(twinkling music) (soft music) - [Announcer] Capitol Federal is proud to present this program and would like to thank all medical professionals for their service.

Stay safe, stay strong.

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(soft music fades) (soft upbeat music) - Good evening, and welcome to this special show about COVID-19, "The Virus and Vaccines."

I'm Dr. Rita Rogers-Stanley, and I'll be your moderator.

In this show, we wanna emphasize the importance of protecting yourself during this pandemic.

We want to especially emphasize this among persons of color.

We know that historically, people of color have experienced social, economic, educational, and systemic health issues brought on by racism and discrimination.

Because of this there is great distrust within our community when solutions are offered to us by the government and the dominant culture.

This evening, we have brought together a panel of healthcare professionals that look like you and understand your issues.

You will be able to listen to them, ask them questions, and get their responses.

I'd like to thank the Topeka Kansas Chapter of The Links Incorporated for conceiving of this program.

The Links is one of the nation's oldest and largest volunteer service organizations of extraordinary women, committed to enriching, sustaining, and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other persons of African ancestry.

I'd also like to thank our sponsors, Capitol Federal Savings Bank, HDB Construction, and My Company.

Let's get started.

Here's a message from President Biden, along with some statistics about COVID in Kansas and people of color.

- A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked.

Denials for days, weeks, then months, that led to more deaths, more infections, more stress, and more loneliness.

Photos and videos from 2019 feel like they were taken in another era.

The last vacation, the last birthday with friends, the last holiday with extended family.

While it was different for everyone, we all lost something.

As I've told you before, I carry a card in my pocket with the number of Americans who have died from COVID, to date.

It's on the back of my schedule.

As of now, total deaths in America, 527,726.

That's more deaths than in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and 9/11, combined.

(light music) - [Communicator] Located in the geographic center of the United States, Kansas has a population of approximately 2.9 million people.

Since the pandemic began, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has maintained a daily case summary of the impact of COVID-19.

Of the 2.9 million people that live in Kansas, approximately 16% of them are people of color, meaning African American, biracial, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander.

Specifically, 6% of the Kansas population is African-American.

And all around the country, this group has proven to be disproportionately impacted by the COVID virus.

Although there are a number of variables associated with contracting the COVID virus, we know that one social detriment is poverty.

And in Kansas, Blacks are more likely to be impoverished.

(soft music) - Joining me now are Dr. Mark Thomas, and Dr. Nason Lui.

But before we talk with them, we want to hear from you.

If you're watching us via the Zoom link, please click on the chat feature, and place your questions and comments in the chat.

We are monitoring it and we'll try to answer as many questions throughout the program as possible.

You can also contact us through Facebook Live with your questions and comments.

We will provide this contact information on the screen throughout this broadcast.

Dr. Thomas is an internal medicine specialist in Topeka, Kansas.

He has over 30 years of experience in the medical field, and counsels his patients in a number of areas.

Dr. Nason Lui is a general surgery specialist in Topeka, Kansas.

He has over 40 years of experience in the medical field, dealing with general trauma and vascular surgery.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

- Dr. Thomas, since we're talking about the virus and the vaccine, can you give us an overview of COVID-19 disease and the virus that causes it?

- Yes, sure, thank you.

I'm happy to be here.

Glad to be here with my esteemed colleague, Dr. Nason Lui, and the others.

So, COVID-19 stands for COVID virus infectious disease 19.

19 referring to 2019, the year in which this virus was first seen.

COVID-19 is a viral respiratory disease that is caused by the SARS-COVID virus 2.

So, just to give a background on the COVID virus.

It's a coronavirus, and it's called a coronavirus, because when you look at it under the microscope, it looks like a crown.

Corona, which means crown.

There are seven types of corona viruses that affect humans.

And four of the, I'll talk a little bit about those.

Four of those viruses have been known for a long time, since the 60s.

They cause about 1/4, or a quarter of the cases of the common cold that we see each year.

Then back in 2002, there was an outbreak of a severe respiratory condition in Asia.

And that was ultimately found to be due to a coronavirus, which was labeled SARS-Coronavirus-1.

There was another outbreak of a severe respiratory infection in the Middle East, primarily in Saudi Arabia, and that was caused by a virus that was named MERS, which is also a coronavirus.

Then we come to the current one, which is SARS-COVID-2, another coronavirus.

