Sam & Julie are back to talk pandemic news here in small town Pennsylvania. Though we’d rather not be back to talk about the pandemic, it’s an unfortunate reality that cases are high and the hospitals are crowded. Again. Get the basics on what you need to know -- even if it feels nicer not to know -- about COVID during the winter holidays. 

SHOW NOTES

• The uses and limits of testing: "COVID Tests Weren't Designed For This," Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic
  
  
• The context just before this wave and the need to focus on hospitalization stats rather than case rates: Twitter thread by John Burn-Murdoch
  
  
• Everything you should to know about this wave of the pandemic - NPR, "UCSF Medicine Chair Answers our Omicron Questions"
  
  
• Why vaccine mandates helped hospitals avoid staffing shortages: "Vaccine mandate has improved Pa. hospital staffing, even after 153 workers left: health system CEO," David Wenner, PennLive
  

CONTACT US:
If you’d like to send questions or stories to Radio Free Lewisburg, you can email us at radiofreelewisburg@gmail.com

Ouch. Sam and Julie talk about the CDC masking guidelines and what they really mean for us here in Rural Pennsylvania. We also talk about how we're doing locally with COVID, and what our lives should look like now that roughly 39% of people in Union County are fully vaccinated. We'll remind you how to talk to vaccine hesitant friends and family...we're onto the hard sells, folks!

SHOW NOTES:

CDC Updated Mask Guidance

• Graphic 
• Fine print  

Current risk levels

• CDC COVID-19 Data Tracking
• Assessing risk among those not yet vaccinated -- state and national graphics with a changing denominator  

Getting people vaccinated

• Finding vaccine is getting simpler -- vaccines.gov or even just text your zip code to GETVAX (for English) or to VACUNA (for Spanish)
• Ohio Vaccine Lottery incentive
• Dear Pandemic -- talking to an open-minded loved one
• We Can Do This (HHS)
  • How to talk to Friends and Family 
  • Vaccine hesitancy 

Vaccine efficacy

• Your Local Epidemiologist
  • Detailed write-up about all the vaccines 
  • Follow her on facebook in general 
• Dear Pandemic -- better more consistent, safer coverage from vaccines than from getting sick  

CONTACT US:

• Email radiofreelewisburg@gmail.com
• Call 570-523-0114 (leave a message and your full phone number if you want to be called back. We can’t access your number remotely.)
• Message us through the Lewisburg Neighborhoods page on Facebook.
  
  

A year ago today, Pennsylvania shut down non-essential business across the entire state. We mark this anniversary with the first in a series of Central Pennsylvania's Pandemic Stories. Andrea Tufo shares her story of helping the Donald Heiter Community Center survive the shutdown in March 2020 — and then surviving her own near-death experience with COVID-19.

To share a Pandemic Story, visit www.storiesontap.org.

CONTACT US:

• Email radiofreelewisburg@gmail.com
• Call 570-523-0114 (leave a message and your full phone number if you want to be called back. We can’t access your number remotely.)
• Message us through the Lewisburg Neighborhoods page on Facebook.
  
  

Looking for a COVID vaccine? Sam talks with Sue Auman about the early vaccine rollout in Central Pennsylvania. Sue is a member of the Greater Susquehanna Valley Vaccine Task Force. She & Sam spoke in late January 2021.  By way of an update, as of now (February 12) all long term care, personal care, and nursing home facilities in Union, Snyder, and Northumberland Counties have either had their first vaccine clinic (in some cases second) or have their first clinic scheduled in an acceptable timeframe.   Sue says, "Huge credit to the folks at Union-Snyder Agency on Aging who mobilized to track and assist every single one of the facilities to ensure they were served. Our elected officials and task force members also created a movement that helped ensure that attention was paid to the issues that were creating chaos.  Good news all around!"

SHOW NOTES:

Testing information

• PA page
• Roving free public testing sites (requires time and transportation!)

