♪ So I like what I see when I'm looking at me ♪ ♪ When I'm walking past the mirror ♪ ♪ Don't stress through the night, at a time in my life ♪ ♪ Ain't worried about if you feel it ♪ ♪ Got my head on straight, I got my vibe right ♪ ♪ I ain't gonna let you kill it ♪ ♪ You see I wouldn't change my life, my life's just ♪ ♪ Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh ♪ - Hello and welcome to a Seat At the Table, I'm Monica Pearson.

Today we're talking about COVID-19, its impact on black and brown communities and the vaccines that are now available.

My cohost, Denene Millner, and Christine White are here today and we have two very special guests.

The first is Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, who is the President and Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine.

And Gail Brooks, Gail is a COVID-19 survivor and activist who increases awareness and education about the virus.

Thank you all for being here.

Well, we know that COVID 19 has impacted all of us in so many ways.

So let's talk about the impact it's had on us personally.

Hey Denene, how has it affected you?

- I've worked from home for 15 years.

So being home and the house writing, really didn't impact me but the fear of what was going on around us.

Worried about how it would affect my children's, their health, my dad, my younger daughter, Lyla, you know graduated from high school last year and we did that on the computer.

And my older daughter is about to graduate from Yale and we're not allowed to go to her graduation, which y'all know this hurts me deeply.

But more importantly, I was worried about when they went back to campus, what it meant for them to be on campus to not have me sitting around saying, "Wash your hands, put your mask on."

I had to trust that they were going to do what they were supposed to do.

I got lucky with Mari because Yale was just on it with testing the kids every three days, isolating entire dormitories, if there was an outbreak or if there was a positive case.

And Mari she's pre-med, so she works in a research center so she was able to get her vaccine pretty early on.

But so that was good, but it was still there's just this massive worry, just worry all the time.

- Christine, how did it affect you?

- I will tell you guys, I'm like Denene, really happy to be working from home.

Working from home is not exactly new.

And like, Denene, I do have a certain sense fear.

I had a similar situation with my daughter, who started Spelman, graduated from high school and was not able to spend her freshman year on campus.

And I think it may have been a blessing in disguise because it forced her to focus on academics through zoom.

She had less distractions.

But I think the part that has been so impactful for my life is this awareness, this new awareness that there is so much uncertainty.

For my entire life, for the most part, I have had very predictable experiences.

There was high school, there was elementary school, there was college, nothing out of the ordinary except for maybe September 11th, really happened that shook up my world and made me feel uncertain about the future.

However, as in many generations before us, we are seeing a shift in society where everyone is affected.

No matter where you go, on the face of the earth, people are making changes and having to adjust their schedules and all of the expectations that we have for normal life.

And so I think that I had been smacked into a new reality that says that, tomorrow's not promised that things that I have expected the way that things have gone, not the way I've expected things to go, may not go as expected.

And I think that that makes me more grateful for every day but it also puts me on the on the alert in a way that I wasn't on alert before.

- Well, Dr. Montgomery Rice, as president of Morehouse School of Medicine, and also a wife and a mother, how did this impact you in both of your areas?

- So Monica, I would tell you, I actually felt redeemed and empowered.

Redeemed because Morehouse School of Medicine has been talking about health disparities and doing this work to raise awareness for the last 45 years.

And what COVID-19 did, was snatch the curtain down so that everybody could see the impact of health inequities, the chronicity of health inequities and how they lead to disparities and the gaps that we see in access to care, quality of care.

And then I even felt more redeemed because people actually figured out that they couldn't run away from it.

That the only thing they had was to be in front of their televisions or whatever their social media platform and being bombarded every day with the data that shows that black and brown communities were disproportionately impacted.

And it wasn't because we were black and brown, it was because of the social determinants.

The fact that we are the ones who are out there on the front line, whether it's being in a healthcare system and you are of the nursing assistant or you have the food preparation person or the orderly, or whether you're that Amazon or UPS driver, or that bus driver, you are that essential worker.

And because of those circumstances, as an essential worker you didn't have the luxury to work from home.

You couldn't social distance, you couldn't do all of those things that many of us had the luxury of doing.

And then finally empowered because Morehouse School of Medicine is standing in the gap.

That's what we do.

That's what we have done.

And the relevance of our work is finally resonating with so many others in the world.

Now, personally it has been overwhelming having the responsibility to ensure that we kept this place open, because we were educated and training the next generation.

And we knew that we couldn't do that on zoom.

