Executive Vice President and University Provost Lori Gonzalez provided senators with updated COVID-19 vaccination rates for the university community. As of Oct. 5, 2021, students reported the highest rate of vaccination at 86.1%, followed by 82.7% for staff and 82.1% for faculty at UofL. During the month of October, vaccinated students have the option to enter a drawing for a variety of prizes including priority registration, a blue parking pass, a year of free coffee from the campus Starbucks or a semester of undergraduate tuition.

Gonzalez also addressed enrollment figures. Gonzalez encouraged senators and their constituents to aid in the retention effort by submitting progress reports to identify students in need of academic intervention.

“Last month, I shared that our budget was built on the expectation from the colleges that we would increase our enrollment by 200 students. In fact, we were down 194 students. That means we have 394 less students than our budget was based on,” Gonzalez said. “We are working with the colleges to true up those budgets, but there are some things that can happen at the college level to impact retention from fall to spring semester. The main thing faculty members can do is to complete progress reports for students who aren’t performing well so that we can start academic intervention efforts.”

Executive Vice President of Research & Innovation Kevin Gardner reported that the university received a record breaking $201.5 million in awards during the 2021 fiscal year. Gardner shared additional record-breaking figures from the university’s research, innovation and commercialization efforts.

“Our total award volume in 2020 was $170 million and this year, it was $201.5 million,” Gardner said. “This fiscal year, we’ve had 80 patents issued, $27 million in innovation income and 482 other agreements, such as material transfer agreements.”

Faculty Grievance Officer Cedric Powell provided the to senators. Powell reported that a total of five grievances had been filed from Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 1, 2021. Two Type 1 grievances were filed, as well as three Type 2 grievances.

Two grievances were filed from the School of Medicine; however, neither met the jurisdictional requirements for a formal grievance and the complaints were dismissed. Two grievances were filed from the College of Arts and Sciences, and the College of Business and the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law each had one grievance filed. A Type 2 grievance from A&S, a Type 2 grievance from the College of Business and a Type 1 grievance from the School of Law each went forward with the formal process and appeal with the opinion of the Faculty Grievance committee ultimately being affirmed by either President Bendapudi or Provost Gonzalez.

Committee reports and a of the virtual meeting can be accessed on the . The next Faculty Senate meeting is scheduled for Nov. 3 via a hybrid format with the option of remote attendance via Teams, or in-person attendance at Ekstrom Library’s Chao Auditorium.

In February, the researchers asked adults living in Jefferson County their perceptions about the coronavirus vaccine in order to identify potential barriers to vaccine uptake and to better understand vaccine hesitancy. Letters were mailed to 35,999 households across all geographic sectors of the county inviting the recipients to take part in the survey as well as to make an appointment for free testing for COVID-19, also part of the Co-Immunity Project.

“We wanted to better understand which residents had access to the vaccine as well as their attitudes toward the vaccine,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D., director of the . “This information would help us improve equity in vaccine availability as well as help us understand the reasons behind vaccine hesitancy in our community. So, we incorporated the survey opportunity into our outreach for random community testing for the virus.”

The survey included questions about whether the person had been vaccinated, where they received most of their information about the vaccine and where they would prefer to be vaccinated. They also had an option to indicate they would not get vaccinated. They also were asked what would make them more likely to be vaccinated and what influenced those who were hesitant to vaccination.

Participants completed the questionnaire on a website that also offered them the opportunity to schedule an appointment for COVID-19 infection and antibody testing. Most of the 1,296 survey participants were age 60 or over (44%), female (61%) and white (84%) and 90.2% reported being unvaccinated.

An overwhelming majority of participants (91%) indicated they would choose to be vaccinated, with slightly lower rates among minority participants. Vaccine-hesitant participants suggested that more evidence of safety and effectiveness or their health provider’s recommendation would increase their likelihood of getting vaccinated. Although vaccines are provided for free, concerns about cost were seen in more than half the participants.

While most vaccine-hesitant participants expressed concern about side effects and safety, followed by not “tested on enough people who are like me,” minority participants expressed these concerns at higher rates and many vaccine participants from all races had concerns about the timeline of vaccine development. Other concerns were related to the efficacy of the vaccines, vaccines in general and government mistrust.

About 3% of white and 8% of minority participants indicated they would never choose vaccination. Minority participants reported they were more likely to choose vaccination with celebrity endorsement, offerings by faith organizations and vaccination requirements. White participants were more likely to choose vaccination if their family and friends or elected officials were vaccinated and with evidence of efficacy.

Most participants would prefer to be vaccinated by their health care provider, followed by a mobile or walk-in clinic, a pharmacy or a hospital. Other sites, such as community organizations, community recreation centers, workplaces or schools were of interest to one-fourth or less of participants. Minority participants were less interested in vaccination at work, pharmacies, libraries and mobile or walk-up clinics and more interested in being vaccinated at food distribution centers or by their health care provider.

Compared with white participants, minority participants were less likely to report knowing how to find out their vaccine eligibility or sign up for a vaccination.

