 Hello everybody in Fort Worth. It's great to be with you. My name is Maddie Parker and I'm it's a pleasure to really get to serve as your mayor and I'm here with my good friend Brandon Bennett who wears many hats at City Hall. We appreciate you. I know it's been a really rough year and a half, but he's here with me today as truly the chief health official in public health for the City of Fort Worth. He's been on the front lines during this pandemic. Liaisoning with Tarrant County Public Health, UNTL Science Center, all of our hospital systems. So first let me say thank you for all the hard work that you've done on behalf of residents. Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to say anything you can, introduce yourself. Yep. Well, front lines, along with a lot of other people, the one thing that Fort Worth does very well is we collaborate with UNTL Sciences, Texas Health Resources, Baylor, Scott and White, Tarrant County and the other county health departments. And what's really nice about that is whenever we come to do things like this that we bring a breadth of knowledge that's very broad and comes from very talented, probably the most talented, I would say health experts that the nation has. I'm glad you brought that up because I'm not a doctor. I'm not a physician. I'm not a public health expert. And what I do know is I have an obligation as the mayor of this city to talk about the things that are affecting our residents. And right now it's COVID. And we understand how critically important getting as many people vaccinated as possible is to really combat this Delta variant of COVID. But as Brandon mentioned, we're not doing this on our own. We're not doing this in the silo. We are relying locally. And I mean that specifically locally here in Tarrant County and Fort Worth on the medical experts that all of us can trust the leads of these hospitals, their public health officials. So I just wanted our viewers to understand that that this is not something we just came up with on our own. But we did feel like it was important to specifically talk to people in Fort Worth about COVID. Absolutely. And so it does come as no surprise that the numbers are up. They're up nationally. We gave a briefing to counsel the end of June. And so here we are one month later. And we predicted the end of June that this Delta virus would first first work its way through the unvaccinated rural areas of the state and would then start working its way into the urban areas. And by about this time, we would see a very, very substantial uptick which we've seen now. What's important probably for everybody to understand before we get into any other detail is that when you look at the hospitalization or the serious cases of COVID right now, 97% are unvaccinated. We've had some breakthrough cases. Oftentimes, that's people with underlying medical conditions, but not all the time. But 97% are unvaccinated. And then you look at the death rate right now, and it's 99.5% unvaccinated. I mean, the numbers alone should should say to the public, your best chance of getting through this is to be vaccinated. We know that vaccination has side effects beyond just feeling maybe flu like symptoms, maybe a little pain in the arm of less than 1%. It's like less than half a percent side effects to the vaccine. And so when you measure out the risk, you're far better off or far less risk getting the vaccine than going without. Yeah. Well, and for me, personally, when I got the vaccine, this is important for everybody to understand. We're encouraging everyone to talk with loved ones, family members, friends you trust, your own physician about getting a vaccine first and foremost. That's what I did. You know, I didn't jump and go immediately. I wanted to talk to my personal physician to understand for my own health condition if there was any risks associated and I got the vaccine. And importantly, in Tarrant County, not just your governmental entities than the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County Public Health, but your private sector partners have been phenomenal to make sure that we have safe, effective access to the vaccine in many places as possible to reach people where they are. My own experience took me five minutes literally each time to get in and get out and get the vaccine. And even, you know, after the monitoring period, it was really quick. So I think that's important to know. You've had great partners along the way working with them. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we we've moved from mass vaccinations. We were doing 10 to 30,000 a day to much smaller pop up storefront. We'll come to your place. We'll come to your church. We'll come to your group of businesses. We're doing everything that we can to get as many people vaccinated in that short of period, you know, that what we're seeing from the hospitals right now is oftentimes when a patient when they're so sick that they have to be intubated, right? That the one thing that they say more than anything else is, are you sure I can't get a vaccine now? And the doctor has to explain to him now is too late that that you need to get vaccinated, you know, weeks before you get to this condition before you get the virus. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's the most important message for us today is that in Tarrant County that our vaccines are safe. They're effective. They're incredibly accessible wherever you may need them. And we want to be that resource for you to understand that. And we've we've upheld our responsibility as a city of Fort Worth to make that happen. But importantly, making sure that you're empowering yourself, talking to your friends and loved ones about their decision to get a vaccine, maybe where they got it that was easiest for you and your family, and then talk to your medical providers. And the other kind of myth that's been out there is that it's expensive to get a vaccine, right? Or that you don't have insurance. That is absolutely not the case. We want to make sure the uninsured insured that this is accessible and really free for almost everyone that wants to get a vaccine. It's free at the pharmacies. It's free at the public sites. In fact, one of the things I'm really proud about Fort Worth is we don't even ask for people's insurance card that we've made it so simple that you can do a fill out a form on your smart device or on a computer. We've got them available when you arrive. If you don't have one, there's a little bar code that you can use that will will scan when you arrive to get your vaccine. And like you said, you get right in, get your vaccinated. We watch it for a few minutes to make sure there's no side effect to it. And then and then off you go getting any freer and easier than that. Well, and the good news is I know, you know, the news can be scary sometimes. And there's a lot of discussion about the delta varying in it. But the most important thing is right now we can handle this, right? We've been through a tremendous amount of struggle in the last year and a half. We are fully prepared to get Tarrant County residents vaccinated. And once we do that, we can fight back this pandemic and get back to whatever semblance of normalcy, which I know we're ready for. And that's important. We've got some big moments happening in the next few months as kids get back to school, which is for me, the number one priority, make sure our students are back in classrooms to catch them up from this COVID slide, which is significant. And then of course, this fall comes around and people are, you know, football season is happening, right? Everybody wants to get back to normal for that. So all those are big moments that us as Texans and Fort Worthians are excited about. So let's just do our part to make sure we can get a vaccine. Absolutely. Yeah, awesome.