So to be able to do that in a safe, responsible way and to serve as a model for others has been empowered.

- So Gail, you have become an activist, mainly because of COVID.

So tell us about how COVID affected you.

How do you think you got it?

Just everything that has to do with COVID.

- So you're absolutely right, I have become an activist for whole health primarily as a result of my experience with COVID-19.

It was interesting because I think it was early March that I got a call from a friend overseas who kinda gave me a heads up that there was this virus that was spreading and that we needed to take caution.

It would probably be making its way to State side and I needed to prepare.

And I say that because from that point on I felt like I was kind of playing chicken with the virus waiting for a lockdown that didn't ever come.

And so I think I got COVID 19, actually at my gym.

It was kind of a scenario where I kinda knew I probably shouldn't go.

And I just kinda pushed it a little bit further than I should have, and then ended up with COVID-19.

- What were your symptoms?

Because you know, a lot of people shake it off and say, "Oh, it just feels like a cold."

But how did it affect you physically?

- You know what was really interesting and this was actually the beginning of my journey toward advocacy.

My symptoms were a little bit different.

The first, remember, I have a very vivid memory of this, extreme sneeze and a headache that felt like a combination between a migraine and a sinus headache.

It was the worst headache I've ever had in my life.

And that was my kind of my first clue that something was wrong but I still didn't quite think it was COVID.

It wasn't until I really started to experience kind of this fatigue, the slowing down, then I got the body aches that I thought started in my neck, I thought I had slept on it funny.

And then it was confirmed really when I lost my sense of taste and smell.

But I never had a dry cough.

And so that was alarming to me because at the time, that was one of the three main symptoms that were being communicated to people as signs to look out for COVID-19.

And so when I realized that as my disease progression started to really focus more on neurological impact, this was a key challenge that there were a number of symptoms out there that people were experiencing that weren't being communicated as a watch out.

- So how did you start your organization and why did you start it?

And Denene and Christine, please jump in.

- I'm sorry.

Can you hear me?

- Yes, go ahead.

- So how did, how did I start my organization?

Great question.

So I was in an interesting position, I just moved back from Miami.

I had health insurance but I didn't have a primary care provider.

And at the time, it was almost as if you didn't have insurance because they had closed off kind of elective visits and your options were the emergency room or urgent care.

And of course they were telling us not to go to the emergency room.

So long story short, I called urgent care at the time it was here's what you need to buy over the counter to treat these symptoms.

Of course, that didn't satisfy my concerns.

So I'm a strategic planner, a researcher and I took a nose dive into all of the information that was online that was open source.

So I was reading studies coming out of Italy and China.

I was in the survivor groups that were forming on Facebook, which were a huge source of information.

And I just really quickly began to realize that a lot of the information around the disease, how it was impacting people's bodies, how to practice risk mitigation, all of these information was not making the airwaves and reaching the people that I felt most needed to get the information.

And so I started calling my group of colleagues from advertising and marketing, from health, from mental health, trying to put a coalition together to get a campaign out, just really an awareness campaign.

And I was looking back in my files and I put together the first deck around April of last year and started shopping to whoever would listen, letting people know that we really needed to get the information out to folks.

- Well, that was what was curious to me was that you're right, you're absolutely right.

The information was slow coming in places where people are most likely to look for it.

But what I found is heartening was that there was so much disinformation that people were sharing amongst themselves without taking the time to do what you did, which was to go out and actually find credible sources that could give them the information that they needed to protect themselves and the people that they loved and the people that they're around.

So like, did you come across... How did you deal with people and their misinformation and their refusal to go and actually get real information.

- And also after you answer that, Gail, I'd like for a Dr. Montgomery Rice to talk about that too.

- Sure.

And I'll try to make it brief.

- No don't - I'm glad you brought it up.

I'm glad you brought it up because what we're calling the infodemic is a huge barrier to mitigating the impact of the pandemic overall.

What I started to observe, even anecdotally at first, was that a lot of the misinformation being shared online across all right extremis and the anti-vax community was the same information that was being shared and targeted toward African-Americans, who as we know already suffer from significant levels of mistrust.

And so that was a huge issue that we wanted to address in our research.

So we conducted a study, actually a Fulton County residents September through November of last year.

And the results were alarming, in the sense that 13% of the African-Americans we spoke to didn't believe that COVID existed at the time.

Almost half of the black people we spoke to thought that it was developed intentionally in a lab or at 41% said it was a form of population control, 24% thought it was connected to 5G.

