- Nearly two years in, we may have more questions now than we did at the beginning of the pandemic, and we've got a panel of experts here to help us sort through it all.

Stay tuned for an "Explore Health" special on COVID-19 in partnership with Get Vaccinated Chattanooga, coming up next.

- [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, Benwood Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Foundation, Lyndhurst Foundation, and Cempa Community Care.

(upbeat instrumental music) - Welcome to this "Explore Health" special.

I'm your host, Ron Harr.

The team at Get Vaccinated Chattanooga asked us to be a part of a forum designed to answer your questions about COVID-19, and we're pleased to have a panel of experts here to guide us.

Dr. Mary Lambert is the director of community health for the City of Chattanooga.

Dr. Matthew Kodsi is the VP of medical affairs at CHI Memorial.

Dr. Mark McKenzie is the medical director at ClinSearch, a Chattanooga company that conducts clinical trials for medical research.

And LaDarius Price is the community outreach manager at Cempa Community Care.

We spoke at Pneuma Church on January 27th.

Here's that conversation.

Thank you for all sharing your expertise and time with us tonight, but to make this a more effective communication, I want to let everybody know all of us are vaccinated, we are socially distanced more than six feet apart, and we'd been wearing masks, but we think we'll be able to talk to you better if we remove them now so that our voices can be more clearly heard.

So, the problem is that we were also excited a couple of years ago when there was a vaccine for this terrible disease that we've known about for a couple of years, and a lot of people were lined up and very anxious to get the limited supply of vaccines that were available.

And we went through that process, and we're now where we are, and the problem now is that we have a large percentage of the population that is not getting vaccinated and it's having an impact on them personally and on the greater community and on the healthcare system.

So, to kick that discussion off, Dr. Lambert, I'd like to ask you to go first and tell us what you're seeing as it relates to our vaccination rate here in the city and in Hamilton County.

- Well, certainly, two years into this pandemic, we are not where we should be, particularly since we have multiple safe and effective vaccines.

Our vaccination rate, those who are fully vaccinated in Hamilton County, is at about 55.4%.

We need to have at least 80% or more fully vaccinated so that the protection for the entire community is provided.

That's what we want to see, but 55% is not 70%, and we need 70% or more.

Additionally, that 55% is a little misleading, because when we dig down a little bit and look at specific segments of the population, for example, African-American males, in May, the vaccination rate, fully vaccinated rate for African-American males was 29%.

Today, as of today, it's about 39%.

Some progress, but not where we need to be.

So we need to pay attention to the numbers and we also need to do whatever we can to provide vaccination opportunities, to encourage, to educate, to dispel myths so that we get that number higher than 55.4% for Hamilton County.

- Well, thank you for kind of getting us started with a picture of where we are.

So, Dr. Kodsi, what are you seeing at Memorial?

- So, we're seeing the same trend that's being seen nationally, that the majority of patients in our intensive care units and our medical units in the hospital have not been vaccinated, so I think that we all know that we're seeing more breakthrough cases for the vaccinated with omicron and more than we did with the delta or the strains before, but still, it appears to be that the majority of people who end up sick enough to be in the hospital are those who are unvaccinated.

- Well, and there's something we can do about that, right?

- There is.

- So, thank you for being with us this evening and sharing that.

LaDarius, what about at Cempa?

You all are on the front lines.

You have been for years.

What are you seeing?

- Yes, sir.

We've, you know, being afforded the privilege of being on the front line since the very beginning of this, going out and doing mobile testing in different communities, and when it was at its height of, you know, having lines at our community centers and churches and different places week after week of people wanting to be tested, and then the seeing the shift into the vaccine where it was the same thing.

You know, serving out in the community with Dr. Kodsi, Us having weekends or where, you know, he was like, we can get to vaccinating 2000 people today, and you're like, I don't know about that.

And then at the end of the day, when you vaccinated 2000 people within a community and then to see it slack off and then us to go into the Howard community, and then on that rainy Saturday where we only vaccinated about 55 people.

So, we've seen it go from, you know, people standing in line and waiting in line and really wanting it to people not really wanting it at all.

And then where we are now, where there's so much hesitancy, and just quite frankly, miseducation, and that's what we're seeing so much of right now in our community where people are not allowing themselves to be thoroughly educated about the vaccine and how it can protect you.

- Well, it's gotta be frustrating when you know you can do that kind of rate, of 2000, and that is going to waste.

- [Price] Yes, sir.

- Well, thank you for being here, and then Dr. McKenzie, thank you for being here, and tell us about your view of this at ClinSearch.

- Yeah, as a physician and scientist, one of the things we think of with any disease, having a prevention, having a treatment, and those are key things we went after early.

