- [Female Presenter] Wheelan-Presley, funeral home and crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving quad city families since 1889.

They now have live stream capabilities, for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- [Male Presenter] At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are, and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

And we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.

- Is the pandemic essentially over?

The numbers, sure make it look so, and Thanksgiving in July, in The Cities.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) It's the 4th of July holiday, but one group is marking Thanksgiving this month.

And there's a serious reason, why they're doing that.

But first the number zero, it's not nothing.

And when it comes to COVID, it's quite something.

Zero has been the number of new COVID cases reported in Scott or Rock Island Counties, a couple of days in the past two weeks.

Zero, has also been the number of new patients hospitalized, with COVID conditions.

So, zero is a big number (chuckles), but does it mean, it's the end of the Corona virus pandemic, and it's 16 month unprecedented impact on the cities?

We talked with UnityPoint Trinity, Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Toyosi Olatade.

Dr. Olatade, I gotta tell you the truth, seeing the number zero is a big deal.

- Absolutely Jim, it's exciting for us.

It's been a long, long journey.

And we're celebrating this at the hospital yesterday, because it's been 372 days before it got to zero.

The last time we had zero was 372 days ago.

So, it's been a very hard journey, but exciting one, because we've been able to keep people safe and people are getting better.

The community is getting safer and healthier.

So that's exciting for us.

- Take me back a year, because just before the 4th of July last year, I remember Dr. Katz saying to city of Davenport, you can't hold the 4th of July fireworks.

They were canceled, because of public gatherings outside, were thought of being very unsafe.

What a difference a year has made compared to now?

- Absolutely.

I know this time, last year, the parks were closed.

We could not celebrate July 4th, but this is different.

And the difference is that is the vaccine, the vaccine has made a tremendous difference, in what is happening right now.

The safety and the protection that the vaccine offers is unparalleled, and it's been shown.

And that's why we got to zero in the hospital.

So right now with confidence, we can say, yes, we can hold this gatherings outside.

We see the baseball diamonds are filled up these days, with kids.

So it's exciting.

It's a completely different time, compared with last year.

And the major difference, has been breakthrough with the vaccines.

- You really do put a lot of the credit on the vaccine, so tell me about that, because there's three vaccines, obviously being used, everyone knows that now.

Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson.

Are you surprised at the effectiveness, that these vaccines have had?

- I'll be honest, yes, I am surprised and because we've not seen vaccines in modern history, even in the history of medicine, this effective.

And generally we talk about 70% effectiveness, and we're good with that.

But here we are, written in the nineties, mid to upper nineties, and it's really exciting to see how effective these vaccines are, especially in the pandemic, because it has been the major, one of the major reasons, in addition to other safety measures.

That we have much less and much fewer new cases now.

However, it's also a credit to the scientists, that have been working on this technology for decades.

And it's just, everything has come to fruition with this vaccine, and all three vaccines that we use in the United States now, they are very effective and very safe.

Of course, the Johnson and Johnson is a one and done, and the other two, you have to get a second dosage.

But even then, there's significant protection after the first dosage.

So these vaccines are, you know, it's exciting to see that they are available for us, and we can walk in anywhere actually, almost anywhere and get this vaccines nowadays.

So yes, we have a tool that we never thought we would have this time last year, but credit to those who have come up with this.

It's a scientific breakthrough, I would say.

- You do say that they're safe, of course.

And we're talking about, you know, 99% of the people seemingly not getting anything more than a sore arm after the shot, but we've also heard that some young people, have had a difficulties as far as enlarged heart, which is quickly treated.

Have we seen anything like that in our area?

- So in our area, we have not seen anything like that, at least within on the UnityPoint Health Facilities.

We've not seen those reactions at this time, but we are very vigilant at watching out for them.

We have all our staff trained, to watch out for the symptoms of these diseases.

And we share with the patients when they come to us, what to watch out for, because usually we have to watch out for this, in terms of work period of several weeks, even after getting the vaccines.

