ontinues to append our best intention plans.

Our goal was to go live, with a new program "The Vaccine," on "Milwaukee PBS Special."

Our three hosts Portia Young, Earl Arms, and Patricia Gomez, are gonna be live with up to the minute information about the impact of COVID-19 on the communities.

Then reality hit, due to COVID-19 exposures, our "Milwaukee PBS Studios," were unable to be utilized for this special.

Despite those challenges, however, our producers, hosts and engineers said, we will make this work.

And they delivered.

The program you're about to watch, was completed in the last hour, virtually and remotely.

That is our commitment to you.

I'm grateful to the "Milwaukee PBS," team for putting this show together.

And now, "The Vaccine" on viewer supported "Milwaukee PBS."

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to this "Milwaukee PBS Special," on the COVID-19 vaccine.

I'm Portia Young, host of "10ThirtySix."

- And I'm Earl Arms from "Black Nouveau."

We'll also be joined by our colleague and host of "Adelante," Patricia Gomez.

- We will provide the very latest information on the vaccine itself, and what it's going to take to get everyone who wants the vaccine to get it as soon as possible.

- We're also gonna dig deeper into how all of this impacts certain communities, hit hardest by the COVID-19 virus, our Latino, black and Native American communities.

We've invited health experts, and local journalists covering the pandemic, and the vaccine to help answer some of your questions that we've already received, through our social media platforms.

And we wanna mention that we requested someone from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to participate in our program, but they said no one was available.

- So let's start with the very latest on the vaccine rollout.

First, on a national level, the Biden-Harris administration, wants the U.S. to reach herd immunity by summer.

Their plan includes increasing access to vaccines, starting on February 11th, by putting the vaccine into the hands of more pharmacies so eligible folks can get one.

How does this all impact Wisconsin, and all of us?

- I spoke with Karine Jean-Pierre, Principal Deputy Press Secretary with the Biden-Harris administration just a short time ago, and here's what she had to say about the plan.

People want their vaccines right now, so how's the Biden administration gonna get that done?

Particularly here in Wisconsin, where it's been a bit of a slow process?

- Yeah, no, it's a great question.

Look, the first week of, actually a couple of days of president Biden's administration, he put forth a comprehensive vaccine distribution proposal.

And the administration before us, prior to him, didn't have a comprehensive strategy.

So we had to kind of start from scratch.

And so, this comprehensive plan really makes sure that areas like, you know the rural areas, the urban areas, areas that's really hard to get to, actually has, there's a plan for folks to get vaccinations.

So, back in the last administration, when they were starting their process of rolling out the vaccine, they had it easy, if you will, they were able to go to hospitals, go to nursing homes, go to areas that was highly populated.

And so, now what we're trying to do, is that we're trying to make sure that areas that don't have regular, you know, lower populations don't have regular access, do get access to the vaccine.

So that was part of a comprehensive plan and that's having centers, right?

Make sure there's vaccination centers, make sure there's vaccinators.

And so we put a lot of processes in place so that vaccines could get out there to people who really, really need it.

And also another thing that President Biden has done is he really made equity, put equity at the center of his COVID plan, equity at the center of his economic plan, and equity is so critical and important, and that's why we put that at the center.

So making sure that people will get vaccinated who really need it.

And as we know, people in our community are overwhelmingly affected by COVID-19.

So we have to zero in on that and make sure folks have access.

- So speaking of access, it goes into my next question, which is, those eligible can sign up at Walgreens and you have places where you can do that, but what if people can't get to a Walgreens, what are the plans for those vaccines sites?

You talked about it a little bit but get into more of what the plan is to have access not only in Milwaukee, but those rural areas.

And, when is that gonna happen?

- It's great question.

So starting next week, one of the things that we did was we are going to give a million doses to pharmacies across the country.

That's just the beginning.

We will increase that number.

That's gonna start next week.

Since we've taken over, since President Biden has taken over, vaccine distribution has gone up about 16%.

So we are going in the right direction.

We've gotta do a lot more.

We're gonna buy more vaccines as you can imagine.

But really what we're gonna do is work closely with the governor and the local and local officials, right?

That is so critical.

That's the way we're gonna make this happen.

And we're not gonna leave them behind.

We're gonna work directly with them.

And so we're gonna take the lead from the local officials, statewide officials on how to do this.

And like I said, we have a comprehensive plan and we're gonna move forward and we're gonna work hand in hand with folks on the ground.

- Yeah, good luck with that.

There's a lot of back and forth here in Wisconsin right now.

So, I know though, you don't have a crystal ball.

You're not a psychic, but given the plan that's in place that you just talked about, when do you think this country is gonna get back to normal?

Whatever normal is right now.

(chuckles) - It's gonna take some time.