We were excited, you know, a year and a half, almost two years now, to be able to work on treatment and testing trials, and then shortly, a few months after that, early summer, we began vaccination trials.

We had a lot of eagerness to participate because many people wanted protection, and through the remainder of the year, as we got results and showed what could work, we were excited when they were authorized for more people to have them in December of '20 and moving forward.

We follow the trends.

Some of the things we worked on for treatments no longer are effective, but they helped thousands of people, and that's going on now as we get a new variant of concern, we've bend the trials to manage that, to see if we can continue to provide something that's useful.

And it's exciting to be part of that work, but also frustrating that we're still here, as Dr. Lambert said, trying to get people vaccinated, and we should be a lot farther ahead.

- So, when we talk about following the science, we have that science right here in Chattanooga with your company, and you're doing trials on many other vaccines as well, right?

- Yeah, we are.

And, you know, we're a dedicated research site.

Work on many other health conditions, but we're looking at other vaccines.

Some of them will be combinations with COVID vaccine as well as other seasonal problems, such as flu, et cetera, and exciting to try that.

And we do get a substantial amount of support from the community, people volunteering to help science move along so that physicians can have treatments and also ways to prevent that we didn't have before.

- Well, thank you.

I've been thinking about this.

We've all been thinking about this a lot, and we've discussed before the show that we need a way to get this across that's simple.

There are a lot of conflicting words and things, and we know more now than we did two years ago when we first had this situation in front of us, and aren't we blessed that we do have multiple vaccines?

So, how do we get people to use them?

Our producer suggested an analogy before the show that we all like, and that is that we should look at these vaccines like a seatbelt in a car.

Seatbelts don't prevent car accidents and they don't prevent deaths in really bad accidents, but they do make car accidents much, much safer for the majority of people who have car wrecks, and vaccine's, the same way.

It won't prevent it.

It won't prevent death for everybody, but for most people, they're going to be a whole lot better off and the hospitalization rate and death rate goes down by huge percentages with people that are vaccinated.

We're all gonna agree we're gonna use the car seatbelt analogy.

What else can we do, though?

You know, before the show, you were talking about going out in the community and having events to get people to come, and sometimes it takes them to show up two or three times before they're ready to roll up their sleeve.

Tell us, we've still got that effort underway, though, right?

- Yes, we do.

In a number of areas with partnerships, with a number of organizations in the community.

At the public library twice a week, at our community centers, the old YFDs, at churches, any number of venues within the community, in addition to the large vaccination efforts that the health department has going on.

So, continuing those, but also really beefing up the information dissemination from reliable sources, trusted sources who have the expertise to answer the questions that need to be answered so that people can make the decision to have the vaccination.

That's probably where we need to build the most now, so that individuals have the opportunity to ask any question that they need.

As a advanced practice nurse and an educator and now our program director for the city for their community health office, much of our work in addition to getting shots into arms is getting the information out there, developing and improving our messaging, how we get that out, and providing opportunities for individuals to simply arrive at a vaccination clinic opportunity and ask questions as much as they need to of professionals who can answer those questions, and if they choose not to get the vaccination that day, as long as we're in the same place, the same time every week, they'll come back.

And we've had them come back on the third time, the second or third time, and by then have made the decision to have the vaccination, and they'll often bring family members and friends with them.

We need to do more of that.

And we plan to.

- Well, we need to.

It's a very important task that we have in front of us for this community to be able to go on with life and for us to get beyond COVID.

We have a graphic that was created for our discussion today, and I'm looking at this, and it still just makes me shake my head that if you are over 50 years of age, you are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized from getting COVID than you are if you're vaccinated, and to me, that is an amazing risk.

And when you look at, you know, as you said at Memorial, who's there, who's in the hospital, and who's very, very sick from COVID, it's people who are unvaccinated, and all you have to do is get vaccinated to improve your situation by a factor of 17.

That's a pretty amazing success rate.

For younger populations, it's 12 times.

You're 12 times better off if you're between the ages of 18 and 49 to also to be vaccinated.

So, there's a clear story here about the power of the vaccine.

What else do you think we can do to, what can we say to anyone who's listening tonight?

If you have a loved one who's resistant to getting vaccinated, LaDarius, what would you tell them to tell their loved one?

- Yeah, I think, you know, we've all seen it.

I always give my own personal testimony.

I never want to be a hypocrite in my community.

I want to lead by example.

I got my medical mother up here.

When I started out on this journey, I said that even working in the medical field, I had never gotten a flu shot before last year, and I was bent on me not getting vaccinated, and after multiple meetings and having conversations with Dr. Lambert, she said, "Boy, you better get vaccinated," and so I did my research.

