WEBVTT

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My name is Dr.

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Amy Millikan Bell.

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Most of us are familiar with what doctors do

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and working in public health is, is is very different.

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We like to say that our patient is the population.

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When that COVID vaccine announcement was made,

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I was like over the moon.

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I was like, "Okay, we got this now."

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So I was in one of the early waves to get the vaccine

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and it was a two dose series.

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Late summer of '22, the new vaccine came out for that season.

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I made sure everyone in my family received that vaccine

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and everyone did except for me.

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I was a working

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mom, had a kid who just graduated from high school.

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Everyone in my family who had had the recent booster had

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a very mild illness.

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We're talking a couple of days, runny nose,

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sore throat, basics.

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I ended up getting COVID. It leveled me.

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I will regret every day

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not making the time to get that booster. Long

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COVID has completely changed my life.

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My energy level is 50% or less of what it was before.

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I'll never be able to prove to you that the vaccines

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that I had before I got sick saved my life,

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but I believe they did.

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I don't want anyone else to be sick the way I was sick.

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If everyone gets vaccinated, it creates a wall.

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The virus is much, much less likely to get through there.

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And if it does get through,

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the illness is far more likely to be mild.

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The fewer people who are vaccinated,

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the more cracks there are in

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that defense for that group of people.

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Even if I get it and I'm not sick,

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I could still give this COVID virus to someone else,

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someone more vulnerable than I am

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and they may get very sick.

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I would ask that everyone think of themselves

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as an individual in the context of the people they love

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and they care about.

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Because what you do when it comes

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to vaccination doesn't just affect yourself.

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It's also helping protect all of those other people.