By Radio Free Lewisburg
The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.
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
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If you’d like to send questions or stories to Radio Free Lewisburg, you can email us at [email protected]
FEATURED MUSIC: "T-Shirts Silly Bus" by Captive Portal is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike License. Produced in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
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
Current risk levels
Getting people vaccinated
Vaccine efficacy
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It's go time! Sam and Julie talk about how and where to get vaccinated in Central Pennsylvania. Everyone 16 and older in PA is now eligible to get vaccinated. We also talk about what is safe in post vaccination life: is it a good idea to start having indoor parties? What about booking a summer trip to Mexico? And we'll talk about ways you can help the community at this later stage of the pandemic.
SHOW NOTES:
Where to get appointments --
If you're not having any luck with individual provider sites, these sites may be helpful:
What to do after you're vaccinated --
Addressing vaccine hesitancy --
Information Hygiene refresher -- the SIFT strategy -- infodemic.blog
Fact-checking sites
Solid COVID-19 Info (e.g. for finding out about the current status of the J&J vaccines)
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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.
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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 Department of Health Vaccine Information
Regional/local Resources
COVID-19 and Vaccine messaging:
Vaccine Background (the first two are now accessible as websites rather than just facebook pages)
How can you help?
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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
Sweden's new COVID-19 situation (which unrolled in the weeks following our conversation):
Other, better responses: Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore…
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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
Creative Alternatives
Related Content
CONTACT US:
Local nurse practitioner and public health educator Karen Wolf talks to Sam about how the history of contact tracing & quarantine relate to our current moment. Karen answers questions like:
-Are local universities Susquehanna and Bucknell really testing students' poop for COVID viral load?
-How does government-led contact tracing work?
-How has the stigma of disease led the USA to develop a system of health privacy?
-What happens when you get a call from the Department of Health telling you and your family to quarantine for 14 days.
SHOW NOTES:
**UPDATE: the COVID Alert PA contact tracing app is now available**
PA Department of Health
PA Department of Education
Science topics referenced
Bucknell University COVID response assessment/updates by Prof. Ken Field, head of the Biology Department (the discussion of this wound up getting edited out but this was also referenced in the early September WKOK Sunrise Show discussion)
Image Courtesy of Erie County Historical Society
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Sam and Julie talk about our local public schools reopening amidst an uptick in COVID cases. Since the beginning of August, Union County's cases have doubled. Looking at a map of outbreaks across the country, our county sticks out as the darkest spot in the state of Pennsylvania. PA State Health Secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, said this week that Union County alone should consider starting school completely online. Can we get our kids back to school safely?
SHOW NOTES:
Official school guidance
Good general science-based resources
Mask videos:
In the news:
Since we recorded and mentioned New Zealand having had no new COVID-19 cases for 100 days, they have in fact had an outbreak and are now at 30 new cases. They are doing vigorous contact tracing and we will see what else they do to get things back under control...
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FEATURED MUSIC:
Intro: “In The 21st Century” by Keshco is licensed under a CC Attribution-Share Alike License.
Produced in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Sam checks in with Lewisburg Community Garden Coordinator Jen Schneidman Partica to find out how the garden is coping during COVID and why they're not dropping the ball when it comes to feeding the community. Sam & Jen give recommendations on how to get involved around Lewisburg safely while observing COVID restrictions and — gasp — maybe even meeting new people. And we address the anxiety that our local public schools and university will soon be back in session.
SHOW NOTES:
Lewisburg Community Garden:
Local Organizations Fighting Food Insecurity:
Back to School:
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The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.