Being a man of God, I prayed about it, and I came to that personal place of me saying, this is what I want to do because I was on the frontline working week in and week out.

I have a wife and five kids at home.

I don't want to take anything home to them.

I want to protect them as the man of the house.

So, I made that very personal decision to do it.

And through that, I was able to not only encourage and educate my wife about getting vaccinated, but so many of my family members, as well as friends of my community.

So, it's become about being an ambassador for me and my community, and just leading by example.

- And you and I lost a very dear friend.

We've seen the darkest side of COVID in our friend, Chris Ramsey, who's no longer with us.

- Yes.

I often think about, you know, had, because he passed January 16th of 2021, had he been able to get vaccinated, I often think about, you know, he would still be here with us.

But he gave his life out serving week in and week out his community and got COVID and transitioned and passed from it.

So, as I stated in a meeting yesterday, he is my why.

Every day that I get up and fight for my community, he's my why to keep going, so.

- Well, let's talk about availability.

Where can you get a vaccine?

- Oh my.

- Anywhere.

- Yeah, it seems like that the word is on every building I drive by.

- It is.

It is.

The City of Chattanooga has about 19 community centers, and in addition to libraries, the main library downtown and the many branches, the library branches around the Chattanooga area, and we have vaccination clinic opportunities with nurses, some from the city and some from, and most from our partners, some non-profits, faith-based, who have been standing by us since the establishment of this office by Mayor Kelly and the receipt of a Department of Health and Human Services grant, $3.4 million to do this work.

So, we've got opportunities all over this city.

We are working very hard to make sure that that is communicated as well as we can, having all of that information in one place, one website, one schedule of what days, what times, locations, as well as some information eventually we'll have we hope to have regarding all the pharmacies in the area, also our locations for vaccinations.

Free of charge as far as I've seen so far.

They want, you know, if you have insurance, they'll take that, but so many opportunities, almost everywhere you see a pharmacy, everywhere you see a community center, the health department and its huge efforts, the churches who are involved.

So many opportunities for vaccination or for getting their questions answered.

- Yeah, you said that a couple of times, and maybe we should focus on that for a minute.

So, if there are people who are listening to the sound of our voices who have concerns that, you know, that they're hesitant to be vaccinated, come to one of these events and ask those questions.

You're there as much to answer questions as you already give shots, right?

- Correct.

Correct.

If they come in the door, we're not gonna, you know, make them get it because we can't do that, but we will answer questions and we'll answer questions repeatedly.

I actually, and the nurses and the volunteer positions and others that we work with at these vaccination sites, we actually encourage them to ask the questions as well as to tell them what they've heard.

What have you heard?

Tell me what you've heard.

And I've, you know, I probably have a collection of stories, a collection of accounts of what's going to happen if you get this vaccination that probably would make for a great article.

And it probably will because it's very interesting from all kinds of sources, from neighbors, to Facebook friends, to YouTube videos, to Google searches where they get a source that if you trace them, they really are not the reliable source.

It's almost as though sometimes I think they're avoiding, deliberately avoiding the CDC's website, the Surgeon General's website, (laughs) the FDA's website, but that information is there.

And having served on active duty, and two of my assignments were at the CDC, two were at FDA.

you know, I know the work that goes into developing that information, revising it, updating it based on the science, and then delivering it in a format that's at a reading level that most individuals can comprehend.

And then even with reading that, sometimes you still need, people learn differently in different ways.

Somebody may read it, but they still need to ask their questions, or they didn't quite understand it.

That kind of thing.

I think we're going to be more successful if we make ourselves available to answer questions and to inquire as to what information they have or what concerns or what's causing them to hesitate getting a vaccination.

- And we haven't talked about this much.

Dr. Kodsi alluded to it, but by having a large percentage that's unvaccinated, we have more people in the hospital, and it's gotta be exhausting for our healthcare workers in this community.

We fortunately have not been to the situation where we were opening up parking decks and so forth, but we have been near capacity in this community at several points, and we can reduce that by increasing the vaccination level, right?

- Absolutely.

I mean, if you look at our, and I'm shooting from the hip a little bit here, but our initial surge, the hospitalizations in the larger community were around 380, and then with omicron, I mean, not with omicron, with Delta, we went up towards, it was about 500.

It was about 560 or so, and now we're at 420.

So, we're really not, we're still higher than we were with our first surge, not quite where we were with delta, but it's exhausting for the healthcare workers.

I mean, it is absolutely.

And I think the challenge in addition to just caring for the patients in the hospital and the stress from that is the fact that when the healthcare workers go out in the world, everyone else has moved on.

I mean, really, society is trying to move on.

They're trying to put this behind them, and it's not really behind us, and the healthcare workers, they can't do that because they have to face it every day.

