City Club of Boise Virtual Conversation: Vaccine Expert Panel

COVID-19 became a common household term approximately a year ago and has since become a central tenet in our lives. We have endured stay at home orders, experienced school closures and online learning, restaurant and bar closures and unruly protests around wearing masks at our health district meetings. We have watched the death toll across our nation and Idaho rise.

The New Year has brought two bright spots in the COVID-19 fight. The first is that several vaccines have been approved for distribution, and the second is that our health care providers have gotten better at combating the disease. Vaccinations are underway for health care providers. Plans are being developed to vaccinate the rest of us. Throughout this last difficult year, one thing we have all learned is flexibility. The course of the disease and the treatment has not followed a predictable path because we the public have made many different personal choices to how to live with the virus in our midst.

City Club of Boise has assembled a panel of expert physicians to discuss the status of COVID-19 in Idaho, prospects of the distribution of the vaccine, and return to normalcy. Join us Wednesday, February 17 at noon for what promises to be a fascinating discussion.

Panel:

• Patrice Burgess, MD, Regional Chief Medical Informatics Officer and Executive Medical Director for St. Alphonsus Medical Group, Idaho COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee Chair
• Ted Epperly, MD, Central District Health Board Commissioner, President and CEO Family Medicine Residency
• Christine Hahn, MD, Epidemiologist Idaho Department of Health and Welfare
• James P. Souza, MD, Chief Medical Officer for St. Luke's Health System, Idaho Testing Task Force co-chair

Moderator: Mark J. Wheeler, City Club board member.