Speaker 1: On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele duke.

Hello, San Antonio is a fast growing fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the Newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters round table and talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on Speaker 2: And on the record on Michael Taylor, by all appearances here in San Antonio, we are experiencing a third surge of the COVID 19 pandemic hospitalizations and positivity rates are up how our vaccines are also increasing every vaccination counts and they are widely available yet.

There is still some hesitancy among some to get a vaccine joining us now in studio is Dr. Larry Schlesinger, president and CEO of Texas biomedical Institute.

Welcome Dr. Slessinger.

We are inside, but we are masked up.

We are six feet away in both eyes, our understanding vaccinated.

So we're going to remove our masks and to facilitate the conversation that to be here.

Welcome.

The New York times has said that the Delta variant is quicker, sicker faster.

What do they mean by that?

About this new variant that's causing the surge?

Speaker 1: One of the greatest challenges of the pandemic is that we're always trying to understand this virus that keeps evolving, uh, this particular different than it was a year ago.

It's different than a year go.

And it appears to be particularly effective at entering our bodies and growing in the back of our throat.

So very high levels of virus in the back of our throat, which means, uh, more, uh, potential for disease, particularly in susceptible populations and also a greater propensity to transmit.

So that makes it, uh, more of a, uh, a difficult situation to resolve we're in the midst of it.

Now Speaker 2: It's terrible.

It keeps you evolving.

One of the things I've been struck by scientists who throughout the last year and a half is how little we know, because we're trying to catch up as we go.

You're in the midst of it at Texas biomed.

Uh, how do you deal with this information mismatch or trying to keep up?

Well, Speaker 1: It's very difficult.

Uh, and a year and a half ago, when I started speaking about this, I said there were two of the greatest challenges in this pandemic.

One is that we're going to try to intervene, develop a therapy and a vaccine for a vaccine.

We don't feel for a virus.

We don't fully understand.

And second, there is such a premium on 24 cycle news cycle.

So upstream, anecdotal information, everything out there for the public, which makes it extremely confusing for the public to understand.

And that leads to some hesitancy, Speaker 2: Right?

So we have the virus to fight and then we have the information disinformation to fight.

Correct.

I think one, the things we still know is that vaccinations work.

Yes.

Although people are resistant to that.

I have heard every vaccination counts, despite the fact that Delta is, you know, more dangerous and breakthrough.

And yet it does seem to help Speaker 1: The vaccine is doing exactly what the clinical trials, which included.

I remind your audience, tens of thousands of people is supposed to be doing okay.

It's preventing individuals from going in the hospital and potentially dying.

I want everyone to understand that.

And it is significantly reducing transmission.

There are breakthroughs because this Delta strain is particularly infectious, but still it's pale in comparison to the unvaccinated.

Remember the viruses opportunist, it doesn't know political affiliation.

It doesn't know gender, it doesn't know race or religious affiliation.

And it seems to be recognizing unvaccinated, particularly the younger population these days, whose immune systems are robust.

So if anything, the body's fight against the viruses more intense, and that can lead to more symptoms in some of those individuals.

You're painting Speaker 2: A scary picture.

If we continue to have large numbers of unvaccinated, let me just mention a nightmare scenario.

Sure.

This virus evolves to the extent that it continues to circulate among unvaccinated folks.

Is there a chance it could become a break through virus which are vaccines ceased to work at?

I mean, is that something that you worry about?

There's Speaker 1: Always that potential.

Okay.

With a 50 50 vaccinated population, the potential for some waning immunity, because first vaccines were eight months or more ago, there's always the potential for viral emergence, a Delta leading to an Epsilon, for example, Speaker 2: Right here on the Greek alphabet.

Yeah, that's correct.

But Speaker 1: Here's the thing we need to get more and more people immune.

We need more and more vaccination.

There's already a population of infected individuals.

The virus has persistent.

The goal is not eradication of the Corona virus in the population.

It's having the virus meet more and more immune humans who have been vaccinated and therefore able to control the infection.

And eventually this Corona virus will be more like a seasonal flu scenario, still dangerous, but now meeting a population experienced with it and able to handle it better.

Speaker 2: That's a slightly, a better scenario.

I'm glad we have scientists like you working both in the, in the lab and then, um, bedside as well.

