As the vacations approach and families gather for Thanksgiving, health officials are preparing for the beginning of the respiratory virus season and for January – when Donald Trump will return to the White House.
Several public health officials joined together Thursday to debate the importance and effectiveness of routine vaccinations as flu and RSV begin to surge nationwide and COVID will almost definitely follow suit.
The panel discussion, hosted by the Big Cities Health Coalition, a gaggle that works with the most important municipal health departments within the country, included Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody, and public health officials from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Shelby County. Tennessee and Columbus, Ohio.
“Vaccines are one of the cheapest and easiest tools we have in our prevention armamentarium,” said Dr. Raynard Washington, director of the Mecklenburg County Health Department.
While all of them emphasized the effectiveness of vaccines and the importance of distributing the vaccines, public health officials also acknowledged the necessity for a brand new approach to communicating with the general public as misinformation and distrust of vaccines have risen in recent times amid the The pandemic has only increased, and the well-known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is claimed to be Trump's nominee for secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Cody and the others emphasized the importance of a hyperlocal focus in the case of public health and meeting people where they’re.
“It's this kind of hyperlocal engagement that will help us combat any kind of misinformation or disinformation that exists,” Washington said.
“We need to understand what people are hearing, what people are doing with the information they have,” Cody said, “and I think our strategies are shifting away from telling to listening and understanding.”
Cody led the nation's first coronavirus lockdown within the Bay Area in March 2020, facing sharp criticism from some for the economic impact and praise from others for his part in curbing the spread of the deadly virus.
Despite the challenges, Cody said her agency is in higher shape than it was 4 years ago. “We faced a lot of headwinds during the pandemic, but we overcame them,” Cody said. “The infrastructure and trust we have built locally is more robust than before the pandemic.”
As for the present status of respiratory viruses in Santa Clara County? “COVID appears to be fairly low in our wastewater, however we are seeing an increase in flu and RSV,” she said. And while vaccine skeptics could also be taking more outstanding positions within the federal government, local data shows more residents are vaccinated now than at the moment last yr, based on Cody.
“Even though our rates are low, we are still doing better than last year,” Cody said.
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