Speaker 1: On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele duke.

Hello, San Antonio is a fast growing fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the Newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters round table and talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on.

Speaker 2: Hi everybody.

I'm Randy Beamer.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record and the big story this summer, especially right now and here in San Antonio, as well as across the country is the virus.

COVID-19 the Delta variant and how it is affecting hospitals.

Really everyone here in San Antonio want to get right to it with Dr. Jan Patterson, who is an infectious disease specialist at university hospital also works for UT health.

Thank you very much for coming in.

First of all, paint us a picture of just how bad it is, how quickly it has ramped up again with this Delta variant.

Well, Speaker 1: Things are pretty grim.

Uh, you know, and we're really on the brink of crisis with our health system here in San Antonio.

Uh, there are more than a thousand COVID patients admitted in our hospital systems.

It's becoming extremely hard to find hospital beds to find enough nurses, respiratory therapists, physicians.

We are running short of medications that are used to treat the more severely ill COVID patients.

Um, you know, we're having to stand up our extra teams again.

Uh, so, um, many of us are spread very thin.

Uh, so it's a grim time.

We're seeing younger patients this time around, uh, this Delta variant appears to be a more virulent strain.

We're seeing people in their twenties, thirties, forties, we're seeing pregnant women.

Uh, we had a pregnant woman come in and lose her baby.

And then she was put on an artificial lung machine.

Uh, we're seeing lots of children, our pediatric colleagues tell us they're seeing many more this time around than in the previous surges.

So it's serious business.

Speaker 2: Okay.

And people might think, and I've heard this from people.

Well, you know, it's, COVID, I've heard about it before.

What can really be that different?

But this is really a mutation that's taken a hard right.

Turn.

Well, Speaker 1: That's correct.

I think a lot of people have in their mind that just the very elderly and those with a lot of underlying conditions are at risk.

Um, and it turns out a lot of those people are vaccinated.

Uh, we are seeing some of those people as well, but this time around, we're seeing younger people, it's really affecting everyone.

Um, and that's why, you know, our messages, number one, uh, you need to mask if you're in public places, uh, and the other one is you need to get protected by the vaccine because that's our best protection against this virus.

Speaker 2: How many of the people that you're seeing are unvaccinated here in San Antonio?

Well, Speaker 1: As far as the people that are hospitalized, it's around 85% of those people that are admitted for COVID are un-vaccinated.

So it's the majority of people.

Um, and that is what to us is.

So, uh, saddening and frustrating, because this is preventable in most of these people, we know that the vaccine, um, prevents against severe illness, hospitalization, and death.

In most cases.

Now that doesn't mean a hundred percent.

Um, you know, we are seeing some deaths in people who are fully vaccinated and, uh, those are people with other underlying conditions.

Um, but for the most part, it goes a long way in protecting against severe disease.

And that's really what we want people to know.

Speaker 2: What is it going to mean to the hospital system here?

People think, well, it was bad before we had people come in.

The governor is asking for people, but you've been having basically doubling every week.

What are your projections right now?

How do you deal with Speaker 1: That?

One of the differences in this surge is it's a very steep curve.

And so if we keep going on the trajectory we're on right now, we will reach a point where we don't have hospital beds for people with other conditions like heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, we will run out of hospital beds.

We will run out of personnel.

So this is something that's very critical.

Um, and we need people to respond Speaker 2: To that.

And once again, we were having people come in from other states, but that's drawing down from other states.

I've seen some people complain in Florida, that people are going where the money are in terms of nurses and things like that.

Are you going to have to pay extra to get some nursing?

Yes.

Speaker 1: There have already been many requests for contract nurses, uh, and there's also requests for contract physicians.

Uh, so yes, we're having to use contract personnel in this crisis.

And how Speaker 2: About the human aspect?

That my daughter's a nurse over in Houston and has worked with COVID patients.

And I know it is incredibly stressful.

They thought they were over it and what's it like here?

Well, Speaker 1: It's very hard.

It's very frustrating for us.

It saddens us, um, because we know that most of these cases are preventable.

Um, so that is what is so frustrating.

Um, you know, we're tired.

Uh, we've been fighting this for a year and a half now.