But, that is President Biden's goal, is to try to get us to normal as soon as possible.

One of the promises that he made even before when he was president elect, before he stepped into the White House is getting 100 million doses in a hundred days.

And so that's 100,000 shots in arms.

And so we are going to make sure that happens.

And that's just like the baseline, right?

That's just a goal we're gonna try and push, he tries to push us every day to make sure we surpass that goal.

And what we want it to do is we want it to be transparent and give the American people a metrics, so we can stay honest, right?

They can keep us honest.

And so that's the plan there.

- [Earl] Thank you so much.

I hope we can do it again sometime.

Take care.

- Would love to, have a great weekend, stay safe.

- And now producer, Scotty Myers, talked with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, Daphne Chen.

About what it's going to take at the state level.

- Joining us now is Daphne Chen, data and investigations reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Daphne, it's been widely reported that Wisconsin's vaccine rollout has been slow, frustrating and confusing.

Why is that?

- I think there's a couple of different reasons.

First of all, the communication and the coordination from the federal level down to the state level by many reports has been confusing and not really well coordinated.

And that seems to be trickling down to the local level.

So in Wisconsin, specifically, the health department, hasn't always been super clear and upfront about explaining, the process of getting vaccine, what the various distribution channels are, what are the next steps that people can expect, and when major decisions are going to be made.

And when you have over a thousand entities in a state vaccinating, it's been kind of a scramble for people to figure out where they should go and how they can get signed up.

- Officials across the state had said, they promise that things will get better.

What kinds of things are they saying?

What's the plan that makes them so confident that things will improve?

- Yeah, they're promising a couple of things.

One is, they're saying they're working with Microsoft on a statewide website, where you can look up a local vaccinator and sign up for an appointment, and they were hoping that might come by mid-February.

And they've promised more of these like mass clinics, mobile clinics run by the National Guard that they think they'll be ramping up.

And another thing that they're doing is they're taking some vaccines out of a federal program to vaccinate our long-term care facilities, so nursing homes and assisted living.

That federal program has been going really slow in a lot of states, so officials in Wisconsin are taking back some of those doses and giving them to independent pharmacies, and they think that'll speed things up as well.

- The thing everyone wants to know is when is it their turn to get the vaccine.

Who makes that decision, and how do they go about making which people get a higher priority?

- Yeah, that's a huge decision.

And so DHS created this committee, a very large committee of public health experts, doctors, nurses, people who work in, you know, the corrections department, people who advocate for people with disabilities.

It's this committee called, the "State Disaster Medical Advisory Committee," and they've been meeting regularly since the pandemic to discuss these medical ethics issues.

But whatever that they recommend is still just advice, so ultimately the decision is still up to the officials at the state health department.

- Excellent.

Daphne, thank you for joining us.

- No problem.

- Portia, back to you.

- Thank you, Scottie and Daphne.

For those of you waiting to get your vaccine, you may be wondering what the process is like, thousands have through the process at the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee.

We followed a healthcare worker from Sussex as she received her first round of the vaccine.

- I can help you over here.

- Hello.

- How are you good?

- I'm good, how are you good?

- Good, did you have an appointment?

- I do.

- Your first name?

- [Mary] My name is Mary Jean-Kelly.

I live in Sussex, Wisconsin and I am in the healthcare workforce, I work for a periodontist.

- There's two forms for you to fill out today.

First one, here is a screening for the vaccine.

The back is the consent.

This is a copy of our privacy policy you'll take with you today.

- [Mary] Okay.

- This one is acknowledging our privacy agreement that you'll sign.

- [Mary] Okay.

(indistinct chatter) - [Woman] Have you had any other allergic reactions to any other injectable vaccines?

- No.

- Okay.

Can you have a seat right back there, and then they'll call your number when they're ready for you.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

(indistinct chatter) - [Woman] Any questions or concerns?

- [Mary] No.

- [Woman] All right, (indistinct) and she will take you to (indistinct).

- [Mary] Thank you.

- [Woman] You're welcome.

(indistinct chatter) (indistinct) - [Mary] Oh, here I go.

- And then this is the card that's telling you that you getting the (indistinct) vaccine today at the health department, and to come back on the fifth.

- 15 minute wait time and this will be your ticket out of here.

And if you feel funny while you're waiting, like lightheaded or tingly or short of breath, just get somebody's attention, and we'll come help you out.

- Okay, great.

I just don't like getting shots.

(laughs) But I mean, I'm not afraid to get the vaccine.

I know there's been a lot of hesitation, there's been a lot of confusion.

And there's still some unknown, but I feel that that's any vaccine you get even if it's the flu, it's not 100% guaranteed, but anything I can do to help combat and just get past this pandemic, I'm sure gonna try.

Unfortunately, I had to have open-heart surgery during the pandemic.