So we are more alert and vigilant to this side, the possible side effects.

- And we're seeing more children.

when we say children 12 and older getting vaccinated.

What do you say to parents, especially coming up to the school year?

I mean, I know we're just entering July, but the school year is coming up, and some schools are gonna require more children to be vaccinated.

- So, having the results of the studies done on 12 years and above, on the safety, it was even actually more effective in this population, than the rest of the adult population.

And it was very safe.

I would really strongly recommend parents to, to allow their children to get this vaccines, 12 and above.

It's been proven.

It wasn't crushed for that population, it's been proven, it's been monitored, of course.

And it's been found to be safe, because one of the things that we must realize is that, children may not get really sick from it, but they also interact with others and know the whole, it's not the whole population that is vaccinated, yet.

We still have people with immune, suppressed immune status, that could be exposed to this virus.

So the more we have people vaccinated, the higher the chance we know, that we've really overcome this virus and this pandemic.

We can socialize more, even now, yes, we are socializing a lot, but now a lot of the new cases are in this younger population.

And it's an opportunity to get vaccinated.

I have one of my nephews, it's one of the things I'm dealing with.

One of them is 16, he got vaccinated, the younger one is still reading through the literature.

And so we have, a lot of work dealing with our teenagers, and our 12-18 year olds in terms of encouraging them to get these vaccines.

They've seen the adults get it, and they are doing well, and so, this population should also get it, for sure.

- I love the fact that you said, that he's reading up on it, he's trying to get the information, he's going through pamphlets, I mean, he's becoming educated.

- Yes , absolutely.

And he asked me, kind of question, he said, "Well, can it, really alter your DNA?"

That he's concerned about that.

And I shared it with him, "Okay, let's look at it together.

Let's look at what the facts are together."

And really, that's what we tried to do to encourage, to look at facts, in making your decisions, in coming on board with getting the vaccines.

- Well, I mean, there's also the issue of the variants.

I mean, when we're saying that the virus is somewhat contained, I know as a doctor, that's at the end of a pandemic, you don't want me to say something like that, but now, we have variants that could be exploited in the health system, as well.

Is that a major concern of yours, is that this virus is just gonna keep changing and infecting more people in different ways?

- So this virus is not doing anything new.

It is what viruses do.

Viruses, they try to evade your immune system.

They try to evolve, so that they too can survive there.

But what we've seen is that, the vaccines have been very effective against even this newer variants.

And even, when there is some breakthrough infection, that is, it's very mild because the vaccine offers, one, the antibodies to fight over the virus.

And even if we get the virus, it also prepares your body, not to get really sick from the virus.

So, the good news is that the vaccines have been very effective even against this new variants.

Of course, we are also on the, we have to remain vigilant, and still watch for whatever it may slip through the defense mechanisms, but the vaccines have been tremendously, they've been very, very effective.

And that's what we see in the community.

I mean, yesterday in the whole of the UnityPoint Health System, there was only one positive patient.

I mean, this compared with 500 patients just a few months ago, per day.

So, I think the effectiveness of the vaccine tells us that even when variants come within our community, they've been found to be very effective against the variants.

- Since we're near the end of the worst of the pandemic, that I think we can easily say, it's a time also to look back.

Hospitals must have had emergency action plans, you must have had a pandemic response plan, that was written up 5, 10, 15 years ago.

You've just now lived through it over the last 15, 16 months.

What is the biggest thing that medical professionals, such as you, have learned from this pandemic and the fact that it lasted as long as it did?

- So, I would say that all the emergency preparedness plans we had, basically had to be torn up and written on the fly.

And one of the things that we've learned, is really there's power in working together, because this virus was so new to us and it was so aggressive, and we had to tap into every single resource we had at hand in the organization, within the organizations, outside of the organizations, beyond the walls, the borders of the court cities, and even beyond the borders of the country.

Because we had to get as much information from anywhere as possible, so that we can put those together and do the best for our patients and our communities.

