- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

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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?

- Life without dance is boring.

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

- Do you enjoy talking politics?

- No.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

- Our culture, I don't think has ever been tested in the way it's being tested right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato and welcome to a very special segment connected to the COVID vaccine.

What you need to know, that is the name of this segment.

We're thrilled to be joined by Mike Maron, President and CEO of Holy Name Medical Center, and also Dr. Adam Jarrett, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President at Holy Name.

Good to see you gentlemen.

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Mike, we're taping on the 13th of January to be seen later.

For those who want to check out what's going on every day, check out and NJ Spotlight News and MetroFocus for that.

Mike, biggest lessons we've learned so far from your perspective about vaccine distribution.

- Well, it's a very complex process.

So most people are familiar with the flu vaccine and how we roll that out.

This one is very, very different.

So the logistics and the complexities behind, a deep freeze vaccine that needs to be thawed then diluted, and then not wasted and has very limited, once it's diluted and vaccine ready, it only has a six hour shelf life.

So there's logistic issues.

And then the emotion and the demand around it is just off the charts.

So all of that has really necessitated discipline for us here because we write our own software to write software, to facilitate registration, scheduling, communication and follow-up.

That's essential.

- By the way, let's do this.

Let's put up the CDC website, then the New Jersey COVID website, and also a Holy Name website so people can find out more if we can, Nicole, okay?

Dr. Jarrett, let me ask you, taping on the 13th.

Say this is seen on February 13th or on March 13th, so many variables, so many factors we don't know.

However, where do you believe vaccine resistance will be at that time?

Make a prediction.

Mike said demand is strong but so is resistance in certain pockets.

Go ahead, doctor.

- So you raise a good point Steve and I do think we need to reassure the public that the vaccine is very safe, that we are already well into giving vaccines here at Holy Name and around the country.

And we are not seeing significant reactions.

People need to rest assured this vaccine is very safe.

And when you compare it to the risk of COVID-19 and the fact that we continue to see deaths in tremendous numbers throughout the country, it's not even a close comparison in terms of how safe this vaccine is.

I hope the American people hear that and I hope they understand that we finally have some light at the end of the tunnel.

We can see a summer ahead of us, or certainly a fall ahead of us, where COVID is not wiped out, unfortunately, but we are no longer in this pandemic situation where we can take our masks off, where we can go to restaurants, where we can travel, where people can go back to work.

That's where we're headed if everyone takes their vaccine.

So, Mike, let me ask you on the resistance end, I'll ask the same question to Dr. Jarrett.

Resistance on the part of frontline healthcare workers, as we're doing this program, I've seen some numbers.

You know, 40, 50% of frontline healthcare workers resistant.

I don't know if that's accurate.

A, do you believe it's accurate?

B, again, see a month, two months from now, do you also believe that will change as there are not reactions to the vaccine?

Mike?

- Yes.

And I think Steve, very, very important to really sort of reclassify that.

Not so much as resistant, as uncertain.

- So what's the difference, Mike?

- Well the difference is that people are concerned.

It's very new science.

We've never developed a vaccine this way.

It's first time ever.

There's no doubt it's on a fast track.

And so the Emergency Use Authorization that we're using to administer this drug, we have to have people sign consents.

Basically this is still an experiment from an FDA overall, how normal processes for drugs to get roll out to market.

This is very fast paced.

So I get the people's hesitation but as Dr. Jarrett said, right?

The risk of the virus is far greater than the risk of the vaccine.

And I said to someone earlier this morning, if you came and saw all the 50 year olds on ventilators right now at Holy Name, you would think twice and then say I'll take the vaccine before I ended up like that.

- You know, Dr. Jarrett, as we listen to Mike, and we've had several conversations with him from the beginning and we can disclose that, Mike you had COVID when, again?

Put that in perspective?

- In middle March.

March 17th, actually.

- Again, 2020.

To be clear.

- Correct.