(chuckles) Which was not planned, but everything went well.

And I'm just grateful for all people who follow the guidelines they're asking us to follow.

I checked with both my primary doctor and my cardiologist to make sure that anything with either of the vaccines would compromise my health, and they said, no, it was perfectly safe.

I did hesitate because of that, to make sure that there would be no adverse reactions, but I was assured I was safe.

And so I felt I needed to move forward with my job, my family, grandchildren, keeping everybody safe.

- And are you feeling okay before I let you leave?

- Yeah, I'm fine.

- Great, okay, so then you can just follow the signs on your way out, okay?

- Okay.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Have a good day.

- You too.

- Mary Jean reports no serious side effects, just a little soreness at the injection site.

She gets round to tomorrow.

The city of Milwaukee has just launched its all new website to help with the vaccine sign up.

Milwaukee.gov/covidvax.

There's also a hotline to call it's 414-286-6800.

- Our colleague Patricia Gomez joins us now with a look at some of the vaccine challenges facing the elderly, and the care communities in which they live.

- Thank you Earl.

Milwaukee PBS producer Raul Galvan, has a mother living in a life care facility.

While she's just few days away from receiving her vaccine, nearly half of her fellow residents, have already received their first dose, but it was a rocky journey getting there.

- Yeah, very excited.

We've waited since March, right?

We've been dealing with COVID and the implications and just the safety of our residents since you know, for the last nine to 10 months, very excited for today.

- I just knew that I'm all over the campus.

I'm everywhere.

So, my main concern was I don't wanna just become a carrier and then take it to someone else.

I don't wanna be responsible for that.

- [Man] Getting the vaccines to the communities however, was a challenge.

- [Shannon] I'm raising my hand to be first in line.

We were clamoring how can we get that here and when can we get it?

- After we registered for the vaccine and made sure that we were registered for the pharmacy partnership program, that was the very first step.

So once we have that in place, we waited for contact.

We reached out a number of times to officials in the State of Wisconsin, until we received a contact at Walgreens.

- The Wisconsin Department of Health is kind of in control of who's gonna get the vaccine when and who's gonna get which one.

And so the push is to get the nursing home residents vaccinated first as well as healthcare workers simultaneously.

- [Man] Walgreens was the provider for both St. Camillus and Luther Manor.

Luther Manor staff and residents received their second doses on the 2nd of February.

And St. Camilla staff and licensed care residents received their first doses on January 12th.

- Wonderful day today today.

(woman laughs) - Yep, it sure is.

- To protect, you know myself and the community, you know what I mean?

And I try to participate to immunize all the population.

- I hear you watching me.

Wow.

- [Woman] Right now.

(indistinct) - All right.

- That's easy, yeah!

(man claps) - [Man] And round two of the vaccines are coming to St. Camillus on February 9th, independent living residents like Susana Galvan, can't wait.

- If there is a vaccine, I want to have it.

- [Interviewer] Why?

- Well, not to have the disease, you know?

To avoid the disease.

(indistinct) - [Lamon] Oh, it was fine.

I mean, it's a needle.

And so the process of getting the vaccine is- - [Woman] Piece of cake.

- It was pretty painless.

I mean, it's a little prick.

I just had a left hip replacement.

I think I could take a needle to the arm.

- Yes, it was great.

I was excited about getting it and I hope others get it too.

Probably give us a little bit more freedom.

I think we still have to be cautious of what we do, but I think at this give us a little bit more freedom to do other things.

- Today's just very exciting because that's just the first step in getting us to, back to some type of normal.

- Probably at least halfway to three-quarters into 2021, we'll still be living kind of the same, but then with a gradual progression into reopening as more and more people get vaccinated.

- I am hopeful that as soon as the weather starts getting warmer, if the virus isn't gone by then, that at least we will have a little more freedom to get our residents outside and get some fresh air, and we can start to invite families back in with greater abundance.

- I feel now that I've gotten it done, I feel that I'm halfway to beating COVID-19.

I want it to go away.

Forever and ever.

- I think we all feel that way.

Back to you Earl.

- Thanks Patricia, by the way Raul, receive his first dose recently before his 91 year old mom.

To help answer more of your questions, including what's actually in these vaccines and their effectiveness, I spoke with Dr. Njeri Wainaina she's an infectious disease and internal medicine physician from Froedtert, and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

- What immunization does, is enable the body to recognize a threat, so that the body can respond.

And what this vaccine does is introduce the spike protein, to the body, show it to the body, then the body begins to, the body is able to recognize, "Hey, that's not me."

And develop a response that gets rid of it.

That destroys it.

So that's how this works simply put.

- So does it matter which vaccine you take?

I think there's Pfizer, there's Moderna, but does it matter which one you take It?