So, the way the coronavirus affects your body is that those spikes that I alluded to, I talked about earlier, if somebody coughs or sneezes, or somebody is talking or coughing onto surfaces, if you're in direct contact with that person, you could get those droplets from the coughing or the sneezing going into the respiratory tract.

Or if you touch a contaminated surface and then touch your nose, mouth, or eyes, you could potentially become infected.

Those spikes are like little keys that attach to the cells in your respiratory tract, and it opens the door to the virus getting inside the cells and then creating an infection.

The virus tricks the cell into replicating itself.

And this is how the infection spreads.

So, if you're infected with the virus, the amount of illness varies.

So, there are people who are infected who are completely asymptomatic or they may have just very mild symptoms, sore throat, runny nose, nasal congestion.

And also on the opposite extreme, you can have a severe lower respiratory tract infection associated with this virus.

- And speaking of severe disease with the SARS-COVID-2, we know by the data, that people of color have been disproportionately sickened and have died from this virus.

Can you talk a little bit about that and give us some idea of what that looks like in numbers?

- Yeah, so that is unfortunately true.

So, the latest data from the CDC is that, if you're comparing African Americans, Hispanics, to the non-Hispanic white population, your risk of getting COVID is 1.1 times higher.

So, for every 1,000 cases in non-Hispanic whites, you're gonna have 1,100 cases in a black person.

The rate of hospitalization is three times higher, the risk of death is two times higher.

For Hispanics, the rate of contracting the disease is 1.3 higher, the rate of hospitalization 3.7 times higher, and the risk of death is 2.4 times higher.

So, one of the things that, one of the most staggering statistics I've seen in reading about this whole thing, and this statistic is repeated throughout the whole country.

At one point in Milwaukee County, in Wisconsin, 70% of the deaths and hospitalization from COVID was in the black community.

And they make up only 26% of the population of Milwaukee County.

That's just staggering.

- It's very staggering.

And why is that the case?

What is it about people of color that predisposes us to the most severe form of the infection?

- That's an excellent question.

So, one of the things in medicine that we're really trying to focus in on, is not just prescribing medications, listening to symptoms, taking care of patients in the hospital.

We're looking at what is called social determinants of health.

And that's a huge part of this problem when it comes to the African American and Black and Brown population.

And this has to do with the historic, economic, and social disparities that have existed in this country from the beginning of African Americans being here until today.

So, looking at these inequities, one of the things that I usually like to start with, the education system.

Our exposure to quality basic and higher education is not as good as for the general population.

That leads to higher unemployment, underemployment, and in the United States, health insurance, for the most part, unless you're over 65 or disabled, is tied to your employment.

So, lots of us are uninsured or underinsured.

We have industries that we work in that, at the start of this pandemic, people started shifting the way they would work.

So, some people could work from home.

But we work in industries that really doesn't allow us to do that.

We're bus drivers, transit operators.

We work in waste management, food service.

So, those are factors that tie into this.

- [Dr. Rita] Yes, sir.

- The other thing is that we live in cities which are more crowded.

We tend to live in multi-family apartments or homes, where your risk of exposure to others is higher.

And something that's good, but also is a detriment to us, we tend to live in multi-generational families.

- Okay.

- So, grandma, mom, grandchildren.

And if somebody in that household gets sick, it's really really more difficult for us to do the appropriate social distancing.

- You talked about the workplace, Dr. Lui, you're a surgeon, and this virus, this pandemic just disrupted all of our practices.

But in terms of doing surgery, how did it change the way you were able to do surgery?

And what were some of the things that, early on, you all had to put in place to make sure that the surgeon was healthy, safe, as well as the patient?

- Well, I think for me as a surgeon, the practical things with the COVID virus are things that probably I was doing before.

Like in the operating room, I wore masks, I wore gloves.

My patients wore masks and wore hats.

So, I had to bring what was in the operating room out into the world.

So that I wore masks there, I put gloves on, I washed my hands, things that I was doing in the operating room.

So, basically I had to bring the operating room outside.

The distancing, the hats, the masks, that's changed my practice.

I had to do that on the floors.

Which actually is what all this is all about.

Washing your hands, covering your face.

- Yes.

- The distancing part, maybe we didn't do as much in the operating room, but definitely now we do that.

So, I had to modify that.

Bring surgery to the hospital, to the outside.

- And in the midst of that, there are a lot of things we didn't know early on.

But in the midst of that, sometimes we weren't protected well.

Can you share with us your experience continuing to provide surgical care, but being exposed to the virus yourself?