Yes.

- So, so Adam, let me ask you, Dr. Jarrett let me ask you, as it relates to this other strain, and again, we don't know how things are going to play out the 13th of January.

This other strain of COVID, to what degree does it concern you, A, and B, what assurance can you give people that the vaccines that are out there and the ones that will be out there will deal with this other strain of COVID?

- I think your audience needs to understand that viruses are mutating regularly.

It is not something that we are surprised when it happens.

In fact, we'd almost be surprised if it didn't happen and it is why we need to do a different flu shot every year because the flu virus changes.

But in the amount of time that the COVID virus had changed it is extremely unlikely that the vaccine is not going to be effective.

It does tell us that we may need to think in the future that we may need to do a every couple of year COVID vaccine that may need to change based on the fact that the virus is changing but all good evidence today tells us that although there is a new strain out there that is likely more infectious, but thank goodness, not more lethal, the vaccine should protect us.

- Got it.

Let me disclose that Holy Name is in fact, one of the healthcare organizations that underwrite our healthcare programming.

Mike, I'm curious about something.

I've asked you this before but it was about six months ago when I asked you it the last time.

How do you believe COVID will impact hospitals and what hospitals look like, and how they serve people moving forward?

- Well, I think the silver lining, if there is one in all of this Steve, is it forced the hospitals to re-examine how we engage with our communities.

Telemedicine is now big, the rollout, the scheduling, the communication that's around these vaccines.

These are all infrastructure that will now be applied going forward in a whole host of activities.

It doesn't have to be limited to COVID-19 vaccine.

And shouldn't be.

And so I think ultimately it is going to enhance and accelerate the connectivity between health care providers, like Holy Name and the communities that we're here to serve.

- Dr. Jarrett, the role of public health.

How do you believe the role of public health entities, CDC on the federal level, and then state, county, et cetera, municipal, how do you believe the role of public health will change in the face of COVID moving forward?

- Well, I think this pandemic has showed us that we have work to do on the public health side.

I am not so sure as a society that we have put the type of investment into public health that we need to.

We do a pretty good job investing in acute care.

I'm not so sure we do as good a job investing in public health.

And although we need acute care to take care of patients who have COVID-19, I think some of the reasons we did not do as well with this pandemic and maybe we're struggling a little bit with getting out the vaccine as compared to countries like Israel, is because we don't and we haven't invested in the public health infrastructure.

And that's extremely important because we're going to have another pandemic maybe not in our lifetime, or maybe in our lifetime, but this is not going to be the end of the human race fighting these types of viruses.

We need to be better prepared.

- Mike, last question.

Impact long-term COVID 19 on the frontline healthcare workers at your place but also in hospitals across this nation.

- So it's going to be mixed.

We have those who are suffering burnout and post-traumatic stress from all the illness and the deaths that they've seen as a result of this virus.

That's giving people pause and concern.

But I will tell you on the flip side, the heroic efforts that people have done, and the notoriety that's come with it has spawned a whole new interest in people coming back into the industry, coming back into nursing.

We're hoping as we open up graduate medical education here, more people wanting to get back into being physicians and participants in medicine.

We see that as well.

And so it has all the potential if we don't mess it up, to really, really nurture and encourage the best and the brightest in our communities and in society to come back and join healthcare.

- Hmm.

Thank you, Mike.

But also a special thanks to Dr. Jarrett.

Not just for being someone we're learning from every day and again, check him out, he's been on the NJ Spotlight News so many times along with Mike and other healthcare professionals, but on behalf of all the frontline healthcare workers, it may sound like a cliche, but it's not.

You're all heroes.

And thank you for everything that you and your colleagues have done Dr. Jarrett.

Thank you, Dr. Jarrett.

Thank you, Mike.

- You're welcome, Steve.

Thank you.

- Steve, stay well.

Take care.

- Same to you.

- I'm Steve Adubato, 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're now joined by two very prominent healthcare leaders in the State.