- It doesn't, the two vaccines that are available right now, use the same technology, they both are introducing the mRNA into you so that you recognize it and are able to respond to it.

So it doesn't really matter.

And, when they were tested in the trials among the, if you put the two together about 70,000 volunteers, both were about 95% effective.

So it doesn't really matter which one you get.

- So, two vaccines and then you have to get two shots.

Why do you have to get two shots?

- They tested the vaccines, the way they set it up, was, you know, when they did the initial tests, it looked like they needed to prime the pump so to speak, and then provide a booster, so that you can have the full response.

They were estimating that they would get somewhere above a 50% response, and then were pleasantly surprised when it was 95%.

- So how long has this vaccine effective then, or each one of the vaccines?

- It's a very good question.

We don't know yet.

We think, I would say, at least three months, probably six months or longer.

And that's based on how long natural antibodies produced by those who have the disease have been shown to last.

Immunity that's induced by a vaccine is usually a lot more robust.

So, it's better immunity and it lasts longer.

- When I get the vaccine, am I safe from spreading it to other people, the virus?

And the other question is, am I safe from getting the virus, once I get the vaccine?

- What we know is once you get the vaccine, you are safe.

If you get the Moderna or the Pfizer vaccine, there is a 95% chance that you will not get COVID, will not get COVID meaning you won't have symptoms, you certainly won't need to be in the hospital or in the ICU with it.

We haven't proven that the fact that the virus can not infect you, meaning that you may have the virus and not have symptoms and potentially spread it to somebody else, that we don't know, that's been currently studied.

- So say I'm someone with a compromised immune system.

Should I be worried or concerned about getting this vaccine at all?

Or what are some of the things I should be thinking about?

- That is an excellent question.

If you have a compromised immune system, the concern here is whether your immune system will actually respond to the virus.

There's much less of a worry around safety, meaning that the vaccine can actually hurt you.

So if you have a compromised immune system, talk to your doctor and ask them what they recommend and go by what they recommend.

There are plenty of people for whom the immune system is compromised, but not compromised enough that they won't respond to the vaccine.

And so they should go ahead and get it.

There are some others who need to wait a certain period because they're on chemotherapy for instance, and they need to get past that chemotherapy in order for the vaccine to work for them.

So it really depends on where you are, but speak to your physician.

- Earlier, you talked a little bit about what's in the vaccine, but I'm wondering does some of it come from unborn babies at all?

- No, this is not, there is no STEM cell or use of fetal tissue in the development of these vaccines.

That is, should I say not true?

I think is a best way to say it.

- Well, talk about then some other myths that may be out there about this vaccine, what should people know, and what's true and what may not be true?

- One of the myths out there is that the vaccine can cause infertility or miscarriages, because it affects placenta formation.

Where that came from, is there is a protein that is similar to the spike protein, that there is some similarity, but not enough similarity that the body would be producing antibodies against the placental causing infertility.

That is a myth that has done the rounds and made many women afraid of getting the vaccine.

But that is really not true.

- Dr. Wainaina took time to answer more of your questions, please head to our website, milwaukeepbs.org, to hear more from her.

There are still many people who aren't sure about getting the vaccine, particularly in Milwaukee's black community, where a history of experimental medical testing on African-Americans plays a role in large part.

James Causey from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and frequent contributor to "Black Nouveau," talked with two members of the community who share different views on the vaccine.

- A study by the Pew Research Center, shows 60% of Americans are willing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but only 42% of African-Americans said they intend on getting vaccinated.

Although blacks appear to have worse outcome from coronavirus, than their white counterparts.

Chris Walker, registered nurse is in that category.

What is your hesitation towards the vaccine?

- It's pretty new.

I don't think they have given it enough research time for me personally, to take it right now.

So, I think since they only started testing it in March and it's less than a year, for me personally I just feel that that's not enough time for me to take something that hasn't had as much researchers as other drugs immunizations has had.

- Is there anything you need to hear or see before you have more confidence in the vaccine?

- Actually, just time.

I really don't think they know the long-term effects, again, plus it's been out for such a short time.

So for me, it's just time, seeing how people react with the second dose, in longer than one small case study.

So yeah, just time.

- What would you do if your employer require you to get vaccinated?

- I have discussed that and right now they haven't, and I'm hoping they will not, they do offer it, and I have declined it at this time.

But being a single mom, unfortunately, if they require it, then I would probably have to take it reluctantly.

- [James] Okay.

- All right, we have a call right now on Fresh Start.

Somebody just wanna talk good afternoon, family.

How are you doing?

- We are now joined by Jermaine Reed executive director of "Fresh Start Family Services."

Reed recently received his first vaccination and plans to get his second.

Have you had any side effects from the vaccination?