- I got the virus through professional contact.

And that was the time that we didn't know what the precautions that we need to take.

I still do the necessary protection.

I cover myself, I wash my hands, I protect myself.

Protect you from me, and I'm hoping that you yourself out there can be protected with respect to me.

So, I still continue the same practice.

I still will take care of you surgery-wise, but I will need to know, before I operate on you, unless it's life threatening, and even if it's life-threatening, I'd like to know, are you exposed?

So that I can protect you, so I can protect the people around.

Because what happens to you and the people around, spreads out.

- That's right.

- If I don't protect myself and I don't protect my nurses and my technicians, and they get sick and I get sick, that takes a lot of people down.

And we can't take care of anybody else.

- So, in our last 30 seconds, tell us why should people get this vaccine?

- I took the vaccine, because as a physician, if I cannot take it, how can my patients trust me?

And number two, even though I've gotten the disease and I think I'm protected, I'm still not so sure.

So, I still need to take it.

- [Dr. Rita] Yes, sir.

- Because it's still uncertain.

We don't know everything 100%, but any measure I can take to protect myself, and any measure you can take to protect yourself should be done.

- Well, listen, thank both of you all so much.

Now we're going to bring on two more experts to talk with you.

While we're doing that, be sure to go to the chat feature on Zoom and place your questions and comments.

You can do the same thing on Facebook Live.

While we change out guests, take a look at this information.

- The COVID vaccine.

- Historically, there's a lot of distrust.

- We get it.

- But people of color are disproportionately affected by this virus.

- We've safely taken other vaccines.

- Tetanus, flu.

- 80% of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated.

- Including people of color.

- So, when my time came, I took my shot.

- What about you?

- The COVID vaccine can save your life.

- And the life of your loved ones.

- Take your shot for our people.

- Look, we know what we need to do to beat this virus.

Tell the truth, follow the scientists, the science, work together, put trust and faith in our government to fulfill its most important function, which is protecting the American people.

No function more important.

We need to remember the government isn't some foreign force in a distant capital.

Now it's us, all of us, we the people.

For you and I, that America thrives, when we give our hearts, when we turn our hands to common purpose.

And right now, my friends, we're doing just that.

And I have to say as your president, I'm grateful to you.

(light somber music) - Welcome back.

With us now is Dr. Jacqueline Kenoly and Dr. Soni Mathew.

Dr. Jacqueline Kenoly is an urgent care physician.

Since the start of the pandemic, Dr. Kenoly has been evaluating and treating patients with COVID-19, or COVID-19-like symptoms.

She has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare.

Dr. Soni Mathew is an innovative physician.

He has been a consultant for multinational corporations from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to limit the spread of infection.

Welcome.

Dr. Kenoly, we've talked about the virus, but talk about the vaccine.

That's what people really wanna know.

Tell us about the vaccines that are available, how they're different, and is one better than the other?

- First, I'd like to thank the organizers for having me on the program and for having the program.

Currently, in the United States, we have three vaccines that have been authorized for use.

And I do wanna point out they're authorized for emergency use.

They are not licensed vaccines.

The first vaccine is known as the Pfizer vaccine or BioNTech vaccine.

The second one is the Moderna vaccine.

And those two vaccines require two doses.

And the third vaccine is the Janssen vaccine, or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

And that one currently requires one dose.

The vaccines, the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine are called mRNA vaccines or messenger RNA vaccines.

And the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a viral vector vaccine.

And what the mRNA vaccines, how it works is it takes a little piece of the SARS virus.

So, Dr. Thomas talked about the spike protein, which is a little piece of the coronavirus genetic material, it injects it, it's in the vaccine and it allows our body, it gives our body instructions on it to make this spike protein, so that when our body sees the real virus, we have already mounted an immune response.

And the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is what we call the viral vector vaccine.

And this one is a little different in that it uses a piece of a virus that doesn't cause us any problems, and it puts that little genetic material from the SARS-COVID-2 virus in that little piece of virus, and that's part of the vaccine.

And what it also does is it instructs our cells to make that little spike protein, so that if we get infected with COVID-19 or the SARS virus, our body will mount an immune response.

- Okay, so, Dr. Mathew, it's one thing having vaccines, it's another getting people to receive the vaccine.

Explain the mistrust that we have as people of color in receiving the vaccine.

- Well, thank you again for having us on the show.

I think it's important for us to help share, inform, and educate our community about what we know, and importantly, what we don't know, as well.