So what we learned is that there's power in collaboration.

And that, second thing is that really all the resources, especially in terms of talents and expertise that you need, you really have it locally here.

And that was exciting to see, how well we worked as an organization, and even with our partners and even competitors, how we'll work together to battle this pandemic.

And going beyond just the medicine or healthcare industry, went to other industries to learn from, in fighting this pandemic.

So that's, those would be two lessons, I would say we got from here.

- And you'd have to admit also, that the public health system and the hospitals in the Quad City area, were pushed to the limits, towards the end of November early December.

- Absolutely.

It was almost at a breaking point, and which is, I still remember end of November, just you know, pleading with the community to help us, to fight this pandemic.

And, you know, the response of the community, was very helpful, in helping us at least stay above water.

We're very close to point of breakdown.

However, the resilience of the community, the resilience of the medical staff, the nurses, the public health officials, I mean, it was a joy really, having conversations with public health officials, officials with our partners at Genesis, and other health systems across the region, on how we're going to work together, to fight this pandemic.

And I would say, this was not a one man show.

It was not just one organization.

It was really the whole community that rallied.

Yes the healthcare system, we had the forefront, the public health was at the forefront, but we're strongly supported by the community.

- So, would you say right now, that for all intents and purposes that this COVID pandemic is over?

- You know, I would like to declare that it is almost over.

(laughs) And the reason I wont say it's over over, is because we still have so many people that are not vaccinated.

I know our communities, of course it is, it's doing well.

But when you look at United States, still have many states where less than 40% haven't even had the first shot.

And concerned about those communities, because we are one country, things will move from, can migrate from one community to the other.

So yes, we are much closer to the end, than we were clearly a year ago, but we're not there yet.

So we have to be vigilant.

- Dr. Toyosi Ulatade, UnityPoint Trinity, Chief Medical Officer.

Rebecca Casad and Alan Morrison are a ukulele duo, who take an interesting twist on five decades of popular music.

This duo joined us, at the River Music Experience to perform one of their original works, here's Casad and Morrison with "Every Day of the Year."

(upbeat ukulele music) (instrumental ukulele continues) - (Casad singing) I never dreamed of a place, where all I did was look in your eyes, I never walked in a land, where you would be mine.

(ukulele music playing) But despite all the poking and prodding, and pretending the other aint there, I still find myself next to you, every day of the year.

(ukulele music playing) I watch the light, as it comes through my window, and watch it sparkle across your hair, I know that you must be one in a million.

But discovering someone brand new, and teaching myself how to care, I still find myself, next to you every day of the year.

(ukulele music playing) And even though, we fight sometimes, I know we'll make it through.

My strength to wake up everyday , seems to always come from you.

I find myself next to you.

Though the darkness seems to find us, we have to stick to carry on, we must been to so much more, than this moment.

So, despite all the fears and the trials, I know somehow we'll make it there, and I will find myself next to you every day of the year.

(ukulele music playing) Yes, I'll find myself next to you, every day of the year.

- Casad and Morrison, with "Every Day of the Year."

The 4th of July is upon us, and that means we're at the height of summertime activities.

And Laura Adams has some great ways, for you to enjoy the start of the new month, if you plan to go out and about.

- (upbeat music) [Laura] This is Out and About, for July 2nd through 8th.

Cole Valley Days, kickoff July 2nd, at the municipal park with fireworks at 9:00, and family-friendly activities all day on the 3rd.

The summer concert series, presented by the Bettendorf Park Band, begin July 2nd at 7:30.

Quad Cities Ballet Folklorico, perform at the Le Claire Community Library, the 1st at 5:00.

And Bettendorf Independence Parade, begins in downtown Bettendorf, the 3rd at 10:00, with fireworks at middle park at 9:00.

Red, White ,and Boom is scheduled in Downtown Rock Island and Davenport, the 3rd, starting at 5:00.

And the Rust Belt in East Moline, present Red, White, and Best Banger at 9:00, on the 3rd.

