00:00So please, welcome to the stage, Dr. Eric Griggs.
00:06Thank you, thank you, thank you.
00:08Is everybody comfortable with me wearing a mask?
00:11Because I'm not.
00:13I'm up here, I've been vaccinated.
00:16The latest recommendations from the CDC said that if you've been vaccinated, particularly
00:21outside, you can go unmasked.
00:25That's great, right?
00:26Yes.
00:26And that when you're in crowds where you know everyone's been unvaccinated, you can
00:32all have your mask off, right?
00:34Because once you get vaccinated, your eyes turn green, yellow, you wear a sign that says
00:40you're vaccinated.
00:42No?
00:43No.
00:43In other words, those of you that are wearing masks and you're around people, whether you're
00:47inside or outside, it's a great idea to keep your mask on because in spite of what we don't
00:52know about COVID, and we're going to get to that, I brought some friends to help me out
00:56with that.
00:56In spite of what we don't know about COVID, what we do know, first of all, I'll start
01:00with something very familiar before COVID came about is, has anyone ever heard of the
01:04flu?
01:06Hmm.
01:06Has anyone ever had the flu?
01:09Did you know that anything up to feeling like you are going to be hospitalized is considered
01:16a mild case of COVID?
01:18Has anybody ever been hospitalized by the flu?
01:21That's one person that's had a moderate case of the flu.
01:24As sick as you've been, of the people that I know that have had COVID, the number of people
01:31I know that have been hospitalized is minuscule to none.
01:36But I'm talking about COVID.
01:37Let me set the stage first.
01:39Did anybody know what COVID was when it first came out?
01:42Because I did not.
01:43I had a TV segment that I did at the local channel, Fox 8.
01:47I was on twice a week.
01:48I went in on March 13th, 2020.
01:52I went in for my normal segment at 940.
01:54I didn't get home until six o'clock.
01:55And I've been at the TV station pretty much every day since.
01:59And I said, if you ever meet a doctor that's afraid to say, I don't know, then you need
02:04another doctor.
02:05Because when they asked me, Doc, what do you think this is?
02:07I said, yeah, good, me neither.
02:10I didn't know either.
02:11As African-Americans, at the very beginning of this, when COVID first hit, we had a myth
02:16saying that COVID didn't affect black people.
02:19And then, sadly, Governor Edwards came out and was the first governor in the country that
02:23said that seven out of 10 bodies showing up at the morgue that had died from COVID looked
02:28like us.
02:29So I brought my friends along, and you let me know if they can help.
02:33Let me know if this helped set the stage and explain.
02:37Hey, ho, let's go.
02:44I'm Dr. Mark Allendary, and I'm an infectious disease doctor and epidemiologist.
02:49And I'm Doc Griggs, and I'm a community health specialist.
02:52Speaking of special, today's podcast is coming live from inside the human body.
02:57So, Doc Griggs, does that make it a podcast?
03:02Dude, don't make me regret sharing my space time hop trick with you.
03:05Thanks, TV sitcoms.
03:07So, these COVID-19 vaccines are super safe and effective, and thankfully, were developed
03:12quickly in response to the global pandemic.
03:15First, let's explain how the coronavirus makes us sick.
03:19Ooh, check out those spike proteins on the coronavirus.
03:22They help it burst through healthy cells, where it replicates inside, destroying the cells
03:26and making us sick.
03:28I really hate that dude.
03:29The vaccine will take care of him.
03:31Vaccines stimulate your immune system to fight viruses.
03:35Some of the COVID-19 vaccines work by delivering mRNA to your cells.
03:39Think of mRNA as instructions that activate the immune system.
03:43Let's check out a healthy cell to see how mRNA works.
03:47The COVID-19 vaccines deliver a package loaded with millions of mRNA to your cells.
03:54Then the ribosomes read the genetic code on the mRNA like a manual and produce spike proteins
03:59that mimic the COVID-19 ones.
04:01That stimulates your immune system to make antibodies.
04:05Now, off to the lymph nodes.
04:08Here's where antibodies are created.
04:10The heroes that fight coronavirus.
04:13The spike proteins attach to the antibody, leaving an imprint of the spikes, basically
04:18setting a trap for the nasty coronavirus.
04:20When this part of the antibody attaches to these spike proteins on the coronavirus, it immobilizes
04:26the virus and stops it from infecting our cells and making us sick.
04:30If an actual coronavirus comes into the body, the antibodies are ready to roll.
04:36Paddle faster!
04:39That's why COVID-19 vaccines are essential for teaching your immune system how to fight off
04:45the coronavirus.
04:47And that's our show for the day.
04:48Ready to roll?
04:49I've got this.
04:50So, the events of last summer happened.
04:55The sad events.
04:56George Floyd.
04:58Ahmaud Arbery.
04:59It stressed me to the point that I quit exercising.
