The Vaccines - I Always Knew (Official Video)
DR. BIRX: I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines, and it made people then worry that it's not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization. It will. But let's be very clear: 50% of the people who died from the Omicron surge were older, vaccinated. So that's why I'm saying even if you're vaccinated and boosted, if you're unvaccinated right now, the key is testing and Paxlovid. It's effective. It's a great antiviral. And really, that is what's going to save your lives right now if you're over 70, which if you look at the hospitalizations, hospitalizations are rising steadily with new admissions, particularly in those over 70. And so if you live in the South - I know people keep talking about the fall - I'm worried about the South.
The Vaccines - I Always Knew (Official Video)
Dr. MontealegreWell, it was a long journey for me as well. I grew up, I think I always knew I wanted to be a scientist and I went on the lab route in college and in my master's degree. And I really tried to force myself to like it. And then at one point, I went back to Guatemala, where I am from, for a summer. I usually was going down in the summer to do research rotations at a university there. And one summer, I was fortunate enough to participate in an epidemiological study with coffee plantation migrant workers. And we were out, and we were interviewing migrant coffee workers on the plantations and speaking Spanish and having to, you know, climb up hills and get dirty. And I realized, you know what, I really like humans. And I decided that I was going to throw my whole facade of forcing myself to like the laboratory sciences away and really join kind of more the human side of things. But I still really wanted that the number thing and so epidemiology seemed to be the fix for that. But when I realized that epidemiology could be sort of a range of things and where there was a role for behavioral epidemiology that is kind of when I had this click moment where I thought, yeah, this is what I want, it gives me the best of both worlds.
Dr. MontealegreOh my goodness. Wow, that is a great question. Let us see, whole bunch of videos, I think if this is something that is a fair of interest, I think kind of really kind of start digging around as to why is it that we are seeing these inequalities, what is it that is driving it, I think that is going to get you into an area that you are really passionate about, if you sort of ask the why. And then the other thing, of course, is like how do we address it, right? And I think if you start thinking about why these exist and how do we address, it kind of gets your brain going into some really fun areas of work. Thinking kind of outside of what we are doing now and really kind of how can we change it to address some of these problems? Of course! I will put in a plug for our office of community outreach and engagement at Baylor, the cancer center is doing some really, really great work in terms of health disparities, addressing health disparities, so if anybody is of interest to this, I am always happy to talk. I think that is one of my priorities and how I allocate my time is talking to people, who are interested in career in health disparities, public health, cancer prevention, disease prevention. So, always happy to have my door open or my zoom open because that is the new way we do things but always happy to schedule a time to chat. But, yeah, I think, if this is an area that is of interest to listeners, I think it is a booming area. And so I highly encourage people to take that passion and follow up on it because I think we have so much work to do as a society to sort of fix the wrongs of the past and fix the wrongs of the present, that the work is, you know, is infinite. So, I think if there is one area where you will always be making a contribution, it is certainly in this area.
This spirit lives on in the Manitoba Métis to this day. In 2013, the landmark decision was reached by the Supreme Court of Canada in the MMF v. Canada case after over three decades of going through the court system in Canada. This case affirmed what we always knew: Canada failed to fulfill their promises to the Métis Nation in the Manitoba Act (1870) and Canada must attempt to right this wrong. 041b061a72