In terms of generalized mistrust, I think there's two trains of thought.

I would say that there's the historical context, as well as the modern day context.

I mean, historically, I believe many of us know about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, which started around the Great Depression, 1932, for about 40 years up to 1972, it's a long time.

- [Dr. Rita] That's a long time.

- Essentially, they took advantage of folks from African-American communities and allowed them to be experimented on, not by giving them a vaccine, but actually withholding treatment, when treatment was available during the 1940s.

Syphilis was available, syphilis was the disease, but they had penicillin available in 1940s.

And the purpose of this was to study the effects of untreated syphilis.

We've come a long way from this time period.

Actually, Mr. Fred Gray, who was actually a lead counsel and a lawyer, who sought justice for those who were affected, actually came out now and basically said he supports the vaccine, the COVID-19 vaccine.

And I think it's very important to say that he supports it and he's taken the vaccine as well.

- [Dr. Rita] Yes.

- That goes a long way.

That historical context is very important.

I mean, this is the same lawyer who supported Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, right?

So, that's the historical context.

Coming to a modern day context, we need to think about what is the awareness factor?

What is the education?

What is this vaccine about?

What is COVID-19?

And how does it affect our communities?

Right, so, education is critical in this.

- [Dr. Rita] Yeah, imperative.

- Moving on from awareness, we need to think about access.

Are these vaccines available in our community?

Am I able to, am I eligible for the vaccine?

What are these phases, right?

- [Dr. Rita] Yes.

- So, there's a lot of education and information that we need to share to understand this.

And then it really comes down to affordability.

.

We talk about people who may not be from a high level of socio-economic status.

So, there may be questions of, "Well, do I need to pay for the vaccine?"

"Are there any associated costs?"

"Do I need to take off from work to get the vaccine?"

Or "What happens if I have some side effects?"

- [Dr. Rita] Yes.

- Right, coming lastly to the most important piece, is the autonomy, that is to make an informed decision, of whether or not, with all this information, that I'm gonna take this vaccine.

Am I gonna to do it for myself?

Am I gonna do it for loved ones?

Am I gonna do it for my community?

And that decision making is critical to making that decision to take the vaccine.

- Yeah, and I agree.

And the more information we can provide people, they can really make an informed decision about receiving the vaccine.

One of the questions I get all the time, Dr. Kenoly, is, "That vaccine sure did get created quick.

"How did that happen?

"I don't trust the short timeframe."

Can you talk about that a little bit?

- Well, we are in an emergency situation.

We are in a global pandemic.

So, it became very important to find something that could prevent the infection.

So, yes, the vaccines have come about quicker than previous vaccines, but safety has been at the forefront and continues to be at the forefront.

Like I mentioned, emergency use authorization.

So, the government, or the CDC, or the FDA, has the ability to authorize something that's not necessarily licensed yet in an emergency situation.

And this COVID-19 pandemic is an emergency situation.

But rest assured that the vaccines have gone through, and are still going through the necessary clinical steps and studies that they should.

So, we talk about clinical phases of studies.

So, one, you do a study.

So, we wanna develop a vaccine.

Let's try this vaccine out on mice, for example, to see if it gives us the response that we want.

And what are the toxic effects?

Or are there any major effects?

So, then we do that.

And then we go into phase one trials or studies, where we take a small group, let's say 100 people or less, and we say, "Okay, does the vaccine cause an immune response?"

Because that's what we want.

And if it does, that's good.

And then, what side effects or toxic effects will they be?

Okay, so then, we pass that step.

Then the next step is a phase two trial where we take more people, greater than 100 people.

And we say, "Okay, let's look at the immune response "in more people, let's look at the safety profile, "let's look at the dosing and see what happens."

- And speaking of safety, Dr. Mathew, talk about, and I don't even like to use the word side effects, but talk about some of the effects that people are going to have after taking the doses of the vaccine, but explain them in a way where it's not so frightening when you start feeling certain things.

- Yeah, I think that's an important question to be asked.

And I think Dr. Kenoly started off talking about that.

As we know these mRNA vaccines, they are reactogenic vaccines, and I'll explain that.

Essentially, it uses our body's immune system, revs it up and creates an immune response to develop the antibodies that we're talking about.

So, it is entirely normal to have side effects, such as pain at the site of injection.

- [Dr. Rita] Yes.

- Swelling, some people have mild headache, mild elevation of temperature, right?

