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

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- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

Another important remote program.

Listen, we're talking all about this vaccine situation.

We're taping on the 2nd of February.

Things are changing quickly but no matter where you look the operation in Essex County, New Jersey, my home county is really being run very well.

And that's not by accident.

The County Executive of Essex County, Joe DiVincenzo joins us along with Maya Lordo who's the health officer of Essex County as well.

Maya and Joe, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you, Steve.

Thanks for having us.

- You got it.

Joe, listen.

Things are moving quickly.

And so this will be aired after, let's say next couple of weeks.

So let's not deal with this moment but here's the question.

How many vaccines could Essex County, New Jersey, the government, administer on a daily basis, if the supply were there, Joe?

- 25,000 a week.

25,000 a week.

- Is that seven days a week, Joe, five days a week?

- That's at six days a week.

All right.

If we want to, we could actually go 30,000 and go seven days a week.

Listen, if the supply is there we're going to make sure whatever it takes to get everybody vaccinated.

No matter how much time it takes we're gonna get it done quickly.

- Joe, it's not about pointing fingers or blaming, it's trying to understand.

For the average person whether in Essex, but they say they're in another county right now.

Is every county in New Jersey, all 21 counties.

Do they have their own operation or is it ultimately the state waiting for the feds?

And then whoever on the local government handles that, I know it's a complicated question but is every county handling it the way Essex is?

- Well, Maya could talk about that, but people ask me that all the time.

You know, here in Essex County we had no choice.

We had to start right away.

So we started this in October and we were very, very much prepared, why?

Because reference of our positive cases we have over 60,000 cases.

We lead the state in deaths.

Our unemployment is high.

Another problem we have is with foreclosures.

The other thing was insecurity of food.

So we have to get people vaccinated, we got to get kids back to school, and we got to get people back to work.

And as far as the other counties, I'm sure they're getting ready and they're moving forward and doing the right thing.

- So again, you'll see on the screen, February 2nd we're taping this.

This is part of our vaccine awareness.

What you need to know series.

We're doing it on every one of our platforms.

Maya, let me ask you this.

Specifically in Essex County, the minority population, my understanding is nationally and statewide.

What is it?

Just a few percentage of all the vaccines that have been administered are for African-American, or Latino Americans in Essex County?

How challenging is that situation, Maya?

A and B, what are we doing about it?

- Thank you, Steve.

So I think one of the biggest things is we've all been so busy planning and getting this rollout going that our next step needs to be an educational piece.

And I have to say thank you to the county executive for really spearheading that because we have met with the clergy here in Essex County.

We have been speaking with the mayors and also our local health officers have also been part of trying to integrate their community members.

But I think our next steps are really coming together as a community and really getting that public health piece out, getting exact information about the vaccine.

Some of the frequently asked questions that are kind of in people's heads that aren't always being answered.

And I think one of the biggest things is there is so much information that is out there and it's getting given to people from all different directions.

I think the next step from us as a county is to kind of go ahead and get a nice, good message together.

And are clear that everyone should go ahead and get that vaccine to save the lives of each other and their family members and the community.

- Let's do this team.

Hopefully the Essex County website has been up the entire time.

And if it's not, we'll put it up in post-production.

Joe, let me ask you this.

If someone was on the county website, I know we can't get into the weeds here, but if you go on the county website and you go on a state website.

Is the information consistent County Executive DiVincenzo, in terms of how you register.

Meaning if someone watching goes, well I went on the state, I can't get there.

Should I go on the county?

Where should people go, Joe?

Is it both sites?

- Listen, it's their choice first of all.

They can go on the state website.

But people that live in Essex County, of course I would like to see them go on the Essex County website.

As far as what's on the website it's very easy.

But we're constantly every night we have a conference call with my team and every day we're changing it to try to make it easier and easier for the public and stuff.

You know, it's work in progress here.

- You know, Joe, it's interesting.

We're gonna do a separate conversation with you as part of our Lessons in Leadership series.

Because for those that don't know before Joe was the county executive, before he was a freeholder.

