Mary Gauthier, nurse practitioner at the UNLV Student Health Center, instructs people to move their arm after receiving the COVID-19 vaccination at UNLV, Monday, April 5, 2021.
Friday, Aug. 20, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Editor’s note: As he traditionally does every August, Brian Greenspun is turning over his Where I Stand column to others this month. In presenting this year’s series of columns from community leaders, we feel it is important that our readers, trying to emerge from the ravages of the pandemic, hear from some of the people who can help guide us to better tomorrows. Today’s guest is Marilyn Kirkpatrick, who chairs the Clark County Commission and is a member of the Southern Nevada Health District Board of Health.
As a life-long resident of Nevada, I see strength, resiliency and goodness at work every day in our community.
This summer we have reached a turning point in our battle against the coronavirus that gives all of us the opportunity to make important choices for ourselves and the health and safety of our community. New cases, driven by the highly contagious delta variant, are surging once again, and we need all who live here to do their part to keep our community open and our economy rebuilding after the long shutdown.
Marilyn Kirkpatrick
Wearing a mask in public places is only a small sacrifice to make to stay open. The key to removing our masks and stopping the surge is for all who are eligible to get vaccinated.If you aren’t vaccinated yet, I urge you to please join the tens of thousands of Nevadans and millions of Americans who have already been vaccinated to roll up your sleeve and become part of the solution to ending the pandemic.
I encourage everyone who lives here to follow the example set by Clark County’s seniors who have overwhelmingly stepped up to protect themselves and others. Those seniors who are age 70 and older have a 92 percent vaccination rate, and the vaccination rate for people aged 60 and older has surpassed 80 percent. Some of the saddest conversations I have had in recent weeks are with seniors who got vaccinated as soon as they could this winter but have younger family members — sons, daughters and even grandchildren — who have died from coronavirus.
A big difference between now and last summer is those who are most at risk for suffering severe illnesses from COVID-19 are unvaccinated.
At this stage in the pandemic most deaths are preventable. The vaccines approved for use in the United States are safe and highly effective at preventing serious illness. One misconception many people have about COVID-19 is if you are young and relatively healthy you won’t wind up in the hospital if you get the virus. In Nevada and elsewhere more than 95 percent of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and unfortunately the age of patients is getting younger. Now people ages 30 to 59 account for 51 percent of COVID-related hospital admissions in our state; 6 to 7 percent of other patients are 20 to 29 years old. If you become vaccinated your risk of becoming one of these statistics is virtually eliminated.
If we work together, we can stop the pandemic and prevent new and more dangerous variants from reversing the strides we have made to reopen. If you are determined to not get vaccinated, then please get tested regularly and stay home if you test positive. All of us, vaccinated or not, need to do what we can to help prevent the spread of the virus.
If you are willing to get vaccinated, but have not yet done so, please don’t wait any longer. I encourage those who are hesitant to talk to their friends, family members and people they trust about why they decided to get vaccinated and what the experience was like. If you have health-related questions and concerns, consult your doctor. Beware of conspiracy theories and misinformation circulating online and on social media sites. It is imperative that younger people, especially those 12 to 40 years old, get vaccinated to stop the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Free, walk-in vaccination sites are available throughout Southern Nevada. A list of sites is on the Southern Nevada Health District’s website at www.snhd.info/covid. You also can contact the state’s vaccine hotline at 1-800-401-0946 for information.
I have no doubt we can beat COVID-19. Our community can be proud of the tremendous work we have done in response to this unprecedented emergency. Clark County and our many partners, including the state, local and federal government and public health agencies, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and countless community groups and caring residents, have worked tirelessly to serve those in need throughout the pandemic.
Millions of dollars in housing and utility assistance has been provided to tens of thousands of Southern Nevada families who endured job losses and financial hardship because of the pandemic.
We rallied to get our children online for distance learning and created childcare programs to assist working families.
We organized food drives and job fairs.
We also stood up mass COVID-19 testing sites and vaccination clinics from scratch and put a system in place to deliver vaccines to homebound people and their caregivers.
In the months ahead we will have new opportunities to confront some of the public health and economic disparities that contributed to low-income residents and people of color experiencing more severe effects from COVID-19.
We are a stronger community now than we were a year and a half ago. A full recovery is on the horizon for Las Vegas and Southern Nevada, and an even brighter tomorrow is ahead because we will build upon the lessons learned from the pandemic.