Body aches, fatigue.

These are all normal.

Now, for those folks who feel that these are not tolerable, these lasts for about 24 to about 72 hours in general.

They resolve on their own.

For those folks who feel that this is not tolerable, we recommend that they take over the counter medication, such as acetaminophen Tylenol, for example, or ibuprofen, NSAIDs.

And typically it resolves within about 24 to 72 hours.

The good news is having the side effects also tells us vaccine is working, right?

It's doing what it's supposed to do.

And I think it's also important to remember, depending on our age group, our side effects may be a little bit more significant than other age groups.

Folks who I fondly call chronologically challenged, above the age of 65 or so may not have such a robust immune response that someone younger would.

And that's okay.

It doesn't mean you're not protected, it just means your immune response is a little bit different.

- Okay, well, let me ask you, here's another question I hear a lot, Dr. Kenoly, how many people of color were involved in these trials you were talking about?

- So, I have a little cheat sheet here.

In the Pfizer trial, 81% of the subjects were white Americans, 26.2% were Hispanic or Latino Americans, 9.8 were African-American, 4.4 were Asian-Americans.

And the Pfizer trial had over 36,000, the phase three trial had over 36,000 people.

In the Moderna trial there were 79.4% whites, 20% Hispanics, 9.7% African-American, 4.7% Asians.

The Johnson and Johnson trial had the most diverse group with 58.7% whites, 45% Hispanics and 19.4% African-Americans, 9.5% native Americans and 3.3% Asians.

- So, it's safe to say we were represented.

Listen, thank you all so much for your time and your knowledge and your experience.

We were happy to have you.

- Thank you.

- We were happy too.

- We're going to bring on another expert to talk with us.

While we're doing that, be sure to go to the chat feature on Zoom and place your questions and comments.

You can do the same thing on Facebook Live.

While we change our guests, take a look at this information.

- The COVID vaccine.

- People of color are disproportionately affected by this virus.

- 80% of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated.

- Including people of color.

- Take your shot for our people.

- I need you to get vaccinated when it's your turn and when you can find an opportunity.

And to help your family, your friends, your neighbors get vaccinated as well.

Because here's the point, if we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together, by July the fourth, there's a good chance you, your families and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout at a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day.

That doesn't mean large events with lots of people together, but it does mean small groups will be able to get together.

After this long hard year, that we'll make this Independence Day something truly special where we not only mark our independence as a nation, but we begin to mark our independence from this virus.

- The COVID vaccine, - People of color are disproportionately affected by this virus.

- So, when my time came, I took my shot.

- What about you?

- Take your shot for our people.

(soft music) - Welcome back.

With us now is Dr. Sridevi Donepudi.

Dr. Donepudi is a family medicine physician by background, and is the Chief Medical Quality Officer for Stormont-Vail and the Executive Lead for the Stormont-Vail Vaccine Clinic at the event center.

Welcome Dr. Donepudi.

- Thank you very much.

- I have lots of questions.

(Dr. Rita and Dr. Donepudi laughing) In summer, you have been so deeply involved in vaccine, the planning, the rollout.

Can you just explain to us now, where are we in Shawnee County when it comes to the phase, who can get vaccine now?

- So, that question became a lot easier to answer as of Monday.

So, as of Monday, the state moved to phase five, which is the last of the stages that were outlined by the County.

And what that means is, basically anyone 16 on up with the caveat.

So, if you have the Pfizer vaccine, that's the only one that's approved down to 16, but basically any 16 on up is eligible for the vaccine.

So, basically, if you can receive it, now's the time.

- That is so amazing.

We thought it was gonna take until late May or June.

- Absolutely, I think we're only the eighth state that has opened it up to all ages at this point.

- So, we know that, this is gonna change now.

There was a great deal of frustration about how do we get the vaccine?

We can't get online.

We keep trying to get appointments.

So, now it sounds like it's gonna be simpler because we're in a further phase, but how about access?

- It'll be simpler for a few reasons actually.

Early on, yes, there was a lot of frustration because based on the phasing, there were only a certain number of folks based on certain criteria that were eligible to be vaccinated.

Even that said, the amount of vaccine that we had available to offer was much much less than that.

So, a lot of the frustration that people were experiencing is that even if they were in the eligible phase, we did not have enough vaccine to open up to everyone at the same time.

I know for us specifically at Stormont, we managed that and tried to manage people's frustration.