While they acknowledge limitations to the study due to the fact that it was delivered along with the testing invitation and that it required a computer and internet access to complete, the researchers believe analysis of the results will be helpful in increasing access and acceptance of vaccines among different populations.

“Obtaining information on how to get a vaccine continues to be burdensome and solutions to this problem will help with more equitable vaccine distribution,” said Rachel Keith, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UofL Department of Medicine and a lead investigator in the Co-Immunity Project.

That number drops materially for Black Americans. In Kentucky, for example, only 4.3% of the Black community has been vaccinated.

Of those that have already been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Jefferson County specifically, 11% are Black and 79% are white, which compares to the county’s baseline population of 20% Black and 73% white.

UofL Health is trying to bridge this disparity, setting up popup vaccination clinics in West Louisville, South Louisville and parts of Metro Louisville. Its initial clinic opened last week at Community Missionary Baptist Church in Louisville’s Newburg neighborhood, .

It opened another clinic this week at Kingdom Fellowship Church off East Broadway. they were hoping to get 100 people signed up, but the number so far has exceeded 800.  

There is a history of distrust toward vaccinations within the Black community, dating back to the , when Black men were deceived and treatment was withheld. Other historical events, such as the unwanted sterilization of African American women, have made some Black Americans distrustful of the COVID-19 vaccine, as Kentucky Nurses Association CEO Delanor Manson .

However, distrust is not the biggest hindrance this time around. Findley told WHAS 11 that it is more about access than apprehension.

UofL Health’s efforts are critical to address not only those access gaps, but also to help people who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Black Americans are to become infected with COVID-19. Further, across all age brackets,  than it is for white people. 

“If you look across those communities, they’ve suffered a significant amount of disease burden from COVID-19 and we need to have the vaccine’s deployment match where the disease is,” UofL Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jason Smith told WHAS11.

that he has overseen triple the amount of funerals in 2020 than he’s ever done.

“It’s been absolutely heartbreaking. And this [popup clinic] is just something I find – it’s a no-brainer – it has to happen,” he said.

“I think when we look at the numbers and how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Black and Brown communities, I think that these kinds of events, these types of pop-up vaccination sites, are absolutely critical to us saving lives in areas and in neighborhoods in our city that are feeling left out and are seeing so many of our loved ones die,” Findley told Spectrum News.

UofL Health has also addressing some of the most common questions about the vaccine.

UofL Health is working with 20 churches to create such clinics and plans to continue them through the summer.

Photo courtesy of .

 “Today is a historic day in the commonwealth – we are at the beginning of the end of our war with COVID-19,” said Gov. Beshear, who was at UofL Hospital as UPS delivered the vaccines. “The Pfizer vaccine, which we believe to be 95% effective, is the defense we have needed to end this pandemic, and with the highly effective Moderna vaccine likely on its way to approval soon, we are all filled with hope for the first time in a very long time. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. To our front-line workers: we are forever grateful for your bravery, talents and compassion.”

The Governor watched as five UofL Health doctors and nurses, who have been working on the front lines to help Kentuckians during the once-in-100-years pandemic, received their vaccinations in public and before the media. Sarah Bishop, director of infection prevention at UofL Hospital, administered the vaccinations to all five.

Dr. Jason Smith, a front line emergency and trauma surgeon and UofL Health chief medical officer was the first to receive the vaccine.

“The arrival of this vaccine demonstrates the best of medicine and our commonwealth’s collaborative spirit,” said Dr. Smith. “For the first time, we now have a tool to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in a significant way. I appreciate the leadership of Gov. Beshear and UPS working to expedite getting this vaccine to our frontline health care workers. And I am humbled by the ongoing individual sacrifices of so many Kentuckians who continue to help through social distancing and masking until the vaccine is more widely available to the general population.”

Two UofL Health nurses and two UofL Physicians were the next in line.

LaShawn Scott has worked for UofL Health for more than 20 years as an infection prevention nurse. Scott has worked tirelessly to help support our front-line staff in ensuring they have the PPE they need and know how to use it correctly and making sure the health care system has protocols in place to help the frontline staff stay safe as they battle the pandemic.

Beth Sum is an emergency department nurse at UofL Health and a nurse educator at UofL Health – Jewish Hospital. She has been instrumental at caring for and developing nursing protocols around COVID-19 care in the emergency department.

Dr. Valerie Briones-Pryor has been with UofL Health for over 16 years. She has been working with COVID-19 patients at UofL Health – Jewish Hospital since March 17, and said she lost her 27^th COVID-19 patient Monday morning.

“I did this for them, for all of my patients,” said. Dr. Briones-Pryor. “I was honored to be one of the first five to receive this vaccine.”

Dr. Muhamed Saad is the director of critical care at UofL Health – Jewish Hospital. Throughout the pandemic, he has taken care of all COVID-19 ICU patients throughout the UofL Health system.  

The initial shipment of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Kentucky on December 13, 2020.