- You know, I just had a little soreness in my arm, very, on a scale to one to 10, it was about a 1.5.

I took an Advil and I was okay.

Now that may not be other folks experience, but that's what I had.

- [James] Now for someone who is hesitant to get the vaccine or just flat out, just said they won't get it, take it at all.

What would you tell them?

- We have the vaccine there.

We understand race-based medicine practice in this country.

We understand all of those things.

But I do think, that there are more people, who are in need of taking this vaccine now than folks not.

And it's not just a black thing, you know?

'Cause again, when race-based medicine, we understood that there was the Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee experiment.

And, we know that a lot of black folks were targeted in a lot of these research studies.

There's a lot of white folks taking this too, so if folks are gon' die, it's gonna be a whole lot of folks that's dying behind us.

And I just don't think America giving her history, and what she has done in terms of medical practice is willing to sacrifice the lives of lives of so many people from various racial background.

So I would encourage folks, and particularly those with underlying health conditions like diabetes, cancer, respiratory issues, asthma, COPD, get the vaccine or at least really consider taking, talk to your healthcare professional do your own research and think about it.

- Let's talk more about vaccine hesitancy within the black community with Patricia McManus from the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin.

Dr. McManus has thank you so much for joining us.

The first question I have for you is, how do we get past the stigma of race based medical practices?

- Well, one of the reasons that you have to address, there is race-based medical practice, unfortunately.

And in terms of beginning to deal with that, that's related to the structural racism that's been talked about now, 'cause part of what we do is teach a lot of that.

So, until it's recognized that that is a practice, then it could be a question of whether people know, whether it's implicit or explicit, in terms of whether they know it's happening or not, it doesn't matter.

It's there.

It's been proven a number of times.

And so, to me, part of the problem in talking to communities of color, whether it's African-Americans or Hispanic or whatever, is that the doctors and nurses don't believe that they have a problem.

And until that's done and they say, "Well, yes, it's right."

Just the way it's even taught, there's some issues in terms of that.

So, I think instead of asking the people who having all the problems, how they gon' get them to accept a institution that's this racist and, for folks (indistinct) they'll talk about the fact that Tuskegee was so long ago, but no, it just changes its form, but it hasn't changed.

- So on that topic, tell us more about the Milwaukee Black Immunization Project.

Just why is it important, and do you think that it has something to do with the hesitancy of black people getting the vaccine?

- Well, I think absolutely.

I think, or even if its, 'cause sometimes the hesitancy can be balanced.

So what we did as an organization was put in a proposal to be able to talk to the black community, and more importantly have them be able to express their concerns without being told that they're wrong.

But I do feel that black people can make decisions that work for them if they have the right information.

So what I thought was we could do was give them the correct information and then that way whether they choose to have the vaccine or not have the vaccine, that's their right to make that decision.

- So I'm curious for your input as the interim health commissioner at one point what do you think of the rollout so far, and what would you have done differently?

- There's a dip between healthcare and public health.

I have background in both over the 50 years that when I first graduated from Walker County School of Nursing, but I worked in intensive care units at the county hospital, at the VA. And then also went into public health, I have degree in public health and degree and the other things.

And so, one of the problems is that, they needed someone to have both of those.

The state itself, they have a medical doctor, as well as other people.

The public health department, the person who was the commissioner at that time had no healthcare background.

And I did notice that when I was there, that was one of the problems.

They were still hiring people with a public health background, but they were going after grants for actual health care.

And if you look at the County of Milwaukee, the city, the county, the state, there're not a lot of black people that are in public health all over the state, almost zero.

I would venture to guess maybe 1%.

But they usually are white.

And so the way they do things are kinda different.

And I think even though she was black, again, her part was her just not having enough information on the care side of what need to happen.

And so they had no plan together.

So then they went to having the state takeover, having a medical director, having other people there.

So it got off to kind of a rough start but there are a lot of good people at the health department.

And I really hope they finally get it straightened out that people could relax.

- The native American community has also faced some challenges with the vaccine.

Milwaukee PBS's Mariano Avila, explains how different tribes approached vaccine distribution.

- Easy-peasy.

- All right, congratulations.

(everyone cheering) - [Mariano] Leading by example, that's Dr. Lyle Ignace being the first person to get the second Pfizer COVID vaccine, at the Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center in Milwaukee's near South side on historic Mitchell street.

According to the centers for disease control about 7% of the U.S. population has been infected.

But in native communities, that number is more like 13% or nearly twice the rate of non-Hispanic whites.

And for the Milwaukee Urban Native population, specifically, regardless of their tribe, the Ignace Center, is the best way to get the vaccine given that it is designed specifically to serve Urban Native people.

In fact, their patients, are ahead of the national vaccination schedule.