And the Genesis Firecracker Run, begins at 6:00 AM on the 4th, in Downtown East Moline, followed by the 4th of July Parade, starting at 1:00.

Geneseo, celebrates an Old Fashioned Patriotic Concert and Social, the 4th at 10:00 AM at the city park.

And the Muscatine, 4th of July Celebration takes place on Harbor Drive, the 4th, starting at 3:00.

Come out to Quaianlan Court in downtown Davenport, to enjoy a free patriotic concert, Stars, Stripes, and Saxophones, the 5th at 7:00.

On stage at circuit 21, Beehive the Sixties Musical, and for kids, Elephant and Piggie's "We Are In a Play" continue.

And the Countryside Community Theater, in Eldridge, finishes their run of the Music Man.

For more information, visit wqpt.org.

(upbeat music) - Thank you, Laura.

We don't wanna rush you through your calendar, but some people are all ready to mark Thanksgiving, right now.

Yes, Thanksgiving in July, but it's really a way to make a point and make a difference.

We talked with the Associate Director of Churches United, Betsy Vanausdeln.

So Church's United of course, is not gonna to be doing Thanksgiving in July (chuckles), which is a great idea, of course.

And you've done it for the last couple of years.

You must really see, food insecurity in the Quad City area, firsthand.

- Yes, and it's always fluctuating, and there we have, it's like a roller coaster, so that's the best way to describe it.

- Right - Because there's times that there's huge increases.

And then, there's times where it will even out.

I won't say, if the decrease is there, it's a very slight, but then it's, where you usually have just a maintenance level and then it increases.

- Yeah, and let's be honest.

The summertime is a tough time, because the big food drive that we always think of, is the student hunger drive, which is like in September, October.

And then, - Right - in May you have the big collection, usually by a postal workers.

All of that has been impacted by the pandemic.

So, the fact that you want to do this in July, is just kinda keeping, you know, the buildings full during the summertime.

- Right.

6 years ago, when I went to my former Executive Director with this idea, she's like, "Well, that has never been done before."

And she says, if it works, we'll run with it.

So I came up with it six years ago, and it's been running ever since.

And the reason why, when I first came on board here at Churches United, I could not figure out why the food pantries were struggling, because we have oversight of 23 food pantries, across all of the Quad Cities.

And it's like, why are there no food?

Why are they having a hard time keeping food on the shelves?

Well, it's because their kids were home from school.

Okay.

Now we had a pandemic year.

So that's kind of throws a, makes it kitty wankers, but still the kids were home.

So, we're seeing an increase right now.

More need for food, to be on the pantries shows to help these families out.

- Well, you just pointed out.

I mean, this is a big operation, 23 food pantries and 2 hot meals sites.

The hot meal sites, I think you're happy to announce are also reopening.

- Yes, we are so close to having the food, or the meal sites opening back up.

We're excited.

But you know, we need to sit down with the 2 churches, Zion Lutheran in Davenport, in Mount Scion, in east Moline, sit down with the Pastors and their team of Directors, and come up with a game plan, so that we can serve the meals safely, for the congregation, the church, the staff, and you know, well, our staff and then the clients as well.

- [Jim] Yeah - So we need to make sure, you know, we have all of our ducks in a row, so to speak.

- Well, Churches United always wants to make sure, that you're somewhat of a safety net, that people aren't gonna fall through the cracks.

But let's be honest during the pandemic, where did these people get food, otherwise?

Cause it has been a tough time over the last 16 months.

- Well, believe it or not during the pandemic year, Churches United never shut down.

We were still boots on the ground, we were serving meals.

Our pantries were open.

They were giving food out, the entire time.

In fact, we were tagged by the backdoor base leaders back in March, when the pandemic first hit and nobody knew what was hitting us.

And so the shelters had to be, had to displace their clients because, you know, they had to get them distanced.

So, you know, for safety reasons and stuff.