If we threw open appointments to 30,000 people at once when we have a couple thousand vaccines to offer, you can imagine the frustration that would result out of that.

So, we kind of went by descending age to try and prioritize the folks who had the highest risk for being hospitalized or dying from infection first.

But now we have much more robust supply of vaccine, continues to grow every week as the companies are able to produce more vaccine and get it out there.

And so, combine that with more folks who are making themselves available to help with those vaccination efforts, and to being able to access appointments through multiple different providers, and it's made that a lot easier.

- Good, that's wonderful.

So, now that accessibility is greater, let's just make sure people have answers to these nagging questions.

One of the questions from the audience.

"Am I immune after having COVID?"

First of all, if I've already had COVID am I immune?

Do I need to be vaccinated?

- So, that's a great question.

And based on the, let me first say that the information in this space is constantly evolving.

It's a relatively new disease and we're always learning more about it.

But based on the information that we have, we do believe that a natural infection, meaning that you've got COVID, and natural infection produces an antibody response like the vaccine, but maybe not as robust as what you get from being vaccinated.

That can also be protective of getting the disease.

Initially, the information was that we believed it was protective around 90 days, and it's not 100%.

You can have some folks even within that window who may have not had enough antibodies to maintain that protection and did get reinfected.

That window has now been extended to six months that we consider that that immunity does still provide some protection.

That being said, as I kinda mentioned, the antibody response is thought to not be as robust to a natural infection as it is to the vaccine.

So, if you are open to getting the vaccine once you were out of that 10 day isolation period, I encourage you to consider getting it because it will still provide you that benefit.

- Good answer.

How long does the vaccine protect us?

Do we know?

- So, also an area of evolution.

We've only, so, here we only started vaccinating beginning of December.

So, we don't really have a lot of research and data on how long, very far out from when people started being vaccinated to be able to really study and follow their antibodies.

That being said, that window at this point has also been set to reflect six months.

And they'll continue to study that and continue to evaluate that and revisit whether they can continue to extend that window of protection.

- Yeah, information is evolving and changing every day.

- It is, it makes it hard, not only to keep up with it, but you feel like you heard one thing and then you're hearing something else later.

And it's just the nature of the situation that we're in that the information is constantly evolving.

- Yeah, most of us have never lived in a time like this, in a pandemic like this.

So, we are all learning.

- [Dr. Donepudi] Absolutely.

- Well, this goes along with what we were just talking about really, "After getting vaccinated, can I still get COVID?"

I get that question a lot.

- So, the very short answer to that is yes.

So, no vaccine is 100%.

That being said, these vaccines are excellent and they provide a very very good degree of protection.

What's most important that was identified in the studies, is they're almost 100% protective from serious disease, hospitalization, and death.

- Which vaccines are that?

- So, actually, all three of them have excellent data on those endpoints.

And honestly, that's what we care about the most.

If you get a mild form of the disease, have the sniffles, a cough, and it doesn't really cause you any significant distress, that's a bummer.

But what we really wanna prevent is people getting hospitalized, having severe disease that causes them months of challenges and long-term effects, or even dying from the disease.

And all three vaccines have almost 100% protection against that, but you may still potentially get a milder form of disease even if you've been vaccinated.

- Because I know a lot of people have considered Johnson and Johnson to be less than, not as good as, because of some of the effectiveness numbers, the efficacy numbers, but when it comes to that point... - Yes, the most important point.

- Say it again.

- Yes, so, for preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death, all three vaccines are excellent, excellent protection on that.

- [Dr. Rita] Yes.

- And it's honestly, it's an unfair comparison.

We were having some discussion before the program and it's an unfair comparison when you really talk about comparing the efficacy of these three vaccines side by side, because they were all tested in slightly different timeframes and in different markets.

And the prevalence, how much COVID you had out in the world and in the community was changing over that period of time.

What was also changing over that period of time was prevalence of variants and mutations in the virus.

So, areas that had a higher distribution of these mutations could have a different level of effectiveness in the vaccine studies.

- Sure, and I love the idea that Johnson and Johnson is one injection.

And we take for granted that we can leave work for two doses and we're living in a place where we can do that easily, but we forget some time about people who just getting one dose is difficult.

I think about the homeless population, one dose of vaccine and we don't have to be concerned about trying to locate people to get the second.

And then people who live in rural areas.

So, I'm really excited about Johnson and Johnson.

- Yes, and transportation, and even the handling and storage requirements of the vaccine itself really opened up some doors.

