Vaccines have saved a lot of lives in this world, from chickenpox
you know polio, you name it, vaccines are life-savers. I'm in the field, I'm at the bedside,
I'm surrounded by my family, I'm surrounded by my co-workers, I'm surrounded by my patients as well.
If i don't take this vaccine, a patient can come to me who is very clean, absolutely healthy,
I may be the carrier. I'm giving it to my patient who has no no symptoms, no nothing, but coming to me,
me taking care of them can transmit this disease to them because, it is known to be, you know to be
a carrier without absolutely exhibiting any symptoms, but you can give it to somebody
it might kill them. We just, we're just exhausted. People are even...so that's why i'm appealing
to people of color like me to not decline, because there's a misconception there, all the time.
When it comes to immunizations, when it comes to healthcare, our, my community, my Black folks, my
Black fellows, they tend to absolutely be declining it, they tend to be non-compliant so that's why
my appeal to them and even my friends — I call them, take it, take the vaccine. It's available to you if
you're in the third world countries who knows when this vaccine will be available to the third world country.
You are in the perfect situation, you are in the perfect, you have to perfect opportunity to
take advantage of this vaccine when it becomes available to you please do not decline it.
OK, I'm gonna touch your arm.
Lift it up for me just a little bit, there we go. And you can relax, perfect.
OK, so we got three milliliters.
And you can turn your head if you want.
A little bit of pressure, OK? OK. All done.
Way to go.
Perfect, thank you.
Until the vaccine has reached the entire Oregonians,
we just have to stay vigilant and do what we do best, you know masking, social distancing,
and obviously stay home as much as you can. If you don't need to go out
and wander around, stay home that's the key. We continue to do that until everybody is vaccinated.
Very excited that today has finally arrived. It's been a long, long year as we all know,
as we've heard from many, you know the effort that our team on the front lines has given to
take care of not only the COVID-positive patients but all of the other critically ill
patients that we see here at OHSU, they've done a fantastic job. You know, we've got our first 975
Pfizer doses here on site and at about a pace of 100 doses per hour, our occupational health
team has been able to create those time slots and found the you know, vaccinator volunteers
from our student ranks fortunately, to be able to run through that so we we do expect that we'll
be able to get all 975 doses delivered to staff this week. Through that, we'll have to prioritize
those units really that we know for a fact have and care for COVID-positive patients, so the
intent was... and that's you know and that's so, it's all the staff that interface in those units, so
it tallies up to this first wave is about 1900 employees.
No one is wearing a cloth mask?
We are in a global pandemic, a global crisis that, as Ansu mentioned does not discriminate against anyone.
I'm comfortable with it, I'm comfortable telling my family to take it, I think that it is one small step to
not only protect, like as I mentioned ourselves, but the people that you care about the most.