So all of these things that I was seeing anecdotally shared online were coming back to us in the form of responses in our study.

So that really created a cause for concern.

Then when we looked at the mistrust, we saw that levels of mistrust toward government institutions, which were the primary sources of information were also really high.

So we just do that we needed to mobilize, messaging and people on the ground who could actually debunk some of these myths and really begin to prime people for kind of vaccine communications and awareness because we saw early on that this was gonna be a challenge.

- Dr. Montgomery Rice.

- So everything that Gail has said is true.

The information out there very early on in March and April was non-existent or made up in kitchen tables not based on any level of science.

However, I can tell you that there were many of us who were anticipating this in the scientific community.

And so we started to do what we think that we have the opportunity and the expectation to do was to act like scientists but act like culturally competent scientists.

And that is to really be able to confirm all of the scientific understanding that was relevant at that time, and to be transparent with our community when we didn't know that we were gonna learn.

And so there were coalitions formed, BlackDoctor.org, Blacks Against COVID, the National Medical Association the National Urban League, the National Nurses Association.

We started having town halls, we've probably had 20 of them.

We started having these town halls and we would have 20,000 people on these town halls.

And we would have people like Dr. Bouchie or Dr. Marks, a person at the FDA and other persons at the CDC and myself as a President of Morehouse School of Medicine, the other presidents of the forest or their black medical colleges.

And we just answered questions.

We gave them information that we knew at the time, we talked about the science.

We ensured that there was representation of all of us on the FDA panels, the CDC panels and we are all been doing vaccine trials.

So we started out information, debunking out myths, and then we started out how do we address the concerns of hesitancy around participating in a vaccine trial.

Because we knew that this disease was disproportionately impacting us.

And so we knew that we had to be represented in the clinical trial because we had to be able to look for unintended consequences or side effects that may occur with us if we weren't represented.

Because we also had the diseases like diabetes and hypertension, heart disease that are all vascular in nature.

And remember, this virus attacks the receptors on the vasculature.

So we knew this from a scientific perspective.

We then Morehouse School of Medicine applied for the one big grant, which was a $40 million grant from HHS.

And if you go to our website, you will see that we were the recipient of that, and that grant you all.

You go to our website, www.msm.edu and we'll drop this in the chat room.

You can go to the national COVID-19 resiliency network.

All of the information about COVID-19 in eight different languages.

Whether it's basic information about what is a virus?

What is a vaccine?

Printable so that people can use it for any organization.

But the really exciting part of it is if you put your zip code in, it will tell you where every resources for COVID testing in the country.

This is not a Georgia, this is in the country.

A COVID test, a COVID antigen test, a primary care provider, vaccinations, et cetera.

Then it gives you the directions the GPS of how to get there.

We've also built on there now the social determinant services that people need for transportation, food insecurity, et cetera.

So we listen with empathy.

We were not dismissive about the vaccine hesitancy, we didn't try to disregard people, we said what we knew, and when we didn't know we said, we didn't know but we will learn because we are in the room where it has happened.

So Monica, what we really tried to do was to continue to build trust.

- I think that that's so important Dr. Montgomery Rice.

It is amazing that we don't consider a cultural competence when we think about how we're disseminating information.

And I really wannna thank you and applaud you for the work that you're doing at Morehouse School of Medicine.

And you Gail as well, with the organization that you began to get this information out.

I also believe that it's important that we give voice to the very rational, in many cases, hesitance that black and brown folks have around trusting the medical system.

Because if we don't give voice to it, if we don't understand that it is a legitimate fear that was created over generations over hundreds of years then it's harder for us to debunk some of these myths with any amount of respect and regard for how folks have developed this distrust.

I mean, I think about the way that the medical community in the 1800s and 1900s really dismissed some of the key medicines and ancient wisdom that indigenous folks and that Latin folks carried with them dismissing people like healers and birth assistance or what we used to call birth grandmothers.

What we know is doulas today.

And that dismissal and disrespect of our medical history that kept us alive, that served us for so many centuries, I think contributed to some of this distrust.

And so we have to know that as we're beginning to educate and bring folks into a fold of new information and of a new system that's run by people like you, Dr. Rice, who have the insight of not only our experiences as black people, but also the medical knowledge and to be able to combine those.

It's so important to have your voice represented at the table.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be somebody who could apply that knowledge in a way that black folks and brown folks are ready to receive.

