Shirlynn LaChapelle
Appearances
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
But then I said, have you noticed on the news how many people are dying from COVID? The hospitals are full. They have no place to put all the dead bodies. And That was before the vaccine. Now we have something that could prevent it. And you would gamble that you're going to be lucky and never get it. I'm going to gamble on the side of prevention. And let me explain. Some people have long COVID.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
That means athletes, professional athletes whose lungs were damaged by COVID. They're lucky if they can walk a block. They're done playing football or basketball. Their careers are over. Also, it could cause blood clots all over the body. People have lost legs, arms. They've got blood clots in their hearts. On autopsy, it shows that hearts and lungs full of blood clots.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
So COVID is a deadly killer. It doesn't ask your permission. It's silent. It's sneaky. And by the time you know you've got it, it's probably too late. So after that spiel, many of them say, well, I guess I'll get one.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
No, never, never. And that's frightening because this has been, in this century, the biggest killer, I think, since 1919, when we had, what flu was that? The Spanish flu or something that wiped out millions of people around the globe.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
And that's what's so frightening, that something so dangerous and deadly would be politicized, scaring people away from something that could prevent all of this unnecessary death and just all the complications that come along with COVID if you were to survive.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
One thing I've noticed during this political season, TikTok, what is it? Twitter, whatever. But we need to get young people making up... you know, some short commercials about vaccinations. You can prevent this disease, or this could be you. And in case you missed it, COVID kills. And if it doesn't kill you, it could destroy your life.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
your life may never be the same again, but we need it so that it reaches out to young people. It's got to be quick, it's got to be slick, it's got to be something they pay attention to and that they will share.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Well, I'll say some vaccines and medicines because everybody's trying to be on Wagobe now. Have you noticed that?
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
And I'm going to say Hollywood has led the way from Oprah on down. When she went to the awards, it was like, is that Oprah? It will be everybody. So the same kind of... I don't know, results oriented. And then the research shows that it reduces complications. It saves lives. And I guess we have to use some of that conversation to say vaccines save lives. You can't see it. It's invisible.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Can I say one more thing? Sure. I am also a psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice with a psychiatrist for the last few years. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Clarence, after working with you and other community health workers, I have grown to understand how invaluable you all are. And you speak to the community, friends, neighbors, and et cetera, on a level that is based on trust, recognition of shared experiences and things like that. So I think we give them all the information that they need and then help them to craft
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
a conversation piece to have with neighbors and others in the community so that they can engage on a personal level and as well as getting community input so we can understand what are the barriers that the community is feeling or thinking and have answers for those barriers.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Well, I'm going to kind of veer off to what I heard on the news this morning that scared the heck out of me, that I'm not trying to be political, but Trump is going to give the Department of Public Health, or HEW, over to that crazoid, what is it, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ? and who's an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist and who eats, who had worms in his brain. I mean, that's so frightening.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
I think there's a video I think MDH put out about me on about getting the COVID vaccination. Okay. It was short and sweet.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
And basically why you should get vaccinated. Okay. But COVID's a killer. If you love your family, if you care about others in the community, I'd get vaccinated. Anyway, it was short, it was sweet. It might not have even been 30 seconds. My message to the community would be, I'd rather prevent than to be in the hospital being treated.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Because after having just come out of 11 wonderful days in the hospital, I don't, that's a place I don't want to be.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
So if you think people aren't getting vaccinated now, can you just imagine what will happen with him on the airways spewing all these crazy theories and I won't even say half-truths, I'm gonna say no truths. How many people will die because of that false information? And everything he's saying has been disproven, I guess in the 70s when the doctor in England who made up the false research
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
that was not reproducible, got prosecuted and lost his medical license, and he might have even gone to jail. But so many, I'm going to say probably 100,000s of people have died because of that false information. So I'll leave it there to your next question.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
My concern is that there are a lot of people who have no medical background, including some that do, who are misguided and have false beliefs and who very easily share these along with other conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism. And that has been disproven over and over again.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
But the sad part of that are all the deaths that have occurred unnecessarily because of that information that people feel that or believe that it causes autism. And that has been disproven on multiple levels, multiple times. And as we all know, I'm of a certain age. I think polio vaccine came out in the late 40s. I was born in 51. Forget that number.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
And I have to say, I took care of, in my 50 years as a nurse, one person on an iron lung at Hennepin County Medical Center. But most people, if you say, do you know anybody with polio? They would say no. Do you know anybody with what was the other one? Not scarlet fever, but it was another one that was killing a lot of people. Smallpox. Smallpox. That's it with the S. And.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
It's just how can people say they're not going to get vaccinated? Polio is still well, we've got a resurgence in this country because of all the people who've come from abroad who are not vaccinated and some people who were born here, young people who are not vaccinated. So it is frightening to me. It's just very frightening. So, you know,
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Well, I have heard people say, oh, I'm not going to get that COVID vaccine. Oh, it kills people. It does this and that. And for those people, I have to say this. COVID, the vaccine has saved, I'm gonna say millions and millions of lives. I think in this country due to false information, I think over a million people unnecessarily died who did not take the vaccine. And it's heartbreaking.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Clarence and I have a friend who used to be a reporter at the spokesman. I'm trying to think of his name now. And when he was in the hospital before they intubated him, he said, I wish I had taken the vaccine. Please take the vaccine. And he died the next day. You know who I'm talking about, Clarence.
Health Chatter
Vaccinations Update
Okay. I will tell you, I got a lot. I will tell you I was at a vaccination site and they were giving away $50 Target gift cards if you went. And some of them were just bringing others. They were not going to get it. And they said, I don't believe in that. I said, oh, I get it. But have you ever had polio? I go into the polio thing.