Eva Turbiner is President and CEO of Zufall Health Center.

And Joan Quigley is President and CEO of North Hudson Community Action Corporation and a former member of the State Legislature.

I wanna thank both of you for joining us.

Joan, let me start with you.

Both of you are FQHC's Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers, correct?

- That's correct.

- What is the role of a Federally Qualified Healthcare Center as we tape this program on the 13th of January, moving forward as it relates to vaccine distribution and educating people?

- Well, for the last eight to 10 months we've been testing people and fighting an awful lot with COVID.

So now thank God we have the vaccines, we are ready to vaccinate people.

We started in the very beginning two weeks ago with healthcare workers.

Now we're doing cops and firemen and thank God the governor declared today that we can now do senior citizens and people with co-morbidities.

We have the vaccines, we have the staff, we're ready to go.

- So Eva, as Joan lays this out again this will be seen in later January, February into March.

Where would we need to be in your opinion?

I just asked Commissioner Persichilli the same question.

Say, it's April 1st, where should we be as it relates to vaccine distribution, in your opinion?

- Well, we're hoping that we can be well-through the seniors well-through the folks who live in congregate settings which means the homeless shelters and some of the public housing situations.

We are hoping by April, we can get through a large portion of folks.

But I think, to your question about FQHCs our role is not necessarily to do the general public.

Our role is to focus on people who are typically underserved and typically at the end of the line for things like vaccines.

So I think it's our goal certainly for Zufall and I assume for most of the health centers, to make sure that the 600,000 people that we care for every year are getting access to the vaccines in a timely basis.

- Well said, Joan let me ask you this, underserved community, disproportionally Black and Brown.

To the black and Hispanic community, and there are pockets of resistance to the vaccine everywhere, but there are certain specific, unique challenges in these communities.

What is the message that you would share with African-Americans, Hispanics, Hispanic-Americans who have questions about this vaccine, because of the accurate historical taking advantage of if you will, of minority communities by the government as it relates to healthcare and vaccines?

- I think we have an obligation to get ourselves vaccinated first and to serve as role models for them.

And then it's gonna take time, it's gonna take trust Steve, because when they see that their neighbors and their friends are vaccinated, they're healthier, very few have any side effects, then they're gonna believe, and that's when we're gonna get the rush of all those people who want us to vaccinate them.

And we're ready to do that.

They trust us now with their overall health, they can certainly trust us to protect them against COVID.

- Eva, jump in on that, because it's one thing to say this is where we are on January 13th.

But my hope and prayer is that as more people get vaccinated and the side effects are not what people fear those side effects will be, that the resistance will subside significantly Eva you say?

- Yes, I agree.

I think that we see it among our staff.

Initially, only about 1/2 the staff seem willing to take the vaccine.

As they've watched their colleagues come through they're more and more stepping up to get their vaccinations.

And we are putting that message out in the community.

So we do believe that people are not necessarily anti-vaccination.

They just wanted to wait a little while and see how the first ones of us did.

And we have in particular made sure that our physician leaders and our staff who are mainly people of color who come from the communities that we serve, we make sure that they were visibly wearing their pins, that said, "I got COVID vaccine," so that they could discuss their experience with everyone else.

- Well said.

Joan, let me ask you, six months from when we do this program three to six months, will masks in your opinion, wearing our face mask, will in fact, in your opinion, will it still be a significant part of our lives?

- I think it will be for a while until we reached that herd immunity point.

I am so sick of masks, but I have a whole array of pretty of them.

And I think many people do.

So I think we'll be wearing them, we'll get used to it.

I'm worried about some of the younger people lacking trust in the vaccines.

They're worried about fertility.

They want to see a year from now whether or not there's that kind of side effect.

- We'll talk about that, because I actually had a friend they have daughters who are thinking about wanting to have children at some point.