Speaker 1: It's important to know that Texas biomed is 40 so much study is going on right now, we're in the pandemic.

We need to understand more about the variants and in our preclinical animal studies, we're in a controlled situation.

We can learn a lot more and that informs the clinic clinical trials and the clinicians Speaker 2: Dr. Larson.

Sussinger from Texas biomed.

Thank you so much for coming and speak my pleasure to be here., We're joined now on the record with judge Nelson Wolff, judge, thanks for joining us.

Something has happened over the past two weeks that I suspect, you know, but the general public does not yet know which is hospitals and ICU's are, have been absolutely slammed in bear county.

Can you tell us about that?

Wow.

We had, I believe about a hundred and twenty-five people, COVID patients in the hospital on June 30th, uh, within what, uh, four or five weeks.

Now we're up to 938.

And most serious piece of that is that we have, uh, 141 that are on ventilators and 262 in the ICU.

So when you hit ICU and you hit ventilator, you are in trouble.

And, uh, they're buying large all unvaccinated people, roughly eight 90%.

Let's say, uh, some people that have been vaccinated maybe only had one shot, um, maybe got it late, are in there also, but it's the un-vaccinated that are driving the numbers, causing a great deal of risk to their families, to the, to the healthcare workers that I got to serve them.

And I would not be surprised if we exceed the highest number we had, which was during the winter, which is 1,520 patients.

Uh, the curve that we have that's, uh, showing how we're going up is a fairly steep curve.

It's not just kind of going slowly is fairly steep.

So we got a big problem and a there's only two ways we can get out of it, get vaccinated, uh, is the most important.

And then also wearing the mask, um, uh, I'm vaccinated.

Uh, I could pass it out.

Uh, so I, you know, I do wear the mask in public settings, particularly inside.

So it's an extra safety precaution for those that are vaccinated, but the unvaccinated are causing havoc in the community and, uh, a great deal of danger to everybody.

So, So vaccines are effective.

They are free and they are widely available.

Yes, they're free.

Um, you know, it it's a shame, but when we started, we had such a demand and people were angry because we couldn't get taken care of.

Um, and then finally, when we get all the vaccines we need, now we've hit a sort of a roadblock.

But, um, I know that there's different reasons.

People say they don't want to take it.

Um, uh, I believe some of the polling show that as much as 45% of those who are not vaccinated insists, they will never get it.

Well, they're a danger to themselves, to every child.

We got, uh, the, uh, the units in pediatric filling up with children, some of which are COVID some of which RSV.

Uh, so it's a danger to children and particularly will be when school starts in September, governor's taken away mass mandates, he's taken away the right for them to get vaccinations that are mandatory.

So schools could be a real problem where we don't get this under control within the next three weeks or so.

So I'm really glad you're doing it.

The urgency here is what people haven't realized.

We're in the midst of a third wave with schools about to begin and something like half of bear county is not yet vaccinated.

Well, yeah, I think we're at about 63 or so.

Something like that, maybe 64 with both shops.

Uh, yes.

There's still a lot of unvaccinated people.

A lot of young people, uh, feel they are, you know, powerful and don't have to worry about it.

Uh, maybe that's right, but they, uh, they can sure.

Pass it on to somebody that has a, a big, big concern.

So, um, repercussions, vaccination, we're looking at a couple of things we can do with our employees at the county.

Um, uh, we're putting up signs and the city is going to have a big campaign.

Um, but we have to convince people to do it.

I kind of made the analogy.

We've got a fire going on in our community and the fire department can not put it out.

Right.

The only ones that can print it out are as citizens working together, getting back stains, uh, doing a face mask.

Otherwise we're not going to put the fire out.

Yeah.

I'm afraid that we're going to see more of these tragic stories of folks in the ICU saying, I wish I had gotten the vaccine and I know bear county is trying to do everything I can to prevent those kinds of tragic stories are as a silver lining.

Are we going to get back to signature judge Nelson Wolff bandana in the, are you going back to masking?

Not that we want to go back to basking, but You know, I had about 20, I had about 25 of them.

People said to me, they're pretty cool.

So I used to wear the mask and I still wear the bandana sometime, but with a suit, you almost have to wear a mask Preferable to get vaccinated.

But unfortunately as this surge continues, we're going to have to probably go back to some masking and maybe we'll get back the signature judge, Nelson Wolff.