- And we're gonna talk about variants in that next segment, but let's end this segment on this question.

"What do you tell your patients "who are hesitant in getting vaccinated?"

- So, I think it helps to know why they're hesitant.

So, being able to start the conversation there regarding what concerns they might have around the vaccine.

And many of the concerns that people may have, you spoke to with some of your other guests including whether the research included persons that represented persons of color and those populations .

Concerns about the side effects and any, even the idea that you're injecting a virus into my body which is not the case, and it's not a live virus and it can not make you sick.

And all of the symptoms that we experience after the vaccine are normal part our immune response.

So, knowing what their concerns are is really helpful.

But bottom line, you have an opportunity to do something both for your benefit and for the benefit of the entire community to decrease the chances and decrease the spread of this disease and decrease your chances of having long-term consequences from having the disease.

- Yeah, I agree with you.

It's one of the most selfless things I think we can do, even though we take the vaccine for ourselves for protection, it is totally outward.

So, we take it so other people will be protected.

- Well, you get both.

So, you get the personal benefits too by absolutely anyone that you're around who is at risk for those serious complications, you're protecting them too.

- Absolutely.

Well, we're gonna take another short break, but I'm gonna ask Dr. Donepudi to remain with me.

When we come back, we're going to answer some of your specific questions.

You still have time to join the chat feature on Zoom and on Facebook Live.

We'll be back in two minutes.

- The COVID vaccine.

- Let's talk about it.

- Historically, there's a lot of distrust.

We get it.

- But people of color are disproportionately affected by this virus.

- Too many of us are dying.

- We are worried about our patients.

- We are worried about our community.

- We've safely taken other vaccines, polio, tetanus flu.

- Now COVID, it is time to stop the spread.

- An emergency situation requires an emergency response.

- 80% of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated, including people of color.

- So, when my time came, I took my shot.

- I took my shot against COVID.

- What about you?

- Do it for your family.

- Do it for our future.

- The COVID vaccine can save your life and the life of your loved ones.

- Take your shot for our own people.

(soft somber music) - With me is Dr. Sridevi Donepudi, and we are back and ready to answer some more of the questions you've presented throughout this virtual town hall.

All right, Dr. Donepudi, the question of questions.

What are these variants?

Do we have to be concerned about them?

- Viruses change over time, and whether it's that crown like coding or whether it's some other element of the virus, the genetics of that virus can change over time in what we call genetic drift and what these variants are, are basically forms of that change.

So, one variant that's been identified has a certain change in the protein coding.

And another variant may have a different change in that virus, but as the longer that you have a virus that is out in the world and the community and in different settings and environments, they can be very smart, even though they don't have brains like ours, but they can be very smart and they start to adapt and figure out ways to work around things that may be impeding their spread.

- So, is that a reason not to take the vaccine because we've got variants?

- Absolutely not, and all of the variants that have been identified so far still do respond to the vaccine.

So, you do still get that protective benefit from the vaccine.

Is there a potential point in the future where we have so much change in that genetic code of the virus that the vaccines that we have will no longer work well against it?

It's possible, and the scientists are positioned for that.

And that's part of the reason why they're watching this so closely, so they can pivot and change and develop new vaccines or variations of the existing vaccines that will help to better target the changes that we're seeing.

- Okay, that's great.

Now, I wanna make sure before we're finished, that people know exactly how to get in for a vaccination.

So, will you talk about what does that look like now?

'Cause it's a lot easier.

It doesn't mean that we don't still need to assist and help people, but when you talk about, how do people, they're listening tonight, they're saying, "Okay, they answered my question.

"I'm ready to go like tomorrow.

"How do I get signed up for this?"

- Such a great question.

And you know, early on, I know a lot of people expressed frustration about all of the electronic modes of getting scheduled.

And just to speak to that for a moment, none of us had a whole infrastructure or a whole set of extra resources and personnel to apply to this process, but we wanted to do everything we could to help the community and help folks get vaccinated.

So, everyone was moving as quickly as they could with the systems and the tools that they had available.

And leveraging these electronic tools allowed all of these vaccinators, all of the people who kind of stepped forward to help in this space to do so as efficiently as they could.

So, basically with these few people, these few resources, getting it out, getting it started.

Now we have ability to schedule by phone and you have a lot of choices in the community now where you didn't initially, that are receiving vaccine supplies and can make them available.