Um, and, uh, you know, it's, it's stretching our resources.

We're all stretched very thin.

And on top of that, we're seeing suffering and death that's preventable.

So that's very hard Speaker 2: And we appreciate your time.

Wish we had more time.

We're going to talk more about COVID in just a minute with some other experts.

Thank you very much, Dr. Jane Patterson with the university hospital and UT hill, since we are talking, COVID, we're talking mass, we're talking vaccines and why we weren't wearing a mask in the first segment and why you should wear a mask in many situations.

Joining us now to talk about that in a whole lot more, Dr. Larry Sleshinger, who is the president and CEO of the Texas biomedical Institute, a working doctor, you work on research and immunologists.

Thank you very much for coming in.

My pleasure.

Tell us about mask wearing right now when we can and should take am off.

Well, We're in a setting of two people.

We're six feet apart and we're vaccinated.

And I think for the purpose of this interview, we can take our masks go up, but certainly, uh, in the current setting with the Delta strain, we're seeing more absolute requirement of mass, indoor and outdoor, and we can get into that later, but I'm comfortable at this point taking the mask off.

Okay, Well, we can do that and take the mask off again inside, uh, farther than six feet away.

Yeah.

Actually their requirement now is three feet.

When you talk about schools, not six feet, uh, and, uh, masking and, um, you know, good hygiene is still very much the, a mainstay of our ability to reduce transmission of this highly infectious strain.

Now you mentioned schools right now.

There is a battle over whether we can mask and schools or schools can mask, right at this point, the governor's a ban on that has been overturned by a stay, but that could change, right?

Where do you come down on masking in school?

Well, my perspective is really as an infectious disease specialist and a public health authority.

And so that's the perspective.

I bring out a political lens from the standpoint of a highly infectious airborne transmissible human to human virus.

Um, I believe that mass are absolutely required to reduce transmission protect the individual and the surroundings as well as physical distancing and hygiene.

So, you know, I'm supportive of, um, uh, those, uh, requirements in a school system.

I think that's really our main stay because the most vulnerable population right now is under age 12 without The vaccine.

Tell us about that because people think, well, it was in the, you know, sixties, seventies, eighties range before, but this Delta variant is targeting different people.

Yeah.

What are you seeing?

I don't know if it's targeting different people, that's not resolved, but we do know a few things about this particular strain.

It has acquired these mutations, these variants we're hearing about that help.

It appears to be recognize ourselves in our body and it results in a very high viral load in the back of the throat.

So there's more virus in us.

If there's more virus in us than when we cough or sneeze, there's more potential for virus spread and also more potential for virus to get down in our lungs and cause a particularly aggressive pneumonia.

So, um, that's making it more infectious.

It's an opportunist.

It's not necessarily selecting populations other than, uh, of course we are exposing the unvaccinated, which are very susceptible to the virus, the viral load, the transmission and the infection and disease.

That's where seeing the serious disease.

Okay.

The masks are because if you have the virus, if you have that viral load and again, people who are vaccinated may not even feel any symptoms.

Correct, but they could, it, it stops those droplets, Right?

It reduces them.

Look, it depends on the quality of the mask.

We can get into the ed 95 versus surgical mask, but it certainly reduces the transmission of these droplets from person to person.

And we also know there's some aerosol as part of this as well.

So the mask can do a job in That regard.

What do you tell parents concerned about going back to school?

I, I share the concern, uh, and I feel for them, and I think this is an extremely difficult time.

This is the week kids are going back to school.

The school certainly needs to take, uh, COVID-19 very seriously and have policies in place.

Uh, and I do think, uh, being able to separate children, wearing them as the hygiene that we already talked about becomes quite important.

Uh, and then it's a matter of vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.

Um, that is the bottom line.

Yeah.

When it's available for kids.

And the latest on that is late this year, late fall, Or, yeah, that's right.

It's a, you know, the S the clinical trials.

So I want to comment that, um, from the start, the FDA, uh, has been very clear that we're going to evaluate science and make sure science is solid to Institute policy, uh, for everyone.

Right?

So with that, now the studies are going on in the data are not yet there to tell us to vaccinate everyone under age 12, uh, the immune response to the virus.

