LHH CEO Weekly Resident and Resident Family Message
Weekly Message from LHH CEO Michael T. Phillips
December 4, 2020
Dear Laguna Honda Residents and Families,
I hope you had a safe and restful Thanksgiving. While this was far from a typical holiday, the sacrifices everyone made this year were not in vain and your efforts continue to be instrumental in keeping our community safe.
As you well know, we are in a critical moment in this pandemic. Mayor London Breed called it “the most dangerous time we've faced.” But I have confidence that San Francisco and the Bay Area will prevail against this surge, as we did in previous surges.
At Laguna Honda, we have had a total of 114 positive COVID-19 cases to date—30 total resident cases with one currently active and 84 total staff cases with 16 currently active. COVID-19 dashboards with case numbers are available online at LagunaHonda.org/COVID19. We are not immune to what happens in the larger community and staff cases did increase throughout the month of November. With strong protocols and frequent testing, we are catching cases early, slowing the spread of the virus, and protecting our community.
As I shared with staff, we have every reason to be encouraged about the future. It has been a long and tiring race, but the end is finally in view with multiple safe and effective vaccines in the final stage of development.
We anticipate being an early recipient of the COVID-19 vaccine and the team here is working hard in preparation for rollout. We know there are many questions and I look forward to an open dialogue over the coming weeks with the greater LHH community.
I want to share a few early details about the vaccine. Thank you to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital CEO, Dr. Susan Ehrlich for preparing much of the below content.
➢ These vaccines are safe and effective. It was initially thought vaccines needed to be at least 50% effective in preventing COVID-19 to be worth pursuing. The vaccines which are most likely to be available first (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna)– are both estimated to be about 95% effective. That is incredibly encouraging news and there are more vaccines on the way.
For perspective, the annual influenza vaccine is 40-60% effective, depending on the year, and measles vaccine is 97% effective after two doses.
➢ Resources were dedicated to ensuring an unprecedented timeline for development. The less than one-year timeframe for the COVID-19 vaccine was made possible because the federal government made funding available to companies with promising products. ➢ Distribution plans are being made at the federal, state, and local level. We are making plans to accept vaccine doses and to begin vaccinations as soon as we’re authorized to do so. There are many details involved in distributing vaccines and the LHH team is laying the groundwork now.
➢ We won’t see community impact right away. It will take a while from the arrival of the first vaccine doses until cases start to go down as a result of people being vaccinated. Because of this, we expect to be wearing masks and practicing social distancing for many months, even if we have personally received the vaccine.
We will continue to keep our residents and our resident families informed as we learn more.
I want to end by saying the that the vaccine represents a real opportunity to make us safe from contracting COVID-19. I understand there are a wide range of feelings and perspectives about receiving the vaccine. Ultimately, individuals must decide whether getting the vaccine is the right decision. Personally, I will not hesitate in getting the vaccine as soon as it is available, and I encourage you to do so. But if you need more encouragement, please look no further than to the words of the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, regarding the vaccine: “Help is coming, and it is coming soon.”
Sincerely,
Michael T. Phillips, MHA, FACHE
Chief Executive Officer
375 Laguna Honda Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94116
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