And I believe you have a graphic that the Health Department put together of all of the vaccinators that are available in our community and how you access them in order to schedule an appointment.

So, now there's a mixed number of different access points, whether it's by phone, by electronics, for those of us with the health system, by patient portal, if you have a portal account.

So, a number of different ways to get one.

- Wonderful, and also know that you can go to informedvaccine.com and that graphic will be there.

So, you'll see the links, you'll see phone numbers.

There has to be five to seven different concrete ways to get yourself on a list and get vaccinated.

So, we encourage everybody to do that.

And you're right, Topeka was overwhelmed just like the world was overwhelmed.

And so, even though at times I would get annoyed why is it taking so long?

I had to understand that there wasn't magically more staff and there wasn't magically more vaccines.

So, you all have done a tremendous job, just and when you go to the events center, everything is so systematic and people get in and out.

Do people need any additional advice about how to be prepared when they go, what happens after the injection?

Do they have to wait?

Does somebody need to accompany them?

- Yeah, so, early on, again, although setting up the systems was a little bit of a jumpstart.

We, in two weeks, we basically determined our site, got everything set up and we were ready to start vaccinating our team members with the health care workers at the beginning.

But at the beginning, it was less about the bodies to do the vaccinating and more about the fact that we simply didn't have the vaccine.

We just had such limited supplies.

We're tipping that point now where it's gonna be more about the bodies to do the vaccinating, and thankfully, the State and the County in the last couple of weeks, have been able to provide us some staffing resources to help in that respect.

So, for our particular site at the vaccine clinic, once you've made your appointment, the one thing that I would wanna make sure that people understand about being prepared for, is that because it was set up as a mass vaccination site to meet the community need to get as much vaccine and as many people vaccinated as we could as quickly as possible, it's set up in a very spread out manner.

Also to maintain social distancing.

So, at this point we're seeing about 2000 people a day.

And in order to do that safely, it takes up a bit of real estate.

Which means there's some walking.

There's some walking to navigate that site, and I know that can be a barrier to many folks.

We do have wheelchairs on site that can be helpful for folks if they have those limitations.

If they have their own assisted device, they should certainly bring that with them.

If they believe they'll need some help to navigate the site either pushing the chair or with their assistive device, it'd be good for them to bring one visitor with them to help them navigate the site.

Other than that, it's their ID and the time navigating through the process, if they don't have any history of significant allergic reactions.

About 15 minutes after the vaccine, so, once you've kind of gotten registered and gotten to the point of being vaccinated, then you're observed for 15 minutes afterwards before you're released.

If you do have a history of severe allergic reactions, they'll do some further questions.

And look usually about 30 to 45 minutes afterwards.

Most people are able to be in and out of there in under an hour and sometimes as short as 30 to 40 minutes.

- And before we run out of time, I wanna mention that there are now some community vaccine clinics.

So, you'll also see it in informedvaccine.com and we'll show a graphic as well, that Fellowship Hi-Crest is having some Johnson and Johnson walk up without an appointment type vaccination clinics in April.

So, take advantage of that as well.

- Yeah, we're really excited to be able to see the Health Department helping and working with partners to access and get access to those folks.

- Yes, so, it's an exciting time that we're turning the corner.

- Yeah.

- [Dr. Rita] We still have work to do.

- We do.

- Is there anybody, just quickly, anybody that should not absolutely get the vaccine?

- So, if you have history of a severe allergic reaction to one of the components in the vaccine, that would really be the main contraindication to getting it.

Other than that, or if you're not sure, talk to your doctor.

- Okay, all right.

Oh, we're out of time and we need to close out this broadcast portion of the town hall meeting.

But we're going to continue the discussion virtually on Zoom conference and on Facebook Live.

I'd like to thank Dr. Donepudi, Dr. Kenoly, Dr. Lui, Dr. Matthew and Dr. Thomas, for their time and expertise.

I'd also like to thank the Topeka Kansas Chapter of The Links Incorporated for conceiving of this program.

The Links is one of the nation's oldest and largest volunteer service organization of extraordinary women committed to enriching, sustaining, and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other persons of African ancestry.

Additionally, we thank our sponsors, Capitol Federal Savings Bank, HDB construction, and My Company.

And finally, I'm Dr. Rita Rogers Stanley, hoping, strongly suggesting, praying to you, take your shot.

(soft music) - [Announcer] Capitol Federal is proud to present this program and would like to thank all medical professionals for their service.

Stay safe, stay strong.

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