Joe was a quarterback not only in college, you'd expect me to bring that up, Joe.

But also played a little ball beyond that as well.

Joe, being a quarterback/leader of this, how much of this comes down to leadership and logistics?

- Well, listen to me.

I was well-trained by your father, Steve Adubato Sr.

He was a mastermind.

I was with him for over 40 years and I've learned so much with him.

How to get things done.

And what I did is take it from the local level to the county level.

And the big thing is staying on top of it.

And it's not about yourself, it's about a team and that's what I assembled here in Essex County.

I assembled a great team for the last 18 years as far as providing services.

And this vaccination that we're doing right now, it's probably one of the toughest things I ever had to do because this is about life and death.

People been waiting for this for a while.

We wanna make sure that they're able to go back to their lives.

- Yeah.

Maya, let me ask you a health question.

The variants that are getting so much coverage and again taping on the second, we're gonna find out there are more cases, et cetera, et cetera of the variant.

So the Moderna vaccine is two shots.

The Pfizer vaccine, two shots.

Johnson and Johnson as we are doing this right now, not signed off on yet.

The variants does that mean there's a "booster involved."

I don't wanna complicate things, Maya.

But is there a booster involved as well?

- So currently right now Moderna's working on, so there's two variants that we're gonna talk about.

We have the UK variant, we have the African variant, and the Brazilian variant which are similar to one another.

Moderna right now is working on the UK variant.

It seems that all the research that I've been reading, the current Moderna vaccine is pretty good and well-established.

But again, this is brand new.

We do not have enough individuals that are kind of involved in these studies and also being followed.

So we don't know exactly.

So as far as the boosters are concerned Moderna is working on it.

Pfizer has not come out with anything as of yet.

As in currently, as you stated at this point, the J and J vaccine, the single dose is pretty, okay, with the UK variant as they state themselves.

But again, there's just not enough individuals that they can go ahead and determine that.

- Thank you.

My last question, Joe.

And by the way, check out Joe in our Lessons in Leadership program.

We'll do a program that I do in cooperation, my colleague and co-anchor Mary Gamba.

A separate conversation with the county executive on leadership.

But Joe, final question.

How would you describe the, quote, coordination between Essex County, the state, the federal government, as well as hospital systems in our region?

- Listen to me.

As far as the state, Governor Murphy, and their health commissioner, Judith Persichilli, been so good to us here in Essex County.

They helped us each and every day, anytime we run into a problem.

As far as the federal government we're not dealing with them directly, they're dealing directly with the state and then the state deals with us locally.

As far as Essex County, we have all the hospitals that are in Essex County involved and engaged.

RWJBarnabas is very big supporter of ours.

- University as well.

- The University UMDNJ, Beth Israel, Clara Maass.

You know, we're trying to engage everyone.

Besides that, we also have colleges that have been involved.

Montclair State, Seton Hall, Essex County community college, everybody's been supportive.

But why we're so successful is because the amount of volunteers that we have that wanna volunteer and participate in this program, you know, they wanna be part of the history.

They feel good about going out and helping us.

And we couldn't do this without the volunteers.

They are doing an outstanding job and I'm so much appreciative.

And I know our county residents are too.

- And finally let me just say that I've seen it firsthand.

It's exceptional, not only the level of coordination, but also the level of volunteerism.

'Cause you ask folks there, and they come from a lot of different places.

So to the County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, and to Maya Lordo, the health officer in Essex County.

Thank you for everything you're doing.

And our fingers crossed that more vaccines become available.

Thank you, Joe.

Thank you, Maya.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato, stay with us.

Vaccine awareness, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Folks, we are pleased to be joined by our good friend, Lilo Stainton, who is healthcare writer.

Check her out on NJ Spotlight News.

She's a regular contributor.

It's a great news operation.

Check out that broadcast as well as Metro Focus for the daily situation.

We're looking at the COVID situation, big picture on February 2nd.

So Lilo, let me ask you this.

Last time you were with us I said it again, moving target.

This will be seen three weeks from now, a month from now.

