You should be grateful I only write The Beacon and I am not your songmeister. Past President Denise Haynes does a magnificent job selecting and performing age-appropriate 
songs for each meeting. If I was your songmeister I would have probably sung “Home, Home on the Range”, since we have finally returned to The Petroleum Club for our regular Breakfast Rotary meeting! So, you better be glad for Denise’s singing and song choice as she led us in a COVID-conscious rendition of “America the Beautiful”.
songs for each meeting. If I was your songmeister I would have probably sung “Home, Home on the Range”, since we have finally returned to The Petroleum Club for our regular Breakfast Rotary meeting! So, you better be glad for Denise’s singing and song choice as she led us in a COVID-conscious rendition of “America the Beautiful”.Those who attended the Rotary meeting were ushered into the elevator by Past President Kay Pitts, who cleverly arranged to have attendees sign a special card for President Cheryl Scott whose “days are numbered” at her KEDC/KEDF jobs before she moves into her new office at Bakersfield College as the BC Foundation Executive Director. If it wasn’t enough to be COVID screened and sanitized by Kay, Ken Quarnberg met attendees at the 12th floor landing to safely guide us into the meeting.
After we obtained our Rotary Badges from the sterilized badge box and adorned our shirts with the badges, everything appeared to be close to normal. Happily many members braved the COVID conditions to once again participate in our regular meeting format. The exception to the regular meeting format was the food buffet, or lack of it. Food was delivered by waiters at the tables where we sat. Sorry Past President Neil Walker, you missed out! There was no green in the eggs! Mary Jo Pasek blessed us with a wonderful Invocation, asking for thankfulness of our breakfast as well as a strengthening towards our commitment to others.Celebrating Rotary Anniversaries were Nick Simmons, one of several members who attended the meeting through Zoom. Congrats Nick, it is so good to have you in our Rotary Club. Also, Dan Johnson, who played a little guitar before the morning meeting, has been a mainstay at Breakfast Rotary for 15 years. That’s a lot of guitar playin’ for us through the years. Thank you, Dan, for your passion and support of Rotary. Denise Haynes introduced a guest, Dr. Bani Singh M.D. who is a practicing physician with Dignity Health. Welcome Dr. Singh!
**Featured Program**
None better member to introduce our morning speaker than Sally Selby. Sally works at Kaiser Permanente with our speaker, Dr. Marvin Campos M.D. Sally shared that Dr. Campos is the newly appointed Kaiser Medical Director for the Kern County region. Dr. Campos Kern County region encompasses 113,000 health recipients. He has been affiliated with Kaiser since 2006 and became a Kaiser partner in 2009.Chiefly, Dr. Campos discussed COVID-19 and societal concerns that come with the disease. Dr. Campos did a very thorough job explaining the local medical community response to the COVID virus as well as what we can expect to see in the coming weeks and months in Kern County.
The four main take-aways Dr. Campos wanted to emphasize were:
- What is a Virus?
- What does it mean to “Flatten the Curve”?
- Is it just better to get the virus and be over it?
- When are we going to just get back to normal?
Dr. Campos told us that as Rotarians, we should be familiar with viruses, because polio is a virus. Viruses do the damage to our body when, after entering our body they attach to live organisms, “that’s us”, and begin to take over and destroy those healthy organisms. Called, “the perfect parasite” viruses replicate themselves by hijacking living cells. This is what happens in a polio patient, or a Hepatitis C patient. The difference is that in Hepatitis for example, the virus attacks the liver. In the case of COVID, the virus attacks the upper respiratory system. COVID is most concerning to physicians and scientists because it had not been previously identified (it is “novel”.) Therefore, there is not a protocol for treatment or a vaccination. That is what makes COVID so frightening. He said treatment is progressing, but the medical society is still not 100% solid on a protocol for treatment and control.
Dr. Campos said comparatively, Kern County’s numbers of persons becoming inflicted with COVID is faring better than many other counties in the state. He said it is very important to flatten the projected curve of active COVID-19 cases. This of course, helps keep us stay safe in Kern County, and it steers us towards near normal operating conditions for our businesses and schools. Furthermore, flattening the curve frees up medical personnel to administer health care to other areas of need, opens up hospital beds to others, and allows a surplus of ventilators (which we have now). Essentially, if you were to contract COVID now you would be assured a much better chance for availability of medical response than if you would have if you had become sick in March. Whew, but we are certainly not out of the woods…not even by a long shot. Dr. Campos urges using COVID precautionary best practices.