So, they were displaced in the hotels, while we were tapped on the shoulders and said, we need you guys to go in, and feed.

So between us and Adventure Church, Adventure Church took care of the clients, that were displaced in western, in West Davenport.

We took care of the clients that were displaced here, in Bettendorf and are on the border, you know, Bettendorf-Davenport.

And within 14 weeks time, we served six meals per week.

And with the help of Smoking Pyro Ranjan, we're so grateful for them, because they prepared the meals and everything.

And we serve to go meals outside of the hotels.

And we served over 14, over 9,000 people in 14 weeks.

That was, - [Jim] Yeah, that's amazing.

- people six days a week.

- Do you think that really underlines, the point of the Churches in the Quad City area, is to be there in the worst of times, and the times of greatest need?

- (agreeing sound) Our organization is made up of many member Churches.

And so, collectively we go out and we serve, those who are in need and we couldn't do it without our private donors, and the churches, and all of the many, many, many volunteers.

- Well, yes, and Churches United, not only many different churches, but many different faiths as well.

- Yes.

- Many different viewpoints as well, coming together to help an entire community in need.

So how do people get involved in Thanksgiving in July?

I mean, what are you looking for from the public?

- What we're looking for, is if you're, we have fairway on board, we have QC core, which is Chiropractic Office, collecting food.

Many churches are collecting food items.

What we need is people who happen to think of us, bring in donations, nonperishable food items.

They can drop them off here at the office as well, on tech dry.

We'll also take monetary donations, and that money can be used to buy many, many more pounds of food.

Then, you know, just something off the shelf.

So I mean, either way, all of it is gonna go right back into all 23 food pantries.

- Well, let's be honest, you've been, - So, - you've been pretty good at this.

Cause I was looking on your website, it said in 2019, you finished first in the state of Iowa, for the amount collected in the state.

I mean, you know, I could pat you on the back, but I mean, of course, (Betsy laughing) that's two years ago, you on something new this year.

- Right, well, I was very pleased with the numbers, considering it was a pandemic year and I wasn't expecting much, but it's like, you know what, I've always said the last six years, if we receive one can of food, this Thanksgiving in July was a success.

Because that's one more can of food that we didn't have yesterday.

And, it can go to feed a family in some way, shape or form.

So, what it is is there's other organizations across the state of Iowa and the two biggest cities are the Moines, that we compete against, and Iowa city.

They have a strong, they call it a different campaign, but it's the month of July that we do this food gathering.

And last year, I wasn't sure what to expect because everybody was, you know, hunkered down and because of the pandemic.

But the Quad Cities and all of it's glory, like it always does, because Quad cities is made up of many, many generous people, and we're grateful for them.

They came through, and we were able to fill shelves of the food pantries, because people were coming out still in need, still hungry.

We had children that were hungry.

And so, all that food went back into the pantries.

And, so we were able to accomplish and fill bellies, so.

- And as you point out, I mean, it is the summertime.

You're gonna see children out of school and there's sometimes most at need, right now.

- Yeah.

- And you don't want them to be forgotten.

We don't wanna forget also, that the Churches United is marking its 60th year, of serving the Quad City area.

That's quite a milestone for the group, isn't it?

- (agreeing sound) Yes it is.

- Do you have plans?

Are you celebrating?

Do you have a cake?

Are there cupcakes?

- Oh, (laughing together) well, because we celebrate our 60th year in January of this past year, we were still just not quite out of the pandemic.

- [Jim] Right.

- So yeah, but now we're just very proud and we're behind the scenes, but we're boots on the ground and yeah, we're still going strong.

So I'm very, very, very, very grateful.

- Betsy Vanausdeln, Associate Director of Churches United.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device, and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us.

As we talk about the issues on The Cities.

(light bright music) (light bright music continues) - [Female Presenter] Wheelan-Presley Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving Quad city families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities, for viewing your loved one's funeral or Memorial service.

- [Male Presenter] At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are, and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

And we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.