So as an immunologist, I can tell you over age five.

So between five and 12, you're getting basically dealing with a pretty adult looking immune system, but certainly under age five is very different scenario.

So you need these studies to make sure the vaccine is safe and effective, which is the bottom line because parents will want to make sure that the vaccine is safe and effective when it's given to the Young child.

And we're talking about misinformation a little bit beforehand.

What are the big things that people come in to you and ask or tell you, Hey, I heard this.

Why are we doing that?

Well, number one, I hear, you know, this is a experimental vaccine.

It's under emergency use authorization, not fully approved.

And it was rushed out the door.

And I wanted to state very clearly, this was not rushed out the door.

We had a situation back in January, February 20, where we were fortunate to know the virus right away.

And to know the DNA code of the virus.

We had technology, technology, technology, like MRI, a technology, which had actually been in place for up to 30 years testing for other viruses, we had the technology ready.

We had the virus, we had the code.

We knew what the target in the virus was that we needed generate the vaccines and then Texas biomeds role along with others.

But we played leadership role was in rapidly developing animal models that allowed us to test these vaccines as well as therapies quickly, uh, so that we could move on to clinical trials.

Clinical trials were complete phase one phase two phase three, where tens of thousands of people, including susceptible populations were involved that told us we had a safe and effective vaccine.

This is among the most safe and effective vaccines ever produced.

It's been given out to almost a billion people worldwide.

They proved vaccines.

It is time to get vaccinated.

This is time honored at this Point, we'll say, well, you know, there's a risk to this.

I don't know if I want to risk it.

What's the risk of that?

Getting that vaccine compared to getting COVID.

Yeah.

Well, I think the argument's very strong.

We know that up to 50% of people who develop COVID-19, if you're fortunate not to be in the intensive care unit, still can suffer long-term consequences.

Okay.

So one thing I like to talk about is think about the bug, the virus as a trigger, um, the response to a virus when it entered our body is called the immune system.

And the immune system wakes up and says, oh, I have a foreign invader in me.

And then the output is something called inflammation.

Inflammation is, if it's out of control can be long-lasting that's, what's leading to all these long symptoms.

So the vaccine can prevent this.

And so people think, well, if I'm over it, I'm over it.

You may not be could some of those long system symptoms show up later and you think you're okay for a while.

Well, we're still learning about that, right?

Patients are being followed.

Now we're learning more and more about all the organs involved, whether it breathe the brain fog or clotting or some other.

So these are active studies ongoing today.

Um, but, uh, but, um, so we don't really know ultimately what the outcome will be, but back to your point, the vaccine can prevent this.

And so from the vaccine standpoint, um, you are much safer and ahead of the game to take the vaccine then to allow the infection to occur.

The other point I'd make is once you're infected, you don't know how robust your immune system response was.

So you still vaccinate after.

And we talk about herd immunity, where are we in terms of vaccination?

In some places they have 70% plus vaccination rate, right?

Well, overall, the countries may be 60 40 now.

So, um, this is a very tricky situation when 40% is not vaccinated, we have some people who've been vaccinated over six months now.

So maybe some element of what's called waning immunity going on and a virus that's still raging and potentially evolving further.

However, given how infectious this viruses, we may get to the so-called herd immunity, you know, 70, 80% by a combination of infection and vaccination.

If we can get an immune society, one that's experienced with this virus, then I think we can start controlling the serious consequences of this virus and turn it more like a flu.

We've had tens of millions of people who, who have gotten COVID.

And I hear, you know, a number of them.

Well, I I'm immune.

What do you tell those people that they don't want to get vaccinated?

They don't think they need to wear a mask.

Right?

We know that, um, uh, the level of infection varies in individuals, the level of immune response varies immensely in those individuals.

So you cannot be assured that you have the level of protection that the vaccines afford by being infected.

So you must vaccinate to ensure that you get those, uh, that immune system, the antibodies up high enough to protect you.

And maybe this is, uh, kind of a different, uh, take on this, but I've heard people say, it's my body.

Literally I've heard them say, it's my body, my choice, my Liberty.

I should have the right to decide, right.