- You know, nationally, there's the 1-A, 1-B, 1-C, we're actually beyond 1-C right now, and we are focusing on the age population of 55 and older now.

So we have a supply, the demand is there, and we're getting people who are eligible as quickly as we can into the building to get those vaccines.

- [Mariano] Across the state tribal governments, like Oneida Nation in Brown and Outagamie Counties, have their own health centers to serve members of federally recognized tribes within their coverage areas, which in Oneida Nation's case means 15,000 patients.

- We actually had to weigh whether we went with the Indian health service to get vaccine or we went with the state.

We leveraged a lot of our partnerships and we looked at what would be the best benefit for the community, and so we chose to go with the state.

- [Mariano] Those partnerships include previous mass vaccination campaigns where Oneida Nation and Brown County rolled out the N1H1 vaccine.

Part of the challenge is that, once the vaccines are open they need to be administered or they go bad.

So knowing how to have enough health workers and patients becomes time critical.

- So we've actually been practicing how to do a mass vaccination.

How do we do that on a regular basis?

Whenever we do our immunization clinics, whenever we do our flu vaccine.

So we've been practicing this for 10 plus years within the community.

- At the moment, Oneida Nation was only given enough vaccines for a first round, which they gave to their medical staff and to their 38 residents in long-term care facilities.

- That's our history, that's our priority, as far as the elders that were there.

- But be it in tribal or urban settings, It's not just elders that are at risk in native communities.

Many of COVID's risk factors were already pervasive among indigenous folks, even before the pandemic.

- Our main chronic conditions that we are seeing is you know, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease.

- Diabetes, hypertension, the complications of diabetes and hypertension, obesity, depression, anxiety, mental health illnesses, AOD issues.

- Adding to the health and supply challenges, many native people have a high degree of mistrust of the U.S. government's mass vaccination programs, due in large part, to mass sterilization programs as recent as 1970.

And that's not to mention smallpox and other diseases used to intentionally infect or test on native populations.

But health professionals in the native community are stressing the importance and safety of using the vaccine.

- These are the tools that we have to work with, you know?

Hand washing, sanitizing, social distancing, face masks.

Those are all tools in our toolbox to help combat this pandemic.

The vaccine is another huge tool in our toolbox that is gonna help us as we move forward with this to combat the vaccine, you know, combat the pandemic.

- We've done almost 200 shots right now, and we've haven't had anybody come back to us with any adverse reactions or really any significant side effects.

As for personal experience, all Dr. Ignace reports, is that his arm was a little sore and that he felt a little tired for about a day.

- That was pretty easy.

(woman chuckles) That was pretty easy.

So, I hardly felt anything and I feel pretty good.

So excellent.

All right.

(indistinct) - [Woman] Congrats.

(everyone cheering) - We wanna go back now to Patricia Gomez, who talked with another doctor who takes care of many patients from Milwaukee's Latino community.

- Thank you, Portia.

Dr Jorge Ramallo, concentrates on internal medicine and pediatrics, at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center on Milwaukee South Side.

He recently received his second vaccine at Children's Hospital, Wisconsin.

Dr Ramallo joins us now, your clinics service 43,000 patients a year.

Many of them are Latinos.

What is your assessment on how the vaccine roll out has impacted your patients?

- Unfortunately, many of my patients did not qualify for that first tier, and first round of vaccines.

Even our staff here that are mainly Latinx, were not able to secure a vaccine for the first couple of weeks after the rollout, and we had to work really hard with other healthcare systems to be able to secure vaccines for our staff.

But in general, our patients have not qualified for the vaccine because of the low numbers of availability, and also the criteria that was set forth.

- What will be your message Dr Ramallo to President Biden or Governor Evers regarding, right now, the status of the vaccines?

- I feel that they know this already, but time is of the essence is my main message.

I think that we need to make sure we have a very robust and very comprehensive educational campaign for patients to know that this is a safe vaccine, and we've gotta make sure that it's reaching far and wide, and it has to be in the language the patient understands.

And then the other thing is we need to make sure that we have those partnerships with health centers like mine and other places, where they can have easy access to those patients especially with those communities of color that have been so disproportionally impacted by this virus and making sure that we are working as hard as we can to get those vaccines in people's arms, as soon as possible - Dr Ramallo, your centers were chosen to distribute the vaccine.

Can you tell us about how this is going?

- We were very excited to receive a small batch of vaccines starting last week.

We immediately hit the ground running and started vaccinating all the patients we could get, 65 and over.

And we've been actually reaching out to all of our patients that meet this criteria to let them know that the vaccine has arrived.

And we are scheduling appointments, and trying to make sure that every single dose that we receive is being used appropriately.

So, so far it's been great, we've been able to get a lot of patients in to be vaccinated usually on the same day.

