ANNOUNCER: Now from CBS4 News,
this is "Facing South
Florida" with Jim Defede.
Good morning, I'm Jim
Defede and welcome
to "Facing South Florida".
reaching the grim milestone
of more than 3000 people
dying in a single day
from the Corona virus.
This is indeed the dark winter
but that president
Trump blindly ignores.
But there is some hope, the
United Kingdom and Canada begun
vaccinating people and the
United States will likely begin
as soon as next week.
It will take time, probably
six months maybe more
to get enough of it out there.
The most vulnerable, as well
as frontline healthcare workers
will be the first to
be offered the shot.
A survey of nearly 6,000
Jackson healthcare workers
found that just under half
said they would be willing
to take the vaccine
Another 36% said they
would consider taking it
in a later round.
And almost 15% said they
were not interested at all.
These numbers include not
only healthcare workers,
but all employees at Jackson.
Dr. Peter Page is the Chief
Medical Officer for Jackson.
And I asked him what he
of the survey.
We were very happy with
that number of people
responding to the survey.
I understand a certain
amount of hesitancy
but we're very excited
that almost half of those
that responded are ready
to take the vaccine.
I think that's a
very positive side.
You know the second group
that you had mentioned,
36% didn't say no, they
just said they didn't wanna
participate in the first round
and that they would consider
it for future rounds.
That's a huge response for us.
You know, that's an
extremely positive response.
We're taking a lot of positivity
out of that going forward.
As we kinda look at
this is you know,
the light is starting to shine
at the end of the tunnel.
You know it's been a long
nine months and we think that
people are appropriately
responding to the opportunity
to get vaccinated.
And we think that there's
gonna be many more
both those that didn't
respond to the survey
and some of the ones
who didn't respond
that they were ready right now.
I think there's gonna be
a fair amount of those
that are also going to decide
to join the first round.
Now I did have a question.
This was among all employees
the survey was made available
to whether or not you
were for instance,
a frontline physician, a
nurse, or whether or not
you were someone
who worked almost,
let's refer to it as
back of the house,
whether it's in food
services or other areas.
Do you have any sort of
a breakdown as to among
those who are frontline
medical workers,
what their percentage
was within the survey?
You know the only real caveat
I could tell you is that
a very high percentage of our
health staff, our trainees,
the residents and fellows,
all have signed up to be
part of the first trial, so
to speak, to be vaccinated.
I don't have any numbers
as it relates to employed
physicians, nursing staff or
other staff at this point.
But I think that we did get a
pretty good positive frontline
staff response as well.
And I know that there was a
town hall meeting last week
where Magoya and others
sort of addressed
some of the concerns or some
of the questions you know,
I'm not even sure there
were many concerns raised
during the town hall.
So how much of this is
an education campaign
both internally
within Jackson and then to
the larger public as well?
I think you're right on.
I think an enormous amount
of this is education.
I think there's a
lot of unknowns,
especially among
a lot of our staff
and a lot of the people
in the communities.
And I think that whenever
you see these trials
that were pretty well conducted
that go through so quickly,
in an effort to try to help
us get past this pandemic,
people get a little nervous
but I think when you really
research it and look
through a lot of the detail
of the trials and you
get opinions from a
lot of the content
experts and we have some
of the best and brightest
clinicians in the
nation between Jackson
and University of Miami,
you know you feel a lot more
comfortable and you feel
a lot more reassured
as you start getting
more and more information
and the communication and
transparency around the vaccine
and potential side effects
and efficacy come out.
Well let me ask you this,
let's just be put the
question to you bluntly,
are you someone who is willing
to be one of those first
in line to take the vaccine
Absolutely.
You know, I have
researched the trials.
I've talked to a lot of
people about the trials.
You know, I've reviewed a
lot of the side effect data
and 95% efficacy with the
Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines
is extremely powerful.
And when you look through
even some of the methodology
behind it, with the messenger
RNA and the fact that
you really can't get the
virus from the vaccine
and how the messenger
RNA virus works,
you know it's pretty reassuring.
Side effects do happen.
The side effects happen
with a lot of vaccines
and the side effects
are generally pretty
mild to moderate.
Generally short-lived
and generally on campus,
typical side effects
was fatigue, malaise,
soreness around the
injection sites,
sometimes redness, joint
aches, muscle aches,
sometimes headaches,
sometimes fevers.
But overall, the side effect
profile is very acceptable.
You've also recently been named
by Miami-Dade County
Mayor, Daniella Levine Cava
as the county's first
chief medical officer.
My understanding is this
is a position you will do
in addition to the work that
you're doing at Jackson,
it's sort an advisory position.
Can you sort of explain
to me a little bit better
is it still being defined?
Yeah, it is on top of what I'm
currently doing at Jackson.
I don't anticipate
my responsibilities
at Jackson changing
at all with this role.
It is very much a medical
advisor role for the mayor
and her team and I think it
will continue to define itself
as we go forward.
You know initially right
now, obviously a big focus
of the pandemic and the
response from the county
and how we can try to minimize
community transmission
and do reinforce a lot
of the protective actions
that were trying to push
throughout the communities
but we anticipate it changing.
And as we get further and
further along with this pandemic
and the pandemic to some
extent gets behind us,
there'll be other issues that
come up that face the county
that I'll be called
upon to help advise
and make recommendations
to the mayor and her team
as to the best way to
manage some of these issues.
thing to realize is that
I am also kind of a conduit.
I have access to a lot of
unbelievable resources here
between Jackson and the
University of Miami.
And so I have content experts
in a lot of different areas
that are also very supportive
and willing to help.
And so, I think that
that's another big piece
of this is that,
it's not just me,
it's the connectivity with
the public health system
and the academic center
at the university.
How would you grade or
how would you evaluate
how Miami Dade has done
over the last nine months?
Should they have
been more aggressive
in terms of shutting
down sooner?
that's maybe a better way
to phrase it, what
lessons have you learned
in terms of how we
deal with businesses,
the issue of masks and
everything that comes with it?
You know obviously
this was something new
that all of us faced this year.
We hope it's a once
in a lifetime issue
that we're all gonna be dealing
with during our lifetimes.
I think we constantly learn,
we're still learning about
opportunities to do things
to better our management
of the pandemic.
And when we talk about
some of the basic measures,
I think those have been
consistently promulgated
throughout the communities.
You know masking, social
distancing, trying to avoid
large gatherings or groups,
celebrations, hand hygiene,
watching for symptoms,
getting tested, quarantine
I mean, those are all
those have all been
consistent stables.
I think one of our big
challenges has been compliance.
We try to get all
of our communities
and a lot of the different
people who are tightly
involved in the communities
to support these efforts
and the more we do that,
the more we're gonna to
and help decrease
the positivity rates
that we see across the county.
Does it make it more difficult
when either the current
President or the Governor
sort of undermine some of
those efforts by not allowing
more stringent enforcement
among local municipalities?
Yeah I think there's a lot
of factors that have to be
considered in those
kinds of decisions.
I'm not really on
the political side,
I'm much more on the
healthcare and medical side.
So I look at this
very objectively from
our health system
and from the
practice of medicine.
We do a lot of stuff.
I think that the health
systems across our Florida
have done an amazing job
to deal with this pandemic
and try to create a safe
environment as possible
for the members
of our community.
Let me ask you this as we're
heading into this holiday,
what is your message
to the public?
You know so, it's really coming
back to the basic elements
of the recommendations that
we've all talked about.
You know, people need
to be very conscientious
mask at all the time
outside of their
immediate household.
People need to socially
distance, you know?
Six feet is the recommendation.
We need to try to, especially