As an immunologist, you tell them, Well, you know, uh, yes, I'm all for people having the right to decide.

We have other rules and laws in place for things.

Um, the problem with public health is that you're dealing with a situation where, what you do affects many others.

And so in this setting, um, the most I can do as a public health authority, infectious disease authority is to reassure the public.

That number one, the vaccine has been thoroughly vetted.

It will be formally approved very shortly, probably in the next few weeks.

Number two, it doesn't get into your genes.

It doesn't work that way.

So it's not going to change your genetic code.

That's a concern I hear as well.

There is no microchip in the needle for the vaccine.

There are other ways to, you know, to follow your, uh, you know, individual movements.

Um, the vaccine, uh, is really our, our ticket to getting healthier and protecting ourselves, our community and our children.

A lot of people think they're preaching to the choir.

If you will, if you talk to somebody and they're a vaccinated, you feel the same way.

What do you, how do you approach somebody who is resistant to this?

And I've heard people say that if you call it the pandemic of the unvaccinated, that it will turn people off and it'll harden their opinion.

How do you approach somebody who is really hardened in that position?

Well, it's not easy.

I think you listen a lot because you know, people have a background and have a perspective that you need to appreciate.

So that's number one, number two.

And we know this, that such individuals trust and respect local community leaders.

So, um, you know, we're doing television now and people are listening, but there's people out there who can help, whether it be synagogues or churches, uh, local community experts can really help, but talks like this, at least allow me to talk about what is not a truth, because the misinformation coming out, anecdotes, upstream, science that hasn't been vetted.

I agree as leading to confusion and that's not the right now, There are anecdotes coming out in some that I know myself, who worked at channel four, just got out of the hospital yesterday.

He had been in the hospital for some time, hadn't vaccinated.

He had diabetes.

He thought he, that might be a bad thing to get the vaccine.

His father-in-law died down the hall from him.

And now he's saying, get the vaccine and get the vaccine.

We're hearing more of those stories.

You think those are going to be effective in our ex you know, effecting that rate?

Well, first of all, I feel so sorry to hear about people getting sick and dying from COVID-19 at this point in the pandemic when we have the vaccine, um, I think we listened to those individuals and, and learn from them because I'm also hearing a lot of that.

There is a way to prevent this from happening.

And, um, you know, I think us in the business sector are right now feeling more and more strongly about the vaccine.

I can tell you that we're going to be announcing very shortly at Texas by a biomed, a vaccine mandate policy, because it Texas biomed.

In addition to our employee, our human employees, we have the precious animals that we treat so humanely, but we cannot allow them to get ill either.

And it's, there's a premium on protecting our businesses.

That's how we open society.

That's how we avoid lockdown.

That's how we get the economy Going.

When you say the word mandates, some people up, I'm not going to do that.

Uh, politically the governor, a number of governors have said, they're not going to be any mandates.

If I can help it.

Uh, as somebody who is maybe, uh, dealing with businesses, uh, advising businesses, what do you tell them?

I Think it's time that we really do get our businesses safe and get our employees safe and understand that we have a time honored now tested vaccine.

I want to repeat probably about a billion people have gotten this vaccine.

The safety record is outstanding.

Now the challenge is that there are about eight people, 8 billion people on the planet.

So one of the things we really need to think about is that this is a global pandemic, and we need to be able to have vaccines available to other parts of the world that becomes quite critical Right now, as well.

At the beginning here, we put our masks on and took them off a pods.

We don't hear any more about pod.

Say if my family's all been vaccinated or we get to take our mask off and hug and all that, Right?

So you said it earlier.

The concern with the Delta strain is because it's so infectious that even after vaccination, we're hearing about breakthroughs.

And just to put that in perspective, the breakthroughs are still very small relative to the unvaccinated.

So the vaccine is doing what it's supposed to do, and that is to prevent you from being in the hospital and dying and to reduce transmission, but not eliminate it.

There are these breakthroughs, but because we've seen more breakthroughs now, there's more cautiousness about families getting together, even if they've been vaccinated.

And you're seeing more recommended recommendations for mask wearing.

Particularly if you have a young children under age 12 or someone in your family who is immunocompromised, not able to get vaccinated for medical reasons, uh, that they're susceptible and you do it for them as well.