So while we don't know every detail, my question is this.

Overall, what the heck is wrong with the vaccine distribution?

Just a small question, Lilo.

Can we quote, blame it on one entity?

Or is it across the board?

- It's complicated, right?

I mean, I wish it was easier.

Trust me, I wish it was easier.

I hosted an event on this last week and there was no, you know, shortage of wrath from the viewers and commentators and I get it.

I get it.

The problem is, you know, you know as a person in the media, you're stuck in between.

You can only provide the answers that we're getting from public officials, right?

So what are public officials telling us?

Well, they're telling us, you know, they're doing their best to build this system.

It is, you know, slower rollout than they would like, it's slower rollout clearly than needs.

They built a new registration system.

That's part of the problem.

- They being, Lilo, they.

- I'm sorry, they being the state, they being the state.

And there're clearly like issues with, you know, sort of how they've done this or that and which groups they've chosen.

And you can quibble with that but there is also, you're absolutely right.

There is this sort of overarching issue of are we getting enough vaccines?

And the answer to date has been, no, we haven't.

I mean - As of now?

- Yeah.

- As of February 2nd.

So I'm gonna push that issue.

Sorry for interrupting Lilo.

If vaccine distribution, supply and distribution were multiplied by three or four meaning massive, massive amounts more would be available.

Grammatically I'm sure that wasn't right.

Question.

Would that by itself dramatically improve the vaccine distribution system?

- Well, it's funny that you say that because I talked to a number of people, including someone in the supply chain process last week, and they said you know, supply chain so far is going pretty well.

Vaccines are getting where they need to go.

We haven't heard too many issues about that.

But they said, yeah, well, wait till we scale this all up multiple, multiple times.

So I think there is a concern, you know, there was a concern at the beginning about a shortage of healthcare workers to actually give the shots.

You know, you think it's so easy but if you can't actually get the shot in someone's arm, if you don't have somebody licensed and available to do that - Excuse me Lilo, they knew it was coming.

When I say they, here's the thing.

Blaming is not only useless, it's counterproductive.

And frankly, petty.

Question.

If Warp Speed was working as well as it was and the anticipation was that it was happening, how could there be an issue with supply of healthcare workers to administer?

That's not making sense to me as a lay person.

- No, I agree with you.

And I think there's blame on both the federal and state.

So federally, we've had these shortages of healthcare workers for years, right?

But the state, you know, there's also blame on the state.

They did not appear to activate their volunteer system for this until after the vaccine rollout started, as far as I can tell.

Or at least they didn't make a public plea for help.

I mean, it seems to me that if they'd been planning this, they being the state, since March, you know, that would have been a box that was checked especially when that was something everybody knew was gonna be a problem.

But you know, same with the registration system.

You'd think they'd build a centralized system that is, you know, more efficient.

Things don't always work out as you can.

But of course, if you still don't have enough vaccines coming down from the feds, it's not going to work.

But the question is, your question is a good one.

Even if more come down, do we have the infrastructure to support that?

And I hate to say, but time will tell.

I mean, I'd like to say yes, but you know, it's a question of how quickly it scales up and can systems keep pace?

- And by the way, check out Lilo on a regular basis on NJ Spotlight News, with our anchor Brianna Vannozzi, who is absolutely the best with a terrific team.

The day-to-day situation, we'll report it there.

Let me ask you this Lilo.

African-American, Latino people.

I don't want to say numbers cause that's ridiculous.

We're dealing with people.

The percentages are way, the percentage is way too low of the vaccines administered as of today for those who are Black and Brown, what's going on?

- That's a question I pose to the state.

I hope to have an answer for you in a day or so and hopefully a story about it, but you know, or what they can do.

We know why it's going on, basically.

We know that there's concern in the communities about, you know, vaccines, about being guinea pigs.

There's historic reasons to believe that.

- The Tuskegee Experiment, et cetera.

- You cannot do this story without talking about Tuskegee.

Exactly, and that's totally legitimate.