And I think that that's one of the pieces that is really missing from generally a lot of our efforts in the United States to reach black folks.

It's that cultural competency that you talked about.

- I couldn't agree more.

And we are not just saying this in our communities, we are putting this in scientific print.

So pretty soon you will see a paper that we've developed here in our National Center for Primary Care that looks at in the United States, graphically depicts counties by density of enslaved persons in 1860.

And then we go to 2010 and you look at a disease prevalence and all called mortality.

And now we overlay that you all with cases of COVID-19 and deaths of COVID-19.

And it's a similar spatial graphical depiction because we have not resolved all of the structural issues, the systemic issues of racism and other isms and biases and systemic neglect.

Listen to what I said, systemic neglect of things that we were aware of and problems that we could solve with financial interventions and who we educate and train in medical school, in nursing school, in the health professions because you automatically increase the cultural competence of any care delivery situation when people are able to connect because of who's sitting across from you.

- Well, that brings us to, let's talk for a few minutes about some of the myths that we're hearing.

Particularly, when it comes to the vaccine there are three vaccines out there right now and COVID is now like the third leading cause of death in America, so people are hesitant.

I have had the vaccine, and I will admit to you upfront that I wasn't ready to take it.

As my mother said, never be the first to try the new or the last to try the old, until Morehouse School of Medicine said, we're taking appointments for vaccinations.

So I took my little heinie over there and drove through the garage and got the first shot and then came back later and got the second one in that beautiful building.

But a lot of people are afraid to take it because they say one, the vaccine was made too quickly.

- So you never in a research study, just this is another lesson learned ever wanna call anything work speed.

So just don't ever use that term.

Work speed is not a good term.

But the real truth of it is that the science around the development of the vaccine you had has been going on for years.

Messenger RNA technology has been going on for years.

What was work speed was the development of the public private partnership.

So you took the public resources, which we all pay taxes for, the National Institute of Health, who has a big infrastructure for clinical trials, and we can do multi-site trials across the country.

And we have all the regulatory initiatives in place, how you have to get subjects and people are enrolled in a trial and approved at different sites, all that's in place.

You then got the private sector that was doing a lot of the basic research, you combine that with the research that also was being done in the public sector.

So you marry those two things together.

And that's why you were able to enroll people, 30,000 people, 45,000 people in a trial, which usually takes two to three years.

So that was work speed.

That is what made the difference.

They then did the other thing that I was very proud of.

They were reaching out to black and brown community and scientific leaders and saying, "We need you on the team and we want your institution."

So all the forest or the black medical schools have vaccine trial sites.

Not only did we do the ones with Novavax and some of the others, we're now doing one with pediatric ones, we're doing the university one, where 18 to 26 year olds where we're looking at asymptomatic carriers.

So they again are seeing the benefit of our partnership because we are that trusted entity.

And Monica, why you felt so comfortable was because you know me, you know I wouldn't have injected myself on national television with something that I didn't believe that was going to be safe.

That mindset matters.

And it can't be disregarded because there's too much credibility in what has happened in the past.

- Well, the other thing we hear is that another myth that the vaccine will have a negative impact on your fertility or cause a miscarriage.

And then we've just had the problems with Johnson Johnson with the blood clots.

So what is the advice for women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant?

How does the vaccine, or does it affect?

- You know I'm a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist.

So at the end of the day, you all know this is my specialty.

And I was paying close attention to this 'cause you can imagine everybody in my family under the age of 40, who doesn't have a child was calling me.

And so the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, we were studying this, the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Society we were studying in this.

And there is a recent study that just came out.

First thing we noticed you all, is that women who were pregnant, who got COVID did far worse than women who were age match, who were not pregnant, regardless of race and ethnicity.

So those women had a worse outcome and their babies had worse outcomes.

So that is what pushed us to say, "Should we vaccinate pregnant women?

The data has been now decided that we should vaccinate pregnant women because if they get COVID, they're going to have a worse outcome.

Secondly, there is no data to date that shows that the vaccines impact your fertility, no data.

Now, I say to you all the most important thing that you need to do is to avoid COVID because we do know that people who get COVID are having these different types of symptoms, whether they're neurological, whether there's chronic fatigue, but all of it raises concern to me and that we're going to have to follow these people that would call "long haulers" to ensure that the virus has not done something to them that impacts their ability, probably not so much, once they're pregnant, with the ability to get pregnant because of other immunological changes that may be going on.

But we don't know enough of that yet.

- So what if you've had the vaccine, I mean had COVID?