05:02And I started, I guess we can use Hippocrates, I started over-medicating.
05:07I put on my COVID 50.
05:10Did I say that?
05:12I gained 50 pounds because I was eating whatever it was around just to make me feel better.
05:17And I isolated myself.
05:19But what I found is the more I went to the TV station, the more outside started opening
05:24up, the more I started to talk to people, the more encouraged I felt to start, A, eating
05:31less food, but B, moving, walking, getting with your family, getting with your friends,
05:37walking.
05:37And you know what happens when we walk?
05:40Does anybody remember when they were a little kid and they'd get in trouble and they'd be
05:44on punishment and they'd finally get out, your friend's waiting in the front for you.
05:47And as soon as you get with your boy or your friends, y'all walk down the street and y'all
05:51walk everywhere talking about your parents and how you wish they was their age because
05:54that's wrong and they treated you bad and you're so abused.
05:56It's therapeutic to walk.
05:58It's therapeutic to smile.
06:00It's called self-care.
06:02The best things you can do for yourself right now, of course, I say get checked, get fit,
06:06get moving.
06:07I'm doing all right.
06:10And I want you to get vaccinated.
06:13Vaccines.
06:13I know a lot of people are hesitant about vaccines.
06:16I was, I can honestly admit I was hesitant at first and they're like, oh, but you're a doctor.
06:20I said, dude, just if I invented the bungee cord and I measured it, I didn't want to be
06:24the first one to jump off the bridge, but I had to.
06:28And I did it on television.
06:29I did it publicly because my grandmother came to me in my sleep.
06:33My grandmother passed away in 2014.
06:35I was nervous.
06:36I literally had a dream.
06:37And she said, now, if you're not going to do it, you need to stop talking.
06:40Wouldn't you rather if something happened to you than someone else?
06:43So I took it publicly.
06:44I took both of the Moderna shots publicly on TV.
06:46I had a very rough reaction because I had COVID and didn't know it.
06:50I had antibodies.
06:51So my first shot acted like the booster shot that the second shot is.
06:55And I had the chills.
06:58All that.
06:59And it went away after I got rest and took ibuprofen.
07:02And I did some self-care.
07:04And I was fine.
07:05Now, I really, things really changed for me in my messaging when I learned the history of vaccines.
07:11You know, it's beautiful.
07:12We know Dr. Kismikia Corbett is one of the ones that brought the technology that they described
07:17for the new vaccines, but the NIH, a young African-American doctor who's now at Harvard.
07:21She was at the NIH, which is amazing.
07:24That's a little, I usually have my ooh and I cards.
07:27I'll do a little clap.
07:28I'll do a little clap.
07:29But did you know that the history of vaccines actually has African origins?
07:34In 1721, there was a slave named Onesimus that was owned by a guy named Cotton Mather.
07:41They had a smallpox outbreak.
07:43Cotton Mather asked his slave, listen, how do you deal with smallpox in Africa?
07:48And Onesimus was like, well, we really don't have that problem.
07:51I was like, what do you mean?
07:52He said, when someone has smallpox, we expose the healthy people to the person with smallpox
07:57so they don't get really, really sick.
07:59And it's a process called variolation and they don't become sick.
08:03Well, a hundred years later, Edward Jenner took that process of variolation that started
08:08with Onesimus.
08:09And because there was a cowpox outbreak, if you look at the root word of the word vaccination,
08:15vaca means cow.
08:18So he took the variolation process, called it vaccinations and started exposing people
08:23to cowpox and they were protected.
08:25So we have very African roots in the healthy things to take care of ourselves.
08:30So vaccine hesitancy should go further away as we speak to our own DNA.
08:36All of the studies right now are showing that the best way to get people vaccinated is to
08:40be exactly who we are.
08:42Because I was, I sure did say on TV, he was like, they were like, doc, are you going to
08:45get vaccinated?
08:46No, I'm going to wait.
08:46I'm going to let you do it first.
08:47Let me see how I do.
08:48Let me see how I do with you.
08:50Which is a very natural response.
08:52But know that these vaccines all work.
08:55Out of 6 million, they paused one.
08:57But out of 6, the chances of having that type of stroke is less in the general population
09:03than it was for people that took the vaccines.
09:06And the interesting thing, and I'll close, the interesting thing is that everyone that
09:11talks about the 5G chips, do y'all know where they look that up at?
09:16Anybody got a guess?
09:18On their cell phone.
09:20What a 5G chip is.
09:22So I understand the vaccine hesitancy.
09:26Take the time to educate yourself about it.
09:29Go to the doctor.
09:30Say it.
09:30Get checked.
09:32Hold on.
09:33Let me.
09:34Say it.
09:34Get checked.
09:35Get checked.
09:35Yeah.
09:36Get fit.
09:37Get fit.
09:38Stand up.
09:41Get moving.
09:43And get vaccinated.
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