Have, you know, the systems, the state and private systems done enough to try to reach out to them, to get Black and Brown communities, to make sure that there's a way that they can get easily vaccinated?

You know, that's kind of what we're trying to find out.

But the numbers are disturbing.

Remember this is also a disease that impacts, I just did the math.

You know, Hispanics.

26% of the cases are Hispanic individuals.

12% are Black individuals.

You know, Hispanics make up, you know, less than 20% of the population.

So you know, there's a huge disparity there.

Black folks are far more likely to die, you know, than their white counterparts as are Hispanics and you know, they're reasons for this, because of the jobs that they're likely to hold, because of the racism in the system, because of the housing.

I mean, so much of it comes back to not just race as someone said to me, but racism.

And I think we need honest about that.

- And by the way, a minute left, check out our ongoing series Confronting Racism to talk more about structural institutional racism particularly in healthcare.

Lilo, last question.

I've asked everyone, and again it's the 2nd of February as we're taping.

What is the message you believe should be delivered on the variants connected to the vaccines?

Go ahead.

- Don't panic, because it makes the vaccines all the more important but we have to remember that while they may be more virulent or possibly even more deadly, it's the same stuff we gotta do.

We gotta still wear the mask.

We gotta wash our hands.

We gotta social distance.

And we got to stay home when we're sick.

And you know, if I can leave people with that, unfortunately that's what we're going to have to be doing for some time.

So enjoy it, I guess, to the best of our ability.

- Well said, by the way, other than checking out NJ Spotlight News every day during the week, real quick the website for people to find out more about your writing and your colleagues with our great colleague, John Mooney, et cetera.

What is it?

- NJspotlightnews.org now.

- NJspotlightnews.org - All one.

Or Google us.

- Hey Lilo, thank you for everything you're doing every day.

You and your colleagues and the team at NJ Spotlight News.

I have no idea where we'd be, which is not great already, without that team.

Thank you, Lilo.

- Good luck.

Thank you, Steve.

- I'm Steve Adubato, stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We are honored to once again be joined by Dr. Ali Houshmand, who is President of Rowan University.

Good to see you doctor.

- Glad to see you as well as Steve.

Good to see you, happy new year.

- Yeah, same to you.

We're taping on the 2nd of February you can still say that.

It will be seen later and to disclose, Rowan is one of our higher ed partners.

Doc let me ask you, as we tape today, on the second it'll be seen later, as I said, Rowan is very involved in the vaccine distribution, the COVID vaccine distribution.

What has been your experience to date and why is it that a university is so actively involved in that plan?

- Well, to begin with we have the infrastructure and the personnel.

You obviously need individuals who are qualified to take care of the patients.

They're the people who come in for not only registration into the electronic data system, but also giving the vaccination and watching them for 15 minutes after the vaccination to make sure everything is okay.

You just cannot put any random person.

We have two medical schools between them.

We have well over 1200 students in these two medical schools.

And even if we get 10% of them volunteer you're talking about 120 individuals who are plenty capable to help.

And that's really what the country needs today.

The problem that we have, and you see, you hear it every day throughout the nation is that the most advanced country, the most strategically capable country with resources cannot get a handle of this thing.

And the reason is because of the failure of the logistics.

The pieces are there, they're just not interconnected.

And I think one thing that we have done here at Rowan is we have connected them.

And we have been very successful, really.

We are doing a great service.

People are coming in getting their vaccinations and going home and we are very happy.

That's really what we need to do for everybody.

- But I'm going to follow up on this because we spoke to Dr. Thomas Cavalieri, who was with us and it was a great interview.

Check out our website, steveadubato.org you can see that.

But I'm gonna ask Dr. Houshmand this because he also joined us on our sister program "Lessons in Leadership" and he and I talk leadership a lot.

So I gotta ask you doctor, forget about the clinical aspect of this, as a student and practitioner of leadership and logistics how frustrating is this for you and you and I were joking before we got on air.

We're not very patient people.

- No.

- How frustrating has this been for you?

- It's been hugely frustrating because the fact of the matter is Steve, we can do a lot better than that, we really can.