So, I think it is so important that we face this as a community.

And whereas I know everyone is worn out and everyone is tired of talking about COVID, hearing about COVID, seeing ads about COVID, we have to remember that the community is still fighting that battle.

- We have some charts that were given to us tonight about the zip codes in Hamilton County, where the biggest problem is, where the lowest vaccination rates are, and I hope we can put that up for the audience.

And it's so small, I'm gonna have to put these on, but the highest zip code vaccination rate is 37405.

And this graphic that you're looking at is in two separate pages, and it goes down to 37416, which has 36% of the population fully vaccinated, and then the next page starts with 37377 and goes all the way down to 37407, which only has 15%.

I mean, so let's start there at the bottom.

37407, 403, 311, 410, all of those zip codes are way below what they should be, and maybe that's where we can focus our efforts.

- The good thing, Ron, you know, with Get Vaccinated Chattanooga, and Dr. Kodsi can speak directly to this, we're not just shooting in the dark when we showed up in communities to provide the vaccine.

We allowed the data to drive us and be our vehicle to go into the communities to provide the vaccine.

So, many of the areas and neighborhoods that we went in, we looked at the data and said this is a need and we want to provide that need.

We want to remove all barriers, because for a lot of communities, you know, healthcare and different things can be a barrier.

So, with that being said, many of them have had the opportunity to come out to some of these mobile clinics and things of that nature.

And then once again, even with Dr. Lambert, she's allowing the data to drive her as it relates to where they're providing the vaccine with through our community centers.

And these are hubs, also trusted places.

That was the big thing about going into the community is when you go to a Brainerd High School, well, that's a trusted landmark in my community, and then when you pull up and you see a face such as mine or Dr. Lambert's, those are people that I trust.

It's about going to trusted messengers.

If I have any type of questions, I've shot Dr. Kodsi COVID questions, I'm going to a trusted source.

My primary care physician, I'm going to a trusted source.

So, that's the other thing.

If you have questions and you do have a primary care, if you don't, you need to get one, but if you have one, go to people that you trust to have these conversations with.

- Good point.

There's always a risk and reward in everything we do every day, but in this case, the risk is so small, and the reward- - Oh, the benefits significantly outweigh the risk.

- And the benefit.

- And I think the unfortunate, I'm not sure that's the right word, but a consequence of when a vaccine or any new medicine comes out and is used on this scale, any medicine is going to have potential side effects.

- [Harr] Sure.

- And any medicine has the risk for some potentially serious side effects.

And we've seen some side effects of these vaccines, and people hear about them and they worry, understandably.

But when you've got vaccines that are given to hundreds of millions of people, you're going to see some side effects, but the numbers of people who had the side effects are so small in comparison to the number of people who've gotten the vaccine or to the consequences of having COVID in the same number of people that there is no doubt the benefit of the vaccine significantly outweighs any risk.

- So, this number shocked me when we saw it on this chart.

17 times more likely to be hospitalized than if you're vaccinated, then we have a chart that shows what the vaccinated population hospitalization looks like, and it's a flat line, and the unvaccinated line, it goes up and off the chart.

So, it's a clear winner.

Also, in the hospital, you're now still, I assume, prevented from doing some work you need to do on other problems.

- Oh, absolutely, and not only in the hospital.

One of our biggest concerns is people, when COVID is surging like this, they're scared to come to the hospital, and when they're scared to come, they're staying at home with their medical conditions to the point that they get so severe, they have no choice but to come.

So, not only are we seeing people with COVID who are critically ill or variably sick with COVID, but we're seeing people with heart failure, diabetes, kidney problems that are coming to the hospital much sicker than they ever had.

So, it makes it more challenging for, of course, the hospital and the healthcare workers, but we are very worried about the effect on the community.

I have no doubt, and we talk about it, that the consequences of COVID stretch way beyond death from COVID.

But there are so many people who have died at home from other diseases, because they were scared to come to the hospital at times like this.

- So, if you listening to us tonight, if you are a believer in vaccines and have been out and gotten yours, congratulations.

Now we need to ask you to do one more thing.

Talk to everybody you love and everybody you know and tell them what you've done and be an example and urge them to go do the same, because it will help all of us.

I want to thank our panel for joining us, and I want to thank you, as well.

We appreciate the generosity of Pneuma Church.

They were kind enough to allow us to record this conversation in their space.

If you're looking for more information about testing and vaccination in the area, visit health.hamiltontn.org or call (423) 209-8383.

Thank you for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat instrumental music) - [Announcer] Support for this program is provided by the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, Benwood Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Foundation, Lyndhurst Foundation, and Cempa Community Care.