12:00-12:10 Greeter/Funbassadors: Tara Saylor with Bryant Huber helping out. Many showed their senior photos! What fun!!!!!

 

Pledge: Bret Bradigan 

 

Invocation: Patricia Anderson – from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Poem: Jericho Road

 

 

Thank you, Bret, for leading the pledge and Patricia for the invocation, Tara for facilitating our Zoom meeting and being our greeter today and Andy Gilman serving as our reminder editor.

 

Rotarian guest introduction: Betsy introduces Tessa Magill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     5.  Janet Mahon received a well earned Rotarian of the Month Parachute Award            for all her efforts with our Educational Foundation and all the hours she puts            in on behalf of Ojai Rotary.

 

 

 

12:15 - 12:20 Blue Badges – Deidre video/live presentations: 1) Video induction of Fred Farhkani. Then a live induction of Cindy Frings. Congratulations to Fred and Cindy!!! We are so happy to have you both here.

 

 

12:25 - 12:30 Betsy Watson introduces Tessa Magill, Thrive Wellness – Thrive received a community grant from Rotary this year for workshop scholarships for their organization. Tessa works with children and adults.

 

Tessa: Thank you for having me and the generous gifts for our workshops. We are an outdoor-based origination for kids and adults. The grant will allow participates who would not otherwise be able to attend for financial reasons. This provides a chance for kids in the Ojai valley to be able to interact with other young people. We have had to postpone our workshops, but we will start as soon as we are allowed. Typically, we have weekly workshops, say four Thursdays in a row, and do nature hikes and walks. We do a lot of work with whatever is going on with the students. We also have our retreats which involve camping away from the area.

 

Tessa: We are working less on current events, instead we focus generally on social/emotional topics such as anxiety, the things that the students have in common. Teenagers definitely have social anxiety in common. There are group discussions and then we go over effective strategies on how to deal with these problems. We are hoping to get more and more kids out in nature and onboard to do group therapeutic work.

 

Photos were shown of the students during their workshops. It’s wonderful work and we are thrilled to support this effort.  

 

12:30 - 1:00 Program - Bill Gilbreth introduces Dr. Marty Pops.

 

The topic is: Are we going to get a vaccine for COVID-19?

 

Dr. Pops: First we will discuss the concept of a virus.

 

Vaccines have saved more lives that any other modality. How are vaccines made?

 

First, they can be weakened versions of the virus, but will initiate an immunity response.

 

The second way is to kill the virus with a chemical or some other means.

 

Third way is using a part of the virus through genetic engineering.

 

For the Corona Virus, you will notice that there are important structures on the surface of the virus that are being targeted for a vaccine. This will allow companies to quickly develop an artificial response. Also, less of the portion of the virus may be needed to provide the adequate immunity response.

 

Electron microscope images were shown of the cell and how viruses invade cells. Further, bacteria were shown, which are much larger than viruses. Several images of bacteria were shown, and Dr. Pops discussed how bacteria are often invaded by viruses.

 

A video was shown which had new images of the Corona Virus. The measles virus was also shown, which looked very similar to Corona Virus.

 

So, what progress has been made? There about 80 groups that are working on making a vaccine. There are five that have a serious chance of producing one quickly. Modera has a clinical trial that is showing serious progress. If it works, the vaccine can be massed produced very quickly. They say they can come up with several million doses a month. First, they must meet safety and efficacy requirements. At Oxford, working with other companies, there is a prototype vaccine that is working from another virus that is genetically altered that may elicit a response that will make appropriate anti-bodies.

AstraZeneca plans to have up to two million doses in September. This time frame is extraordinary and heroic if there is a viable option by the beginning of next year.

 

Dr. Fauci predicts that a vaccine will be available by mid next year, 18 months since the Corona virus first appeared. The United States has promised that there would be vaccines available by fall, pending safety checks (that’s a big hurdle).

 

Another factor is duration of immunity response. Will one dose last forever, or just a year, or month? This is being researched now. There are passive immunization strategy work being done, but this also has logistics problems.

 

The pie in the sky is to look for the RNA substrate that exist in all viruses. If this were found, there could be an effective response to all viruses and there would be no more outbreaks, but that seems to years away.

 

Question: Are all viruses bad? No, but the question is: Bad for humans? Some viruses are useful in cancer treatment, for example.

 

Question: We will see year over year virus outbreaks? Most of the virologists are hoping for a yearly or every other year injection that will prevent illness. It may be that we see a virus outbreak each year.

 

Question: Are other countries working on a vaccine? Yes, first China, and then in England, which is further along than we are. There are several other countries working on it.

 

Question: Are anti-body tests accurate? You can get it done in Ventura, but what does it mean? We know that there are people who had the virus but only very mild symptoms. The test is a snapshot, looking at the anti-bodies. Even if you have the snapshot that shows you had the virus, you are not certainly protected in the future. We are still learning about this virus.

 

Question: When we get a vaccine, should high-risk people take the vaccine immediately? First, young people are being tested now, then it would roll out to health care workers, etc. Safety checks would happen at each stage of the process.

 

Question: Should we continue to social distance and maintain all of these practices, especially for high-risk people, for perhaps another year? Yes, I think that will be the situation.

 

Dr. Pops then offered his haiku for today.

 

Question: Are there drive-up tests still available? To my knowledge, yes.

 

Question: There is employee pressure about opening up offices again. What is your opinion about opening up now? It depends on the business. If distancing and adequate ventilation, masking, etc. are in place, then I think it would be okay to open.

 

Thank you, Dr. Pops for this very timely and informative presentation!

 

 

Cheree – There is a Rotary story in today’s Ojai Valley News, about the education grants given by our organization. We are so pleased to be able to offering this to our community. And Parachute Rotarians for May - Janet Mahon Campbell! Thank you so much for everything you do for our club.

 

 

Closing Quote - from the student-chosen plaque at the Matilija Peace Pavilion: