Montgomery County Community College’s 2021 Deans’ Lecture Series brought together professionals from a span of different fields to share their perspectives on the pandemic’s impact during an online panel discussion on March 24.

Each year, the Deans’ Lecture delves into topics relevant to both students and the community. In recent years, the subjects covered what it is like to be a first-generation college student and mental wellness.

 “The COVID pandemic has led to dramatic loss of human life worldwide and unprecedented challenges for public health, food resources, workforce, education, social disruption, economic disruption and the list goes on and on,” said Dr. Gloria Oikelome, MCCC Vice President of Academic Affairs, who introduced the lecture and panelists. “And while we are hopeful and waiting to see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel as we are coming out of this, I think we can all agree we are very much in this and moving  toward trying to get through it.”

The panelists included Jim Cafone, Vice President of Strategy & Business Operations for Pfizer Global Supply; Luca Valentine, CEO, Arbonite; and Stacey Woodland, CEO, YWCA Tri-County Area. Dr. Sharla K. Willis, Director of the Public Health Program, Gwynedd Mercy University, served as the moderator. Nearly 50 students, employees and community members logged on for the event.

"The pandemic has really exposed a lot of the fractures in the systems that hold our society together,” said Stacey Woodland, CEO of the Tri-County YWCA. “And we now see them in places where they used to be invisible."

As the panelists introduced themselves, they spoke about how the pandemic affected them.

At Pfizer, Cafone leads the design of and strategy behind the global manufacturing network. His team designed the manufacturing network for the COVID vaccine, which now is being shipped to 70 countries around the world. Cafone said that many employees have been working nights and weekends during the pandemic.

Similarly, Valentine said the employees at Arbonite – a Doylestown-based manufacturer of protective coatings and linings for industrial equipment – are essential workers and therefore continued working during the pandemic. He described the continual threat of COVID exposure and the additional sanitation precautions as stressful at times.

For Woodland, who oversees the programs at the Tri-County YWCA in Pottstown, including early education, youth empowerment and adult education, it was difficult to continue to help those in the community who needed it the most. The challenge, she said, was to ensure the safety of the families and children they serve, as well as their employees.

As the moderator, Willis posed questions submitted by MCCC students, who wanted to know how to prevent the spread of the virus, the process for distributing the vaccine, how the vaccines are different, and if they can be trusted, among other concerns.

Even with the use of the vaccines, the three panelists and moderator agreed that the most effective way to prevent the spread of the virus is to continue to follow the CDC guidelines by wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing.

Vaccine Distribution 

With the vaccine distribution, Woodland noted that there has not been a lot of collaboration for equitable distribution and that more work needs to be done to get it to the places where it is most needed, although there is also an issue of trust.

“I think there’s a long history of mistrust in communities of color of our health care system and of medical professionals that really needed to be addressed long before we were in a pandemic, and so there is hesitancy in lots of communities of color to sign up for the vaccine and a lot of discussion about whether the vaccine is a viable choice for them as a result of some of those historic uncertainties,” said Woodland.

She further said there needs to be more connection and communication to allow for the equitable distribution of the vaccine.

Cafone fully agreed with Woodland.

“I can only tell you about the experiences of other countries around the world. There are countries and populations where the people trust the government, and the U.S., right or wrong, is not in that spot,” said Cafone. He also noted, that as a matter of course, they run balanced clinical trials, making sure everyone is represented in the science and facts that come out.

Willis said changes gradually are being made with the distribution of the vaccines to reach homebound residents and with ways to register for the vaccine since not everyone has access to technology and can register online.

“Some communities that are most hard-hit may need to know that they can just walk in and get vaccinated,” said Willis. “We are starting to see some movement toward equitable distribution so I am encouraged by those early signs and hope we can continue working towards a more equitable and thorough vaccination process.”

Trust Concerns

Willis asked the panelists about trust issues with both the vaccine and sending children to school or child care.

“The pandemic has really exposed a lot of the fractures in the systems that hold our society together,” said Woodland. “And we now see them in places where they used to be invisible. In communities where school districts are not working in sync with the community, you can see that parents are really resistant to trusting the school districts with the health and safety of their students.”

“We always trusted school districts, but now we’re not sure because there have been questionable decisions, or things that happened or lack of communications,” she said. “And now parents in many districts don’t feel safe or feel like the decision-makers who are making decisions about how to reopen the schools are not being considerate of all the factors and whether their children are going to be safe.”

Woodland said that they have had to reduce the number of students in the YWCA’s programs for safety reasons, but she felt they continued to maintain the trust of their families because of transparent communications and relationship building. She said the pandemic has been especially difficult for women, who have to balance work, teaching their children at home and preparing meals.

Valentine agreed that more transparency was needed throughout the pandemic. At Arbonite, he said that some employees shared childcare responsibilities through connecting on social media.

Concerning trusting the vaccine itself, Cafone noted that the entire pharmaceutical industry has to follow strict guidelines.

“We have to maintain strictest compliance with the FDA’s regulations, European Medicines Agency and the Japanese Board of Health – there are no cutting corners in the industry at all,” Cafone said. “We all, in my mind in world-record time, got the best science to the market to address this.”

However, he said, while he is a proponent of the vaccine, he acknowledges that people have personal choices with their health care.

In follow-up, Willis said that research shows that trust can be built by sharing experiences. People may not believe the information from experts but will understand if someone they know is impacted.

Technology Divide

In addition to trust concerns, Willis asked the panel about the disparate effects caused by the pandemic, particularly with people who did not have access to technology.

Woodland said she felt the weight and the pressure of the early and adult education teachers who couldn’t work at home and were not getting paid while the YWCA was closed.

“The disparate impact in different communities of the coronavirus was a case of the haves and have nots. I could go home and I have a computer and internet. The school district where my grandchildren go had Chromebooks the next week and transitioned pretty seamlessly to virtual instruction,” she said. “However there was a whole group of people who couldn’t work at home, and they were trying to figure out where their income was going to come from.”

The frontline people, she said, the people in the grocery stores and Walmarts became the most important people to keep the supply chain going.

“It really showed the division of classes across all of our communities,” she said. “When you overlay that with all the social justice concerns, there is just a tremendous amount of work that we all need to recognize needs to be done. We need to pitch in to do and we need to hold our elected officials accountable to create these infrastructures that all of these cracks revealed.”

The system, she said, relies on technology, which not everyone has, and for some people like the senior citizens they assist, do not know how to use a computer to sign up for the vaccine.

“I think there are opportunities for organizations to join arms and help to fill in these gaps,” she said.

How to Improve

From a business-owner perspective, Valentine questioned how as a country we can learn from this experience and get better to improve our infrastructure.

“We need to talk to each other, and as Stacey said, hold our elected officials accountable. Talk and collaborate with them to bring to light what is happening in our communities so they really truly are aware of the problems and how to create a better path forward,” he said.

Cafone also added that data shows that countries with strong industrial bases have better infrastructure and that the U.S. is weak in this area. He encourages students to get involved in science, technology, engineering and math.

Valentine agreed that there is a great benefit to having more industrial-type jobs and that they could help society as a whole.

At the conclusion of the discussion, Dr. Oikelome noted that the pandemic’s impact brought these panelists together for this conversation – people who probably wouldn’t have met otherwise.

“The pandemic has brought us all closer because we’re all united in fighting this facing this great challenge,” she said, thanking them for sharing their perspectives with the attendees.