And we just hope to continue to expand this program, so we can actually start vaccinating the rest of the community.

- Thank you Dr. Ramallo from the Sixteenth Street Clinic Centers.

Back to you.

- Thank you.

Patricia.

Mark Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize winning health and science reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

He's been following the pandemic and vaccine distribution and has some thoughts on the rollout at the state, and national level.

- One of the big mistakes that was made from the beginning with the pandemic.

We had been under funding public health and especially local and state public health departments for 20 years.

All of a sudden they had this huge job on their hands.

And these were the people that were being asked to do things like contact tracing.

Now, at least as it stands at the moment, for many states, they are still doing some of those things, they're hard pressed to put people into contact tracing, and on top of it all they will now have vaccination responsibilities.

If the federal government moves to put more coordination and more money, frankly, towards that goal, that will help immensely.

These, unfortunately, we've left these public health departments hobbled.

You know, they would have, even in a best case scenario, I think they would have been hard pressed to respond in the way that we needed, a vaccination campaign.

With the state, it was worse.

I did a story back in, it ran September 4th in the paper, looking at what an enormous task this was gonna be.

I think anybody, even if you don't know much about public health, you could see that this was gonna be the largest vaccination campaign in the country's history.

And when I contacted the state, late August, early September, they said, "We're talking about plans but it's much too early to discuss them."

We were already at that point, hearing that it was possible, that there would be some vaccine available, end of November.

And to not have plans in place, you know in early September, I think that was cutting it very close.

- Should the states have been responsible for this type of effort in the first place?

- No.

I mean, I think a lot was pushed on to them and what really needed to happen for something this huge, an undertaking this huge, and a good way to think about it is that it's really like war time, logistical scenario.

I mean, you are embarking on something that is in some ways a little like the Manhattan Project, I mean, it's a very large scale thing.

And as a country, we've traditionally launched those very large scale projects at the federal level.

I think from the beginning, too much was placed in the hands of the states.

And that led to just chaos.

It was kind of a trickle down of organizational blundering or delay, I should say maybe.

That the federal government, was putting too much on the state, it wasn't giving them enough to work with.

The state in turn, wasn't dealing very well with this enormous burden that was placed on it.

And thus was kind of vague and appeared at times disorganized to some of the local health departments.

But I think the situation we're in now, it's seems pretty clear that president Biden is determined to put the onus on the federal government.

And I think, that's the right way to go.

At least from what public health people I've talked to have said.

- Kind of the Harry Truman approach with the buck stops here.

- Right.

I think that that was, there's something to that, that goes beyond the actual truth of whether individually one person is responsible for everything.

We know that the president wasn't responsible for 400,000 deaths, that's an exaggeration.

But I think that early on, it would have been much stronger message to have told the people exactly what the danger was that they were facing.

And to have assumed responsibility for it, for directing actions against it.

I think that puts people at ease.

It also makes people, I think a little more willing to sacrifice.

That was one of the big things I think that failed in the, for a large part of the pandemic, certainly until right up until now, I think, that where sacrifice has been called for, even in small things like wearing masks, our state has been you know, far behind and our country has been far behind.

Virtually no other country politicized the issue of wearing masks, was the thing you did not for your own health, but to protect everybody around you was, this idea of kind of collective responsibility for each other.

And I think that that's something that we will need going forward too.

- A century ago, another pandemic changed life as people knew it.

Echos of the so-called Spanish flu reverberate today.

And so too many memories of another outbreak that rocked Milwaukee in the 1990s.

I spoke with historian, John Gurda, and Milwaukee's former health commissioner about two public health flashpoints, and the lessons learned during the age of COVID.

Wisconsin, and for that matter, the world, have been here before.

A deadly contagion ravaged Milwaukee in 1918, the first global pandemic of the modern era, killing an estimated 50 million people worldwide, known as the Spanish flu.

- And Milwaukee began to feel those effects at the end of September, back in 1918.

And whats sometimes forgotten, is that World War I, was still underway.

And actually the germs were brought up from great lakes by a couple of sailors.

- [Portia] The pandemic a century ago was just as contagious as COVID-19, but more lethal, confronting adults in their prime.

to stop the spread, Gurda says our ancestors, actually did many of the same things we're being asked to do now, - The health commissioner back in Milwaukee in those years, was a guy named Dr. George Ruhland.

And there was this incredibly sophisticated and widespread campaign of information, not disinformation, but information about what to do.

And there were these placards on street cars, there were newspaper advertisements, and there was a long list of Ruhland's Rules.

"Avoid persons who cough or sneeze.

Wash your hands.

Keep out of crowded places."

You know, it's the same thing.

They weren't doing six feet distancing back then, but it's the same thing.

- Having lived through my own nightmare, with cryptosporidium.