And our friend, a very close friend said, "Well, no way I'm letting my daughter do that, because I think there's an effect, it's potentially we don't know if it has an impact on fertility."

First Joan, do we know that it does not or does, what do we know?

- We don't know enough to be absolutely certain.

There've been no reports of that kind of effect.

But then again, the vaccines have only been given out for a short period of time.

So we're gonna have to check and make sure over time that there is no such problem.

- Got it.

By the way, I want to make it clear, our producers are putting in our chat that both of you are board members of the New Jersey Primary Care Association, a very important healthcare association.

Let me ask you this.

Yeah, Eva, let me ask you this, Joan made a great point in the time we have left that it's only been a certain period of time.

Yes, yes, you can call it "Warp Speed".

And yes, we're thrilled that the vaccine is out, but as Joan said, we don't know longer term.

What do you say to folks who say, "Yeah, I haven't seen any negative reactions but we don't know long-term."

What do you say to those folks Eva?

- Well, I think these particular vaccines are relatively new.

The technology that they are based on has been out for quite some time.

And so, we do believe that these vaccines are safe and they've been shown to be effective.

So we are certainly heavily promoting them.

And I would like to make a mention about masks.

They have been effective against COVID, but also, we're seeing virtually no flu this year in New Jersey.

And I'm absolutely positive, it is because we are all wearing masks, we are all socially distanced, we are all washing our hands and the impact it has had on other contagious diseases is really quite remarkable.

This year, just no flu whatsoever.

- Let's not take that for granted.

Eva Turbiner, Turbiner excuse me, and Joan Quigley, I wanna thank you so much for joining us and the work that you're doing every day is clearly making a difference particularly in underserved communities.

Thank you both very much.

Stay safe and be well, thank you.

- Thank you.

- 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 pleased now to be joined by Dr Indu Lew, who is Senior Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer for RWJBarnabas Health.

One of the underwriters of the work that we do in healthcare.

Thank you, Doctor, for joining us.

- Thank you Steve for this wonderful opportunity, I really appreciate it.

- You got it.

And listen, this series Doctor, all about trying to deal with awareness and understanding of things.

So we'll stay away from distribution, that's a different discussion.

Let me ask you this, a bunch of questions that I'm sure you get asked a lot, I'm gonna throw some at you.

(coughs) This confusion, by the way, a great article, a CNN article.

If your loved one is hesitant to get the vaccine, share this.

Question, right out of the box.

Some people were asking, "What's in the vaccine?"

Does that depend upon which vaccine, Doctor?

- Right now we have two vaccines on the market: We have the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine.

These are messenger RNA vaccines.

Very soon on the horizon, we'll have a third vaccine on the market and this is the J and J vaccine.

And ultimately any one of these vaccines, their ultimate job is really to teach your body to make a spiked protein.

This is not the dangerous part of a virus.

Teach your body to make the spike protein so your body recognizes it, it will be able to produce an immune response.

So in fact, if you come in contact with the virus your body already has the defense mechanisms to fight it.

That's the ultimate goal of any one of these vaccines.

Just how that spiked protein gets into your body is just a little bit different, but that's the end goal.

- You know what, our great producers are throwing questions up in our chat.

"When you actually get the vaccine, you're being injected with COVID."

Some believe that, deal with that Doctor.

Thank you, team.

- Yeah, so you are not being injected with COVID at all.

Essentially what you're doing when you get the messenger RNA vaccine, so this is your Pfizer and your Moderna vaccine, essentially what you're being injected with is a recipe for your body to make the spiked protein so you can fight the infection.

The way that it works with the J and J vaccine is a different, this is not a new technology, it's actually been around for a while.

This is an adenovector virus vaccine- - Please tell us what that means?

- Essentially think about it as a Trojan horse, right?

You are having this adenovirus, and that's a very common virus, and a harmless virus like your common cold.

It has a gene material on how to make the spike protein, so it's injected into your body.

It the harmless part, it's modified by J and J.