What's made it difficult for us.

It's the governors hamstrung any, uh, any really local initiatives that are meaningful.

In fact, it's even prohibited estimation during emergency auditors.

I mean, it's the most, uh, draconian effort by governor to, um, to do everything he can to help spread that this, this terrible thing.

And for people they end up in the hospital and for people to die and you're going to see a lot more people got, I think we've got 12 now.

And we got 62 under investigation now, so the deaths are gonna continue.

And, um, it's just so unnecessary.

So unnecessary.

Yeah.

Your stark warnings are taken and I hope people take heat.

And if you're not vaccinated, they take this message and do it as soon as possible.

That's one.

Well, thanks so much for joining us on the record here.

Thank you.

Really appreciate it.

We're pleased to be joined in studio by Antonio.

Guian from KWTX university on Antonio.

Thanks for joining us.

You're an expert on border issues.

And this past week there's been, I would call jurisdictional fights between Texas and governor Abbott and the federal who's in charge at the border and Merrick Garland.

The attorney general has said that, uh, this is dangerous and unlawful with governor Abbott has done with respect to making state police make arrest and pull over cars.

Speaker 1: Well, uh, obviously, uh, we can see, uh, in, uh, in a country of laws, we need to respect your addictions.

What, uh, Mr. Abbott is doing, obviously is out of, uh, out of his reach.

Uh, he should respect the, the, uh, federal laws.

He cannot impose, uh, you know, his, his, uh, will, uh, onto something that is not his jurisdiction.

Speaker 2: It's relatively new for a governor to say, I'm in charge of the border rather than the federal government, right?

I mean, we, we expect the federal government to be enforcing borders, of course.

Speaker 1: And granted, I mean, we were facing as a, as a, as a whole, as a nation, a very, very dramatic, uh, uh, set, uh, set of events going on, uh, the border.

I mean, the, the influx of the, the, of, uh, the sheer number of people coming into this country never seen before that, that, that does affect that we cannot change, but the way, uh, Mr. Abbott is trying to, to solve, uh, this, the situation is, is, is not the right thing to do.

He's burdening, uh, counties with, uh, small budgets are trying to, uh, detain so many people, uh, deep using DPS troopers for that.

It's a waste of priority of time of their, of the talents of these people.

Texas us is one of the biggest, uh, eh, eh, states in, in, in the, in the country.

So you have thousands of, uh, DPS troopers giving tickets for trespassing, which is a misdemeanor.

I don't think that the, the, the, their, their, you know, their will they're being, uh, we'll use it in our regard.

The Speaker 2: Governor said we have the crisis at the border of folks trying to cross.

We also have COVID and that's a reason to enforce through with Texas authorities.

Is there evidence that you are aware of data that says that COVID is in fact coming over the border with undocumented folks from, from Mexico?

Speaker 1: Uh, probably there will be people, uh, infected coming in, crossing the border, uh, supposedly, and this is something that I just read, uh, uh, from, uh, Henry wager.

He says that, uh, uh, more, uh, border patrol agents are, are, are infected more than never.

And he says that maybe because they're handling people.

So governor Abbott is putting DPS troopers handling immigrants.

So there, he's putting, uh, DPS troopers to at rigs doing, doing, doing the same thing that he's, uh, criticizing.

So, you know, and not only that, but he's criticizing, uh, the COVID, uh, the, uh, exposing all those people.

And then, and this is just an, an errand, uh, uh, for me is, so he's not allowing school districts to ask for mask of unvaccinated children that can pose a risk to, uh, teachers in, in, in other people.

So this is kind of a Speaker 2: Well on the one hand, extremely tough at the border using all sorts of local and state resources.

On the other hand, maybe being relaxed in the, in a school context is a bit, um, unusual.

And initially Speaker 1: It can be perceived as hyper-critical from, from, from one person trying to saying something on this.

And these matter in completely the opposite and the other matter, which is a public hill.

I mean, he's exposing a lot of teachers.

The state teachers association already asked him, please allow school districts to, uh, ask for mass, uh, of, uh, vaccinated children under the age of 12 years old.

Speaker 2: You mentioned congressmen QAR, who was recently teamed up with a Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to say, maybe one solution is we need a border czar.

Is that a solution in a seemingly intractable problem?

W what does, what's your feeling?

Speaker 1: Uh, probably, uh, in theory, that could be a good, a good, uh, is not a solution, but a good, uh, to, to put somebody, uh, completely focused.

100% on an issue may be, is something that is needed, uh, because, uh, uh, coming to Harris, uh, the vice-president, he, she, she has, she's been in charge, supposedly according dividing of these, of resolving the teacher world, uh, vice person.

She has too many other things on her plate, but maybe naming somebody completely focused on that issue.

I just send the border issue and with more resources, probably that can be something, something good can come out of it somewhere Speaker 2: Laser-focused, rather than the vice-president, who's going to be naturally pulled in many different directions.

It's hard to imagine there's a single solution, but that's interesting that borders are, could be something that you find, um, possible Speaker 1: Exactly, uh, to the year through the, this is a no win situation nobody's going to win in this situation, uh, is, is too big of a, of an issue to do.

There won't be winners here.

Granted, it has to be solved somehow.

It won't be solved on a permanent basis because the country cannot isolate from the rest of the world.

Uh, those, those times are past already.

Uh, China tried to do it thousands of years ago, and it didn't work.

I mean, the wall is there for, for visitors, for tourists at the same thing is going to happen over here is a no win situation.

Something has to be done.

Yes, it has to be thought very in the right way, Speaker 2: Intractable problem, and turning again, thank you for your expertise and coming on the show today.

Thanks a lot for the invitation now by Gary Merritt, from the great Springs project coming in at us from zoom, Gary, nice to meet you.

Uh, one of the things we noticed during the pandemic, the silver lining is we wanted to get outdoors more if only to see our loved ones and see the sunshine you have, what I would consider an incredibly exciting project, um, to connect San Antonio to Austin, a hundred miles worth of trails.

This is my first time really learning about it this week.

Um, tell me about this.

Yeah, thanks.

Thank you for this chance to talk about, it's a really exciting project.

It brings together so many people that are want to be outside that want to put these great civic projects together from the cities, counties, governmental agencies, the real estate development community.

It really engages, uh, all the communities between San Antonio and Austin in this effort.

It's a joint big civic project, a Hundred miles of trails.

Just sounds like the most exciting thing I could possibly imagine.

I understand that you have a timeline of December 20, 21.

Maybe we'll get a master plan of what that looks like.

And then after that, is it a matter of years or decades, or when do I get to enjoy this trail?

Well, the good news is because this really is an effort by a lot of people and a lot of, uh, different constituencies.

Some of the trail is already there.

So for example, in San Antonio, what a fantastic travel system, San Antonio in bear county has put together and is continuing to expand upon.

Did You say literally starts at the Alamo, like to the trail begin at that moment, which is kind of an exciting spot.

Yeah, so, so we do talk about the trail from the Alamo to the Capitol for great Springs project.

Our mission is to connect a spring to spring trail from San Antonio to Austin.

So we look at the blue hole on the campus of incarnate word is our sort of origin moment, our origin point, connect that to Comal Springs in new Braunfels, connect that to San Marcus Springs in San Marcus, and then onto Barton Springs in Austin.

So Barton Springs is the terminal spot of the Springs naming it.

That's right.

I'm imagining that this is a incredible coordination problem.

I think about things like the Riverwalk of San Antonio or the mission reach, and this is a state and federal and county and town and preservationists and developers.

Uh, you have quite a task ahead of you to corral all of these cats.

Uh, how are you going to do that?

So you're right.

Absolutely.

And it is going to take all of us working together to bring this project to fruition.

And the way it works for us is, is that we first listen, we try to get to understand and know the people in each community along the way to find out what's important to them and, and think about with them what they want their community to be in 10, 15, 50 years, what do they want it to be a community?

They want their community to be for their grandchildren.

And we help to bring that forward, particularly around the parks, open space and trails.

And so by understanding what's happening locally, then we can help to bring resources, to bear, to connect the projects, to connect new Braunfels in San Antonio connect call mal and bear counties and on and on all the way to Austin.

Okay.

So in December, 2021, we'll get a master plan at that point, maybe a timeline.

If somebody listening to this is as excited as I am.

Uh, how did they get involved?

How do they support this?

How do they move it forward so that it happens within years?

Not 50 years.

Yeah.

So a few different ways first is, and please go to our website, great Springs, project.org, and sign up for our newsletter that you'll get updates there.

And you'll be able to see what is happening both from the trail plan perspective, and also the work that we're doing on parks and open space.

And then secondly, between now and December, um, please look for, and we'll have these on our website, ways that you can engage from the public side.

So we want, wanna, we want to hear from everyone about this.

There's already ways to engage now.

Great Springs project.org is the website.

That's right.

Gary Merritt.

Thank you so much for joining us and telling us about this.

I am excited for December the master plan and in the years to come.

Thank you, Michael.

We're pleased to be.

I joined for reporters round table by Waylon Cunningham from the San Antonio report tech and business reporter.

Uh, thanks for joining us.

You recently wrote about scooters and, uh, this is a bad joke, but we had a pandemic of scooters in 2018.

They hit the city hard and then it went away.

And you wrote recently about bird, one of the two contracted groups applying for more scooters, but turned down.

Why were they turned down?

Well, uh, some people say there's a bit of scar tissue leftover from the initial rollout of the scooters, which was a bit like a wild west.

It was a mess.

I will say, as someone who lives near downtown, it was A mess, right?

I mean, they're fun.

You know, if you ride them, they can be convenient, but they also can leave a huge mess in the sidewalks.

And, you know, a lot of people were very concerned about accessibility issues.

It's a little harder to get on a ramp picture in a wheelchair, especially, or even just a walk down the sidewalk, if there are tons and tons of scooters littered everywhere.

So at the height, I think it was December of 2018 or so there were 16,000 scooters.

That's a lot from seven different companies felt like 32,000, but yeah, there was a lot.

Yeah.

And that put San Antonio as one of the densest scooter spots in the country.

Right.

Um, unsustainably, so unsustainably.

So I wrote that originally the city to organize this contract with three companies, but lime, one of them pulled out immediately leaving us with two.

So we're less than we have currently less than what the city had contracted for.

And yet they didn't want to allow for more.

Right.

And it's important to note here that actually the city did originally want to companies, but tech block, uh, advocated and said, no, we should go with three.

Okay.

And so we, we, the city even raise that cap to three.

So we're looking for three contracts.

Yes.

Uh, bird, lime and razor, all got those contracts were a thousand scooters each, but right before the contract was set to begin at the beginning of last year, January, uh, line pulled out.

So now we're left with 2000 scooters.

And I also want to note here that, uh, it wasn't the city that necessarily dropped that 16,000 to the two or 3000.

Uh, in fact, a lot of companies had pulled out beforehand because of declining ridership.

Right.

And so the real metric, uh, that, that a lot of these players are looking at for how many scooters to put on the road is that ridership.

And You noted that actually the numbers are going up.

So based on the city's revenue, which has a revenue sharing program, numbers are already on track to far out pace, 2020.

So it's a little extra source of income for the city.

It Is.

Yeah.

I mean, not a whole lot.

Um, I think the city estimated something like, uh, 700,000 a little over for fiscal year, 20, 21, that's what they're estimating here.

But if you look at that revenue numbers, uh, it's, it's already surpassed pre pandemic.

So contract went into effect January of last year.

We have about three months of data, you know, with the pandemic coming into the very end.

But that level was reached again toward the fall of last year.

This summer, we're seeing twice that amount, right?

So people are writing more than they were even before the pandemic.

Right.

I'm a fan of bird.

I Will admit, I sometimes drive it, especially in August when it's hot and I have to go a half mile.

I'm pleased to not get sweaty just to cover that thing real quick.

The final question, there is a locally, um, local company, blue duck, which did not get a contract, but is presumably operating elsewhere, any updates, did they respond to your article?

What are their plans for the future?

Are they surviving?

Uh, they did not respond to me.

And so, uh, you know, you might know that last year, a couple of years ago, they were really in the running for this, uh, these contracts.

They missed the filing deadline by one minute, but there's been since then a pretty high profile change in management, which has given them a bit of a wind in their sails.

So I was reading from other media coverage that earlier this year, they made an informal pitch to the city.

Okay.

And, uh, apparently that we haven't heard yet what happened to them.

Right.

Well, and I want to thank you for joining us for a reporters round table today.

Of course.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of on the record.

You can see this show again, or previous shows as well as our podcast@klrn.org.

We'll see you next time.

on the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele duke.

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