I've had a number of my friends actually say, "Oh, I've had COVID I don't need to get a vaccine."

Why do I need to get a vaccine if I've already had COVID?

- Well, there we go with some science, the immune system, and I probably have time to teach the biology course now, but at the end of the day, understand this, the reason that there are two doses with the MRA vaccines you all, is the fact that our body had never seen this.

And so you have this first phase of a response, you have this first phase of a response and your body produces these neutralizing antibodies.

And then when your body sees that virus it can take care of it, With the neutralizing antibodies.

But the reason that we give you that second dose is so that your body remembers and it goes to that long-term immunity.

So that it causes the T-cells, the memory T-cells, the other T-cells such that if you stop hopefully two years from now your body will remember, that's the point of that.

And that is why we probably are gonna need boosters.

And so people who have had the virus have antibodies but we don't know how long they last and they may not get that second phase of that booster, or that long-term memory stimulation that's gonna make their body remember.

The other thing Monica that we're seeing is that for people who have had the virus and who have vague symptoms is that when they get the vaccine they are saying they feel better.

Those chronic fatigue type symptoms, the body aches, the brain fog, they say have improved.

And again, we have studies going on that are gonna objectively be able to let us know if that is true.

- Can I ask about really quick because we have someone here who's had COVID, and I know from our past conversations, Gail that you've experienced some post COVID impacts.

I'm just curious to know, how has that been over the last six months to a year?

- Yeah.

I've been nodding my head as Dr. Montgomery Rice has been talking because I am one of those "long haulers".

I am fully black sedated, by the way.

So I've gotten both doses of the vaccine and I can confirm that it has improved some of my symptoms or it's beginning to improve even more.

So over time my symptoms have subsided and I'm post getting the vaccination they've subsided even more.

And those are the exact same issues, the fatigue, the brain fog, the mental fatigue as well, which is a real issue in terms of the resilience that I no longer had to work the way that I used to.

So all of that is improving.

- I'm so glad to hear that because study of one, I admit that but it's affirming from what we've seen from others.

And we have participated in what we call a long haul of study.

Meaning that we're going to be following people just like Gail who have had the the virus and then had the vaccine and to see how they do.

And then some people choose not to take the vaccine and maybe we'll get information that can convince them that it's worth it to do.

And let me ask Monica second question about Johnson and Johnson.

So first of all you all, again, this is that transparency conversation.

We did bring these vaccines to market and make them available to us.

And we did not have two or three years of study.

Because imagine if this had been a standard clinical trial, it would have taken you two and a half, three years to enroll 35,000 people.

Well, we enrolled them in six months.

So we had about six months from the first time that someone took the vaccine to see how they did.

And so it's really important, that's why with your V-safe card and you still remember, I'm sure every one of us is still getting about once a week now, every two weeks, we get a question, how you doing?

Have you had COVID?

Because we are tracking, because we are all in a bit clinical research, I'm just telling the truth.

We having a clinical research trial.

And what I say to people though, is here's what we do know.

We are seeing a significant decrease in the number of deaths.

We've seen a significant decrease in the number of hospitalizations.

And you all, were finally starting to see some of the catch-up in cases.

And clearly what we've seen as a shift, though of who's actually getting COVID.

And that is why we are seeing part of this decrease in deaths and hospitalization.

So the vaccines are doing exactly what we thought they were going to do.

Now, Johnson and Johnson, again, was tricky about that to all?

The vector this adenovirus that is used for Johnson and Johnson, you all we use adenovirus for influenza vaccines.

We've used it for Ebola vaccine.

We've used it for other type of vaccines.

And so it was surprising that we saw all this, but we saw it, and the CDC and FDA did exactly what they should have done in my opinion.

They paused and they re-evaluated the data.

And they said, 13 unfortunate cases.

But compare that to the number of people out of the 7 million who have gotten the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

And we see a decrease in the hospitalization, a decrease in the deaths, And so you all, it's a risk benefit analysis.

So it also though that pause gave us time to prepare it all the information that we need as providers and as consumers, you get the Johnson and Johnson you get a headache, I bet your doctor's gonna be seeing you immediately.

You are going to be seen and we are going to be putting you on therapies that prevent you from having a major complication.

And then finally, I will say this, the other thing is that, we got two other vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer that haven't shown this.

And so again, we are in a competition with death is how I think about it.

This virus will kill you.

Over 562,000 people die, it will kill you.