- [Portia] Paul Nannis was the health commissioner of Milwaukee, during the cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993.

It was not a pandemic, but rather a parasite that paralyzed life in Milwaukee through contaminated water.

- We knew the source, we lost a number of people, most of them, almost all of them with immune compromised systems, so we knew who to look for.

And we had advantages that in a pandemic you don't have, or we don't know who's gonna be the next person that I, or you or your family or somebody, you know, passes it on to.

We just can't tell that's why masks are so important.

- [Portia] And masks were important in 1918.

Gurda says masks gained acceptance, because Americans were already United in the war effort.

- Wearing a mask has become some kind of a political statement.

And back then it was simply, there was grumbling certainly, about sort of giving up your personal liberty.

But, there was also a sense that we were all in this together, and the sense that, you know, my welfare is related to yours.

So Milwaukee did have a model of public health department and that was a really critical factor.

By the time the pandemic eased, and it was herd immunity that kind of phased it out back in the early months of 1919, Milwaukee was among the cities with the very lowest death rate.

- [Portia] Ruhland's Rules led to that outcome.

And so did the vision of public health in the early part of the 20th century, which Nannis says faded over time.

- When public health is doing its job, you don't see it.

Hopefully, I said this after crypto that was 25 years ago.

Hopefully there'll be investment in public health where we'll raise the floor at least, on the infrastructure, that's there all the time.

'Cause we don't know when the next issue will emerge.

- There's been a lot to take in this past hour.

So, we thought it might be helpful to repeat something heard here on Milwaukee PBS, the pandemic words of local poet and former teacher, Kitty O'Meara.

(gentle music) - "In the time of pandemic."

And the people stayed home, and they read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

(gentle music continues) And they listen more deeply.

Some meditated, some prayed, some danced, and some met their shadows.

And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

And in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieve their losses and made new choices.

and dreamed new images.

(gentle music continues) And created new ways to live, and heal the earth, fully.

As they are being healed.

(gentle music) - We were curious how these words are resonating with Kitty during this time of vaccinations.

I talked with Kitty about that.

- In being confined to home, in being confined period to the self, to more time with the self, you know, it gives us that time to sort of review and contemplate and examine if our life prior to all this, was going in a direction that was using our gifts and feeding our spirit.

I called it, some people met their shadows in the youngian sense that we had a chance to face things about our lives, our choices, ourselves, that could teach us where we maybe had gone off track, where we had done well with who we came to be, and how we could kind of self-correct, if we felt that that was something that would make our lives fuller and more integrated, there is that darkness that could lead to light.

These are personal choices and our responsibility, I think, needs to be really encouraged and affirmed as we experience all this, how we take it in and what we do with it, doesn't always have to depend on the government or anyone else.

It can depend on our choice, what we get up and what we do with our day and our time and our gifts.

- Perhaps we will start to see that light.

It has been a very, very dark period, and we're still not even in the, what the doctors and health officials are saying in the worst of it.

You know, we're still climbing.

- Right.

- That steep mountain.

- But we do.

We do have a lot to look at with hope, a lot.

And, it's a balance, but I would never wanna leave anyone with the idea that, we must be gloomy and we must, you know, all is dark and woe is us, because I think that's a big mistake, a huge mistake to not see that, what we do next matters.

It always does.

And I think this is a time to seize the joy and the light and the hope, and really hang on to it tight and affirm it for each other.

Because it's coming, it's coming.

You know, gotta be patient - For you, the vaccine, I'll switch to more practical things.

Are you (indistinct), are you looking forward to?

Roll out, you seeing that?

- I'm very much looking forward to the vaccine.

I'm not in a category that allows me to, I still don't really know what all the tiers are but I know I'm not in the top.

So then we wait, and for us that isn't bad because we're retired.

And we have these five dogs and three cats, so we got a full house, we a lot to keep us busy and things to do until we can get the vaccine.

But boy, I can't wait.

- What has this time of confinement taught you about yourself?

- That I am self-reliant in a way, I guess, I didn't know I was, and I don't mean in exclusion of my relationship with my husband, but, you know, my creative impulses have really saved me.

I don't know what this year would have been like had I not been able to meet so many people, and co-create so many things, while I was sitting in my house with the doors locked.

(Kitty chuckles) And so, you know, it's taught me that the human spirit not just mine, but the human spirit reaches for light.

- We are all hoping for that light.

You can listen to the entire interview at milwaukeepbs.org.

- Our webpage is where you'll find information you heard tonight, and other COVID related resources.

And after this program head to milwaukeepbs.org or our Facebook page and take our vaccine feedback poll.

- Thank you to our colleague, Patricia Gomez, and to our guests for joining us.

(gentle music) And thank you for watching.

Stay well.

(gentle music continues)