So you are not being injected with a live COVID virus at all.

- Real quick on this, can you do the pregnancy issue?

If a woman is pregnant, should she, when eligible, get the vaccine?

That's a great question and I know there's been a lot in the news lately about pregnancy and can you get the vaccine.

According to the ACIP, which is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the CDC, if someone is pregnant or breastfeeding they should have a conversation with their physician in order to get the vaccine.

It is not a contraindication right now.

But that is a discussion that has to happen between the patient and their physician- - Slightly different one, I'm sorry for interrupting.

And by the way, taping on the 2nd of February and being seen later.

I don't believe these answers will change unless there's dramatically new information.

But we have friends who have daughters who they're stopping from getting the vaccine because they're saying, "Hey, wait a minute, we want, she wants to have a child down the... " Question, the correlation between the vaccine, a 23-year-old woman who wants to get pregnant at some point down the road; issue?

- Right now there is no issue.

These vaccines are safe and effective.

They are not incorporated into your genomic DNA process right now.

And we know- - That's separate?

- That has nothing to do.

It's a different, that's not at all how these vaccines work.

And what's really critical is we know that if you're pregnant and you happen to get COVID, it's a very, very dangerous situation.

So we need to ensure that people are protected against getting this virus.

- We happen to know by talking to Barry Ostrowsky, your C.E.O., we talked a lot about this initiative around fighting racism, okay, connect it to the vaccine in this way.

A significant number of African-Americans and Latinos, but primarily African-Americans, distrustful of this vaccine.

Too fast, right?

Warp speed.

The Tuskegee Institute Experiment speaks for itself.

People can check it out.

Do you believe the skepticism is warranted, particularly in the African-American community around the vaccine?

- Well, it's decades and decades of mistrust, and we have to address that and we have to acknowledge it.

But with these vaccines the FDA will not sacrifice safety for speed.

They won't, these vaccines are safe and they are effective.

And we know what the effectiveness rate is.

I think a lot, what we have to do, is really focused on education.

The fact that these vaccines are safe and effective.

The fact that there are certain communities that were hit extraordinarily hard and they need to be protected.

So I think it's a partnership, education, trust, in order to overcome vaccine hesitancy.

- One more, one more, I got a minute left.

The variants, again checkout NJ Spotlight News, MetroFocus on a daily basis for what's changing there.

But the vaccine... By the way, I'm seeing a dozen questions from our producers.

Sorry, we only have a few seconds left.

The variants.

Do you believe it will require a booster, even if you get two shots of Moderna and Pfizer, or one shot of Johnson and Johnson, when it's on a market?

Go ahead.

- Right now, the vaccines do cover the variants for a lesser effectiveness.

They're in, we know with Moderna they're testing right now if we do need to get a booster vaccine.

Right now, it's too early to tell.

But what I can tell you, with these variants coming, and there will be more variants, it is that much more critical that we ensure that people are vaccinated as fast as we can.

- That has been consistently communicated from every expert in the medical community we've spoken to.

That's important.

Dr. Indu Lew, Senior Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer RWJBarnabas Health.

Thank you so much.

Not only for being with us, but for the work that you and your colleagues on the front lines are doing every day.

Thank you, Doctor.

- Thank you, Steve.

Have a wonderful day.

- You, too.

I'm Steve Adubato.

We cannot thank you so much, enough for joining us.

Thank you.

And just make sure you keep monitoring our website for more information and check out the CDC as well.

I'm Steve Adubato, 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 The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The North Ward Center.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Rutgers University Newark.

And by United Airlines.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by BestofNJ.com.

- [Announcer] Right now, six feet can feel like a long ways away, but from six feet, we can still smile at each other, from our doorways and our stairways, from opposite sides of the street and opposite sides of the country.

Through fear and frustrations, we can remind each other that we're still here for each other, because we can still smile at each other.

And we're not going anywhere.

(gentle music)