You do it for them.

You do it for them.

Thanks Very much Dr. Larry Slessinger, who is the president and CEO of Texas biomed.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you very much.

Good to be here.

Joining us now to talk about what the city of San Antonio is doing about vaccines and masking the virus, where we are on that as Dr. Anita Kurian, who is the assistant director of Metro health.

Thank you very much for coming in now, where is the city in terms of vaccination rates right now, and trying to get more people vaccinated?

Speaker 1: So, as you are already aware, we started our vaccine implementation rollout in December of 2020, and we saw a rapid uptake in terms of vaccination coverage, right?

So the demand initially far exceeded the supply and we had a steady and exponential increase the number of people showing up to get the vaccines at a mass vaccination site, which was at the Alamodome and, and still is at the Alamodome.

But around about April, we started, uh, the rates plateauing off, meaning the number of people showing up in our mass vaccination stock, uh, started plateauing off.

So, which means, you know, we start, what, what was happening was that people who are eager to get vaccines that had already come and gotten their vaccines.

And then we were encountering what I refer to as vaccine apathy and a combination of vaccine hesitancy as well.

So these are people who are sitting on the fence thinking about whether to whether or not to take it.

Um, and so the strategy was to then, uh, pivot and take vaccines to where they are.

So the next set of set, next group of people who were, who we were trying to target were these people who probably didn't want to come to the mass vaccination site or had a lack of transportation.

Um, convenience is the key to get these people.

So the idea was to pivot and take vaccines back to the people, meet people where they are meet people in their own neighborhoods, um, where they feel familiar and safe to get vaccinated.

Speaker 2: Now we're looking at incentives to get that final.

What is it?

How many adults Speaker 1: Percent-wise.

Yeah, so we are looking at multiple incentives.

Everything is in the planning phases.

Um, we are using some grant money, federal grant money to, to, towards putting this incentive in, in play.

Uh, we will be offering up $200, uh, for, uh, any getting fully vaccinated, but that's not Speaker 2: Yet.

That's not right now.

People can say I heard it on the KRN Speaker 1: Correct.

That is we, we have submitted the plan to the CDC.

We are waiting for our plan to be approved by the CDC, because this is a federal grant money.

We need to have that approval before we implement the incentive.

Speaker 2: So how long do you think that'll be?

Because some people will, might want to go out and get the vaccine right now, or, well, maybe I'll wait, I'll get a hundred dollars.

Yeah.

So go get the vaccine Speaker 1: Now, I think is your answer.

Yes.

Uh, the short answer to that is, you know, there is a great sense of urgency in getting vaccinated as soon as possible, especially in the light that we have this highly transmissible Delta, Delta variant, which is predominantly circulating in our community.

Um, and this ductal variant is pretty serious.

We need to take this seriously.

We need to knock it down with one, two punch now, because it has a set of mutations that can potentially mutate further and evade our vaccines that are currently authorized at this time, Dr.

Variant are vaccines that are out authorized, uh, in our community are effective against activated, but you don't want this variant to be circulating long enough to mutate to reach that stage where it can evade Speaker 2: And people who have already been vaccinated should feel better if they are not going to get the incentive and say, oh, why are you giving it to other people?

And not me back when, when I got it that they're at least already vaccinated, they're already, Speaker 1: Yes, you are saving money in the longterm and Tufts hospitalizations and debt because you do not want to get hospitalized with COVID-19.

That can, where the bill can run into hundreds and thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2: Now, do you think it's helping that, uh, people from the city and the county are on again at six, 15 every night and able to answer those questions enabled to talk about where we are on that day.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

It is important to keep the community aware, make community aware of where we are in terms of the COVID-19 burden in our community, right?

It's, it's important to let the community and the residents know why we are emphasizing to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

What are we seeing in our community that is causing public health to have this sense of urgency in terms of improving our vaccination coverage?

Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much for coming in.

We could talk about this longer and thank you for watching this special edition of on the record.

Make sure you tell other people about it.

If they don't know about the virus, they want to know about it.

You can see this show again, or previous shows as well on our podcast at dot org.

And we'll see you next Time.

on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele duke.

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