And so we have to defeat it - The question I wanted to ask from Gail and then swing back to Dr. Montgomery Rice, Gail, when you received treatment, what treatment did you receive?

And then was there any discussion with you about COVID antigens and, and receiving something so you wouldn't have to be hospitalized or were you hospitalized?

- So fortunately I was not hospitalized.

I didn't receive treatment in the terms that it exists today.

They didn't have therapeutics developed at the time 'cause I got it back in March of last year.

So I was just kind of fortunate.

But regarding kind of the conversation around antibodies and antigens and all those kinds of things, no, we didn't have those conversations.

And I'll say one of the more concerning things just as it relates to that information gap, I had two physicians tell me that I talked to after being connected via tele-health, this was later in my journey, that I knew more about the disease than they did.

And that's probably the last thing you wanna hear as a patient.

So they've definitely made strides and treating it.

There's certainly a lot more options to treat it and turn the form of therapeutics and otherwise but I was just one of the lucky ones, I guess.

- I wanna address the risks, particularly with the J and J vaccine and how people got into such a tizzy as soon as they read the story and heard the information about the blood clots, like I have a couple of friends that I had to talk down.

I'm like, "What girl?

You take the pill.

And the pill causes blood clots and heart problems, all kinds of things and you know there's a potential for that but you still, you pop that pill every month."

But five people got blood clots from something that did not affect 7 million other people in that way.

And all of a sudden this is too dangerous, vaccination too dangerous, and you'd much rather take the hit from COVID.

Like how do you get people to understand the level of risk and how just getting that little bit of information does not mean that we throw the whole baby away with the bath water.

Like how do you talk to people so that they understand that risk is risk and so many things.

We can get in the car and get into a car accident pulling out of our driveway.

Yet and still we drive cars.

We could get into an airplane accident yet and still we all get on airplanes.

So how do you talk to people about being realistic about the risks?

- I start first by listening with empathy.

Meeting people where they are, acknowledging their fear and assuring them that it's okay to have fear.

And then I put things in practical terms and I keep reminding people 562,000 people dead.

And how many lives would have been saved if they had had access to even the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

Somewhere over 90% of those people could still potentially be alive.

And maybe we would have had four people who died of a blood clot or who had a blood clot.

And so I try to put things in practical terms for them and then I let them think about it.

But what I share them all around, and I'll give you this example, when people we were really in the throws of it and we didn't have enough vaccine, and people were hesitant, et cetera.

And we were dealing with vaccine hesitancy.

And I said to people now, I want you to imagine you in a long line.

And you're the person who asked him a lot of questions but they're about 1000 people behind you and your time comes up and you still ask a lot of questions.

What I want you to do is to step aside and let the other 999 people get that vaccine.

And guess what we're gonna do for you?

We're gonna put yours in the freezer until you're ready to come.

So I'm not discarding them but at some point we got to get realistic about what we dealing with.

And what we're dealing with is a virus that will kill you and we're gonna be patient with you but we're not going to let you hold up the progress for everybody else.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

That is brilliant because what has always gotten in my craw is this notion of, well, there's something wrong with you or you're submitting to being gained or you're dumb, or you're gullible for being in the line and being ready to get your shot, or taking precaution, to make sure wearing your mask, and making sure that you social distance.

And I think that's what I pushed back against.

Like I absolutely hear you about having empathy and understanding where people are coming from but it's difficult to do that sometimes when the question mark is so extraordinary - And most of the time is, is based on fear though.

It really is based on fear.

And if you talk to people down-- - But isn't obstinacy too because right now, it's white men who are most hesitant about getting the vaccine.

- And so again, people said to me, well, what should we do with the white man who in these rural counties and who are Republicans, who don't want to get the vaccine?

I say, I'm gonna treat them with the same level of empathy and engagement that I do with black and brown people.

I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna try to educate and not coerce.

And then I'm gonna ask them to step on out the line and make room for the other 999 people.

And then when they wanna come back we got a vaccine for them.

And you know there's enough people who were standing in that line.

And thank goodness you all we don't have as much of a supply chain issue.

And there are people who are now, you all, you would be surprised the number of people, who are saying, "Okay I'm coming back now that you got the Johnson and Johnson," because they really own a one-to-one one shot because a lot of people were more so concerned about the symptoms that they heard that you were gonna get with the second shot.

And so it's about meeting people where they are.

- And what about wearing a mask?

Even though you've been vaccinated.