A cautionary caveat to the good news for Kern County, Dr. Campos released BREAKING NEWS to our Breakfast Rotary Club. This unwelcome caveat is that recent local data has revealed a noticeable spike in positive tests for COVID beginning the first week of June. The sad news is that these numbers include those persons who are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital! The source for the spike is not known, but I would speculate perhaps it is due to people not exercising best practices in April. This trend only compromises the good work we have done thus far, until we arrive at a vaccine. More on that in a moment.
Just getting over COVID is a good thing. Dr. Campos seems to be confident in the prospect for finding a vaccine and solid protocol for treatment. He was very reassuring, telling us that there has been a history of potentially pandemic level illnesses that have struck us. He said with the levels of sophistication of today’s medicine he anticipates a cure. Dr. Campos was optimistic that a vaccine will be ready for distribution in the second quarter of 2021!
“Small spigot of water, over a large bucket of water”, says the doctor. Approaching normal, or what appears to be normal will come. Handling the treatment of current and new patients is more manageable if infections come in small numbers as opposed to large, and that is exactly what Dr. Campos is referring to when using the “spigot of water” analogy. So, what do we as Breakfast Rotarians do about this? What is our part, and do we even have one? Taking a lead from Dr. Campos’ outstanding presentation, we can do our part by promoting best practices and keeping ourselves, our families, and others safe to help “flatten the curve” in Kern County. We have been doing a great job, so let’s continue to be good examples.
And what does “normal” look like? I liked the way Dr. Campos stated, “Remember how after 9/11 airline travel and TSA changed”? Well folks, airport security does not seem to be changing back to pre-9/11 days. Based on what the doctor said it seems clear that we are going to be bound by new practices keeping each other safe from illness for the foreseeable future. Get used to the new normal. Please hurry second quarter of 2021!
We would like to thank Dr. Campos for joining us and providing the latest updates on COVID in Kern County. The doctor had a large number of Breakfast Rotarians wanting to ask questions, so consider reaching out to Dr. Campos through Kaiser’s public information department, or to your own health care provider for updates on the availability of individual testing centers and best practices until a vaccine can be administered safely.
**Announcements Announcements**
When the Prez said she had a special announcement I got excited. Not unlike I remember in grade school when the teacher said she had a special announcement. It was a “code word” for extra recess time, or an assembly in the auditorium. Well the special announcement from the Prez was not about recess, she called up Past President Ron “Buford” Nelms. I figured this must be good…and it was! Ron announced that that the BBRC Board of Presidents had unanimously selected our next president elect nominee designate, Karen Bonanno. Within two weeks if there is not opposition Karen will become our BBRC president after the reign of Dr. Jeff Haynes. I am thrilled about Karen’s nomination! Before we could chase Ron away from the podium, he reminded us that those of you that would like to participate in the planning of Prez Cheryl’s Step Down scheduled at the Broken Yolk, June 26th, to contact him ASAP.
What would a meeting be without Foundation Treasurer Mindy Wilmot saying something? Oh, I don’t mean that in a negative way, Mindy always has something positive to say that inspires and keeps the membership informed on what matters to them most. One thing that matters is urging the membership to stay current on Rotary International and Bakersfield Breakfast Foundations Pledges for the 2019-2020 fiscal year ending June 30, 2020. Mindy asked that you contact her if you have any questions or concerns about your pledges. Before little Mindy could get off the “stage”, the Prez acknowledged Mindy for all her efforts in her demanding role as Foundation Treasurer - which she makes look so easy. For Mindy’s leadership, the Prez bestowed the “Super Hero” award to her! Congrats!Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been many weeks since we have assembled together as Breakfast Rotarians at the Petroleum Club, and well…it was just darn good. We can only hope and pray that all of us and our loved ones stay safe during these very stressful times. As a Breakfast Rotarian, my membership gives me assurance that not only are we there for the community, but we are there for each other. We must have strength in order to help others, you know when flying as a passenger in a plane you put your oxygen mask on before you place it on others... I would urge you to consider that, take care of yourself and if there is an internal need of support to anyone in this club do so. We are in this together!
See you next week at the Petroleum Club for the last standing meeting of the Prez’s princessdom.
In Rotary,
Frank Wooldridge