HJAR Sep/Oct 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  SEP / OCT 2021 15 vaccine is made available, but even those rare side effects start within six weeks after the person has been vaccinated. Editor One of the concerns that we hear is if this vaccine is completely safe, why was immunity offered to the drug companies cre- ating these vaccines and distributing them? If there are no worries of any kind, why the immunity? Dillaha I don’t know why people say there are no worries of any kind. I would never say that, the FDA doesn’t say that, the CDC doesn’t say that and none of the pharma- ceutical companies say that. Editor You used the word safe. Dillaha Yes. Safe doesn’t mean no worries of any kind. It means that when you look at the effects of the vaccine and you compare it to the effects of the illness, getting the vaccine is much better than getting the illness. Editor Some say mainstream media report- ing on COVID-19 deaths is sensationalism at its worst. Play armchair quarterback with me for a moment. According to the CDC, no Arkansas kids, zero to 17, have died from COVID-19. Looking back on it now, do you see that the stress plus disruption in their lives is a bit out of proportion? Dillaha At this point in time, we have had, I think, three children die of COVID-19. And Arkansas Children’s Hospital, which is the main hospital for taking care of children, has had more children under 12 years of age hospitalized for COVID-19 in July [2021] than any month since the pandemic began. Editor This is the Delta variant? Dillaha Yes. Editor Do you think that the SARS-CoV-2 is a man-made virus? Dillaha I do not think it is a man-made virus. I think that it fits with the scenario of a virus jumping from animals to humans. Editor Some say the current COVID-19 vac- cines are actually creating a super strain. Do you think that? If so, what do we do then? Dillaha No, I don’t think that. That makes no medical sense to me. The virus is mutating on its own, because the more transmis- sion there is, the more replications it goes through and the more opportunities it has to mutate. A vaccine doesn’t have anything to do with that. Editor What do you think the end game of this pandemic looks like and your best guess for this to be behind us state-wise? Dillaha I think this pandemic is like baseball. It’s not over ‘til it’s over. I think the impor- tant thing is for us to stay focused and be realistic and to be committed to doing what we need to do to get to the other side of it. But, I do not find it helpful to set up an arti- ficial time of when it will be over and then be disappointed. I think we have to be committed to seeing it through no matter how long it takes. For that reason, I have not indulged in specula- tion about what the end game will be. Editor Some hospitals around Arkansas are beginning to require the vaccine, putting some of the workers’ jobs on the line if they don’t. Do you think this is going to cause a mass exodus of facilities requiring the vaccine and shake up an already stressed healthcare system in Arkansas? Dillaha I don’t really have a comment on that. Editor Are you optimistic we’re going to win this? Dillaha Yeah, I think we’ll get to the other side of it, but we’ve got a lot of hard work in front of us. n “It’s very unlikely that these vaccines are going to have long-term side effects in the future. When someone gets vaccinated, the vaccine doesn’t stay in the body. The body takes care of it and it’s gone. Months down the road, there’s no vaccine there for it to do something new that’s unknown to the body or unknown to people.”