Area health professionals and community leaders are doing their part to help combat Covid-19.
A Covid-19 Vaccine Q&A will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesday at Native Dog Brewing. The event is being hosted by Keith and Shelia Johnson and Craig and Allison Lawson and will be facilitated by Jera Smith.
The event will also be broadcast on the Camden News Facebook Page.
A panel of Ouachita County medical professionals will be on hand to answer questions from the community concerning the vaccine.
Over the last week, elected officials, school administrators and religious leaders have spoken with the Camden News encouraging the public to research the vaccine and protect themselves and others. The videos will be viewable on the Camden News Facebook page throughout the week.
With school set to start within the next four weeks, a push for vaccinations has become paramount. According to updates from Ouachita County Judge Robert McAdoo, 80 residents received the vaccine at a vaccine clinic held in the parking lot at The Native Dog Brewery on Thursday and another 100 received the vaccine at the Ouachita County Medical Center on Friday.
McAdoo spoke about the importance of following what he called "The Big 4": Washing hands, wearing masks, social distancing, and vaccination. He encouraged the public to research the vaccine personally so they can make an uninfluenced and educated decision about receiving it.
"With the new variants if you get Covid, the vaccine may keep you out of the hospital, it may keep you off of the ventilator and it may keep you from dying," McAdoo shared. "I encourage people to vaccinate and look for truth in data. Look at it and come to a conclusion not by hearsay or by anyone's propaganda. Look at the numbers from CDC and the ADH and make a decision based on those numbers."
McAdoo added that because people followed the steps of The Big 4 earlier this year, the flu had very little effect in Ouachita County.
"If we do all we can do in this community, then I'm encouraged that things are going to get better."
Dr. Smith debunked a few of the myths associated with vaccines and spoke about the mRNA Vaccines. She explained that the vaccine is similar to a self driving car that just needs a location on where to go and the mRNA provides that location. She said that the mRNA is the tiniest piece of information and its not in the nucleus cell where the DNA is located. She also explained that natural immunity weans faster than that of someone who has received that vaccine so its still encouraged to people who have had the coronavirus to seek getting the vaccine three months after recovering from it because the virus is creating variants.