I walk every day and I'm surprised at the number of people I meet on the path who do not wear a mask.

- Well, now the CDC, I think, and I was just pulling this, the CDC just came out with their guidelines.

They just made an announcement.

And they said that you don't necessarily have to wear a mask outside if you are vaccinated.

Now, let's just be reasonable.

You walking with an unvaccinated people.

And you all walking and talking and sweating and et cetera.

I will have my mask on.

I'm just saying.

- I wear mine all the time.

- Keep your distance.

I mean, I will tell you this, I don't know that I'm gonna get on a plane again without a mask, even if everybody's vaccinated.

And I'm gonna definitely fly.

So I'm not saying I'm not gonna fly.

But I was already a germaphobe before the virus came up.

So I'm already, keep the breathing in your space and looking over your screen.

So I'm okay with that.

I'm actually okay with it because it protects me and hopefully protects you.

And so I do believe that the data is there that says that, the chances of you transmitting the virus if you have had the vaccine is very, very low even if you become infected because your viral load is going to be so low inside of you.

And you're gonna be outside.

And so the data that I'm pretty sure the announcement said that you can not wear your mask if you're outside still continuing to maintain distances distance and definitely if you're with other vaccinated persons.

- Well, I I'd like to address some of the sort of practical reasons that people are not being vaccinated.

I know in Georgia, the last time I looked, we were the the last state of folks who were getting vaccinated.

We had the least amount of folks in the whole country getting vaccinated.

And I do know that in my work environment, we were very liberal and and accommodating when folks needed to go get their shot.

I mean, there were folks who had to drive four hours, particularly in the early time to go get their shot and let them go, just go get your shot.

And honey, if you can't do the zoom call the day after the shot or the two days after the shot, take it off, it's okay.

But there are folks who don't have that luxury, they don't have understanding co-workers or understanding bosses who give them the time to go get the shot.

- I took the shot, I mean, I had no symptoms.

Most of the people I know did not have, my husband didn't have any symptoms, my son though did have symptoms.

My daughter, who was a surgical resident, didn't have symptoms.

But my son did at his second shot.

And so we don't know who's gonna have symptoms but I would prepare for the day after not to have a heavy load of things where like your sprint to be on video camera, looking your best and answering questions that will allow you to stay on alert.

I would probably not wanna do that, and I think that's okay.

And then employers need to be reasonable.

I mean, you're trying to get people back to some facsimile of a normal "work life".

And we know that people want to come back into these environments because regardless of what people say, who like working from home, sometimes you miss the comradery.

Or you at a place like Morehouse School of Medicine, you all, we actually don't have a choice.

A third of my workforce, well, 40% of our workforce who work in the hospitals.

They never shut down, ever.

We did tele visits on a rapid way from maybe the March and April, but then by then, after that, you all, we were bringing people back in.

And I know what makes Morehouse School of Medicine special.

It is the learning environment.

That's not just about the faculty, the doctors or the teachers.

It is the staff, is the administrators who the students can interact with and say, "Hey, Ms. Jones, how you doing?

And Ms. Jones will tell them some story about somebody 15 years ago who thought they weren't gonna make it, who needed a pep talk and got that.

And so it's a village.

And so I noticed what makes Morehouse School of Medicine special, and I don't wanna lose that.

We can't afford to lose that.

- Fear in black communities, where folks are not able to really negotiate some of these issues that folks who have the highest rate of not wanting to take the vaccination are folks who are lower educated, who have less education, who are have less access to information.

And so we wanna be clear about that with folks and clear about the communal fear that's happening and some of the the disinformation that's being pushed.

- I think that's what we come into, who is your trusted entity?

So Monica talked about, she knew that when Morehouse School of Medicine said to come that we had done everything humanly possible to ensure that this was safe, so she had that.

Every community has those trusted entities.

And while we have tried to be as broad and we're doing a lot of vaccinations, now, you all with our mobile van going to multiple communities going to churches, et cetera.

Because when they see that Morehouse School of Medicine sign, it gives them comfort.

But in every community you are there those trusted entities.

So sometimes you have to speak to people through people.

And you have to ensure that that connection is there.

And to those persons who may be putting up these signs, what I would say to them is don't do this to our community.

Our community has disproportionately been impacted by this virus.

Look at who's missing around the dinner table.

Look at who won't be at the 4th of July barbecue, look at who won't be at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner because they didn't have access to information or access to testing or access to a vaccine in a timely manner.

Or they had to be the one to go out there to do that job to keep the family fed.

Think about the number of people who have lost their lives and ask yourself do you have enough scientific knowledge to actually be given anybody advice about what not to do versus asking them to go to someone with the scientific advice or scientific information so that they really can make an informed decision.

- Well, now it's time for some final thoughts from each of you.

We only have two minutes left of the show.

So Gail, I'll start with you, final thoughts.

- Sure.

I just wanted to piggyback on what Dr. Montgomery Rice said, in terms of messaging.

A big part of our model is train the trainer model.

So we account for different categories of influencers 'cause not everybody's going to be moved by faith based leader.

But we also account for different drivers of hesitancy.

And I wanted to just make sure that got in a conversation because they're not all the same.

There are, there's a group of people who are anti-vaxxers, and then there are people who are kinda deliberating based on side effects.

Then there are those who are distrustful and disaffected and saying not another Tuskegee experiment.

And then of course, the educated skeptics who could actually overcome their hesitancy with just a little bit more information.

So just wanted to make sure people are aware that's what we do is we look at those drivers and those barriers and we create custom communications for those influencers to message to their constituencies.

- Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice - I would say, Gail, that is so important.

That is so important, what you just said.

Excuse me, Gail, that is so important what you just said.

Because you gotta meet people where they are.

And to me, it's about educating, regardless of what their educational attainment has been.

We need to meet people where they are.

We need to not feel how people feel that they are coerce.

And we need to know that they are preventive health measures that can prevent you from getting the virus.

Washing your hands, wearing your mask and watching your distance.

But we also know we now have another tool, a thing in the toolkit, powerful thing, and that is the vaccine.

And we at Morehouse School of Medicine, stand here to continue to be your resource, to support you through this phase, because we will get through this - Christine final thoughts.

Have you got your vaccine yet?

- Yes, I had my vaccine, I got my vaccinated, I am excited.

I mean, I am, I have a sister, who's a physician, so she was not going to even let me around her children and I can't go without seeing my nieces and nephews.

And I think that sometime, that social pressure is appropriate.

'Cause I was one of those folks was like, "Well, maybe we'll just wait a little bit longer.

Maybe I'll just wait a little bit longer.

Let me just wait and see how all this goes which is the position that a lot of my friends are in.

But you know, I am ready to get back to work, to get back to a full life.

and I don't to put anybody at risk.

Most certainly not my mother and other folks who I care deeply about.

And so I just think that Dr. Rice I see your point thinking about particularly the people who you could impact, you may be at low risk, you may be a young person with who may be asymptomatic But your ability to pass on the virus to folks.

And so folks who you may not know have immune deficiencies or immuno, may not know are vulnerable or are higher risk.

And so I, that is, I think the reason why I and my 19 year old daughter are now vaccinated.

Because we wanna be sure that we are not creating a circumstance for people that we care about, that we will one day regret.

- And Denene - Listen.

I have not seen James Millner Jr. My daddy since Thanksgiving, 2019, and y'all know how I feel about my father.

My dad is 86 years old, he had COVID he thank goodness God he's he's healthy, he got his two vaccinations.

My daughter at Yale, getting ready to graduate.

I'm gonna drive up there, pick her up bring her home she's vaccinated.

My younger daughter is vaccinated.

We all can't wait to go see my daddy.

That is what on a personal level, on the I'm about to cry and y'all know this, but I miss him.

And I'm so grateful for the science that allows me after a year and a half to get in my car and drive to Virginia and see my daddy and get a hug and a kiss.

So thank you for the information.

Thank you for the science.

Thank you for the myth busting.

Thank you for making it possible for us to be able to have this conversation and to share this information with people so that they can make good reasonable sound decisions about their health, not just for themselves but for all of us.

- I could not have said it any better.

Thank you so much.

Denene, Christine, Gale Brooks and Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice.

We really enjoyed the discussion today and we expect this conversation to continue and evolve in the months and years ahead.

So please folks talks with your healthcare provider to make the decision that's best for you.

And I will tell you, when I went to Morehouse School of Medicine, there were more white people there than black folks get the shots.

I was shocked.

I was shocked, but I'm glad everybody's now doing it.

Thank you for watching.

And as always ladies, you know the line, if they don't give you a seat at the table - [All] Bring a folding share (laugh).

♪ Got my head on straight, I got my vibe right ♪ ♪ I ain't gonna let you kill it ♪ ♪ You see I wouldn't change my life, my life's just ♪ ♪ Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh ♪