For example, the moment that the vaccination has started and I went and visited one of these mega sites over at the Rowan College of South Jersey.

and I looked at and counted the number of parking spots.

The distance that they had to walk from parking spot into the place where they get registration from there where they walk into a place where they have to get the injection.

And then, sitting somewhere to rest for 15 minutes, I found that the system is not put together in a scientific way so that they would very quickly, we would create bottleneck.

This is winter you do not want... the last thing you would want is people staying outside in the cold or we'll be forced to put them inside in a congested area with not enough airflow and get them infected.

So that logistical system is really easy.

In fact, that's what immediately I did.

I went to a virtual reality system, lab, you have been there, and I showed a simulation of that thing is a fascinating...

I wish... - Yes.

- I will send you actually...

I'm gonna send you a clip of it.

You're gonna be fascinated by seeing the human being walking in here, each of them color-coded, whether somebody is infected or not infected, how they get injected, how they get registration.

Everything is done and you can very quickly see the bottleneck is being created.

And then we tell people, if you change certain parameters, for example, increase the number of registration or shorten the distance from parking to the registration, all of this, suddenly the system work better.

So we have put this thing together, made it available.

We would like to make it available to the rest of the state and the country.

And this is a fascinating simulation model.

It applies to any system and people can use it.

And that's really what I did.

I said, "What is the opportunity?

What can I do as a person who understands operations research and logistics, how do I help?

Immediately went to that solution.

And I think there are thousands of individuals and universities in this country who can do likewise.

This is not the rocket science.

This is not a difficult problem but it's one that really we need to do right now.

Because the sooner we get people, 80% or so of people injected, - Vaccinated, right.

- And give the immunity the sooner we can get back to some sort of normal.

So, and by the way and I've been to the laboratory that Dr. Houshmand talks about.

The simulation's extraordinary about a whole range of things.

So, this has been said to me many times doctor and it's not about blaming, it's not about pointing fingers but here's the thing, "Steve, you don't understand.

Quote, it's complicated."

I'm sure it is, but Dr. Houshmand do you believe it's as complicated?

You just said it's not rocket scientist.

Okay, let's assume there was way more vaccine that's being developed as we speak right now on February 2nd, that doesn't solve the problem by itself because logistics details matter.

Go ahead, doctor.

- I don't think it is that complicated.

The order that the President Biden issued today using pharmacies to do vaccination is a wonderful thing.

All we need, to use every resources.

One of the resources are, there are 4,000 universities in here.

Use every single one of them.

They have nursing programs, they have allied health program.

Chances are that both medical school programs.

And they have other experts in sciences who really can be quickly trained or they're probably all trained.

And they have the infrastructure, they have parking, they have big facilities, use these places.

And the key to the... of course have enough vaccines.

Well, that's what we need to do, because relying on mega or big center, these are not gonna cut it.

There are people who are gonna have a very very hard time to get a cab or to have a car to drive to one of these centers.

We need to find every which way we can to reach to as many people as possible, as soon as possible.

And it's not really that complicated.

Leadership and logistics, you just got a taste of what Dr. Houshmand was talking about.

I'm gonna talk to him more on our "Lessons in Leadership" program as well but for this edition, I wanna thank you, Doctor, (throat clearing) Excuse me, and all of your colleagues down at Rowan for everything you're doing every day.

And let's just agree that when it comes to people like you, like me, patience is not our greatest virtue.

(chuckles) - No it's not.

- Thank you, Dr. Houshmand.

I'm Steve Adubato, that's Ali Houshmand from Rowan.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

The North Ward Center.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

Investors Bank.

NJ Best.

And by Fedway Associates, Inc.

Promotional support provided by BestofNJ.com, And by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

(Music playing) NJM Insurance Company has been serving New Jersey policy holders for more than 100 years.

But just who are NJM's policy holders?

They're the men and women who teach our children.

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And New Jersey's next generation of leaders.

The people who make our state a great place to call home.

NJM, we've got New Jersey covered.