PA Department of Health Vaccine Information

• Dashboard (with interactive map of Certified Vaccine Providers)
• Eligibility Quiz

Regional/local Resources

• Central Susquehanna Valley COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force -- vaccines-csv.org
• Union-Snyder Community Action Agency --  union-snydercaa.org

COVID-19 and Vaccine messaging:

• MIT COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance Study
• COVID messaging tip sheet (1 page)
• November COVID polling report
• Vaccine communication tip sheet (2 page)
• Vaccine polling background
• Daily Item column “Times Call for Patience and Perseverance”

Vaccine Background (the first two are now accessible as websites rather than just facebook pages)

• Dear Pandemic
• Your Local Epidemiologist
• Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist

How can you help?

• Do you want to help the vaccination effort in some capacity?

CONTACT US:

• Email radiofreelewisburg@gmail.com
• Call 570-523-0114 (leave a message and your full phone number if you want to be called back. We can’t access your number remotely.)
• Message us through the Lewisburg Neighborhoods page on Facebook.
  
  

Taylor Lightman talks to Sam about the Swedish response to COVID. Taylor is from Lewisburg, lives in Sweden, and specializes in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation. Taylor explains the mitigation measures he’s seeing from his home in rural Sweden. And he clarifies what the strategy really is: like, are they really not masking and just going for herd immunity? Is it business as usual, or have things changed a lot over there?

Please note that this conversation took place in October 2020. Since then, both Sweden and Central PA have had significant increases in both cases and deaths. 

The images show subsequent growth in cases and deaths and some increase in mitigation measures to curtail both -- though restrictions continue to be less extensive than they might be.

SHOW NOTES:

The elephant in the room:  Herd immunity

Assessing Sweden's early experience in 2020

• Theories for high Swedish death rate early on 
• Economic impact of COVID-19 on Sweden and in comparison to neighbor Norway
• Level of serological testing in Sweden -- no sign of herd immunity
• Disaster response in retrospect -- the difficulty of decision-making in conditions of uncertainty (paper is in Swedish, but google translate works quite well)

Sweden's new COVID-19 situation (which unrolled in the weeks following our conversation):

• Swedish COVID-19 stats
• Recognizing the pain --early losses did not help achieve herd immunity
• Shifting strategy

Other, better responses:  Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore…

CONTACT US:

• Email radiofreelewisburg@gmail.com
• Call 570-523-0114 (leave a message and your full phone number if you want to be called back. We can’t access your number remotely.)
• Message us through the Lewisburg Neighborhoods page on Facebook.
  
  

Julie and Sam catch up after a two-month hiatus... just in time for Thanksgiving. Hear about their exciting (sad) holiday plans and what they're most excited for (dreading) this winter. Julie asks Sam if she recommends sequestering for the sake of her elderly family member because of our local COVID uptick. Plus:

-What's the current COVID situation here in Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna Valley?

-What’s going on at the local hospitals?

-Learn just how easy it is to pass COVID to your family when you think you're being safe.

SHOW NOTES:

Key References

• MyCOVIDrisk app 
• Winter COVID Reader -- including a range of links and resources including information about recommended precautions/quarantining/testing for college students returning home for the holidays — article from NPR, article from NYT

Creative Alternatives

• Plantsgiving -- webpage or Chris Martine on WKOK Sunrise
• COVID-Safe Holidays For the Win! 

Related Content

• GSV United Way Public Health Forum video (program starts at 19:30) -- Sam misspoke in citing some of the statistics share in the forum from memory.  She was correct on the number of people admitted to Geisinger hospitals being at a rate of one an hour on Nov 19, but those hospitalized were more like 41% under 65 and 50% of those were under 50!  She was also correct on the 85-90% of hospitalized COVID patients throughout the year having NOT been from nursing homes.
• How to Read a Graph Mid-Pandemic -- article on LN website
• A Turkey in Every Pod! -- another article on LN website
• WKOK Sunrise Single Segment on same topic 

CONTACT US:

• Email radiofreelewisburg@gmail.com
• Call 570-523-0114 (leave a message and your full phone number if you want to be called back. We can’t access your number remotely.)
• Message us through the Lewisburg Neighborhoods page on Facebook.