9 Burst results for "Dr Dave Choksi"
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"Consonant with the values that you hold most dearly and serving the people whom you care for most dearly, particularly, people who are marginalized, people who are vulnerable to illness for one reason or another, and so from my perspective, that is something, yes, to make sure that you hold fast to your own values, but also that you embrace the effect, the impact that you're able to have. Last couple short answer questions, was there something that you wanted to do over the last two years that you were told no on by the powers that be that are still sort of something that you really hope New York City does at some point? Was there something you wanted to do, whether on COVID or something else that is a dream public health policy that you want to see implemented? Well, I wasn't told no, actually, I was supported by both mayors on some work around global vaccine equity that I care deeply about. But I do wish that we could have done more, particularly as New York City. We're one of the most interconnected places in the entire world. We saw how what happens in the rest of the world affects us and our population. And so I do wish that we could have done even more to take on the challenges and confront the deep and glaring inequities in vaccine access globally and lent our voice even more strongly. What was one thing is health commissioner you got really wrong. Well, look, the fact that black New Yorkers were hospitalized at twice the rate that white New Yorkers were during the omicron wave. That happened on my watch. And that's something that, you know, I felt very deeply, even for all of our efforts around vaccine equity, making sure that we had an antiracist approach to our policy and our pandemic response. Those were the outcomes. And that is that is suffering that we need to confront and do more about, and so I know that the health department feels very passionately about this as well. We have to hold ourselves accountable to those outcomes and keep striving to do better. And lastly, doctor Dave chachi, what's one thing we haven't touched on here that you're particularly proud of about your tenure, I know there's a variety of things I haven't asked you about that are initiatives that you worked on or maybe it's something COVID related, but what's one thing we haven't touched on that you're particularly proud of about your tenure as New York City health commissioner? Well, thanks for that opportunity, Ben and I will say overdose prevention centers is what comes to mind. These are the first two and the entire nation opened up here in New York City to take on the overdose crisis, which if we weren't in a pandemic, you know, this would be the 5 alarm fire in public health. And we should still treat it as the emergency that it is. And so I'm really proud that we were able to be pioneering in this respect and I hope that it's an example for the entire country. All right, we will leave it there. Oh, do you know what you're doing next? How can I not ask you that? Where will we see you head on after March 14th or after a break after March 14th? Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to spending more time with my daughter and my wife, you know, taking care of myself, I'm very deliberately not stepping into something new in part because I need to replenish as so many New Yorkers do after that the trauma that we've all been through over the past two years. So I'm going to do some healing and I didn't expect this role to come to me when it did. So I'll leave it to the universe as to what the next big thing is. All right, we wish you well all the best doctor Dave choc Chi, thanks for taking the time with us and of course for your time and service with the city and be well. Thanks so much and take care.
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"I'm sure I'm sure that's challenging in a number of ways, bittersweet, of course. I'm wondering if you could sort of give listeners just take us a little bit behind the curtain in our last couple minutes here. As a doctor, but also as a health professional hired by politicians elected officials, there's a real conflict there, obviously. You're making policy that is determined by those elected officials. What's that like? How hard is that as a doctor? It's obviously an incredible opportunity to shape that policy. But how hard is it as a doctor to also have to work in a political atmosphere? Yeah, I mean, there are some difficulties. Certainly, it's different than taking care of patients in the clinic where, you know, I'm the well, the patient is the ultimate decision maker, but you know, we work things out together. But I'll also say that I reject the notion that politics and public health are completely separate because health has always been political, you know, who lives and who dies who suffers and who flourishes, these are all always things over the long arc of history that have been shaped by political forces. And so, you know, we've seen this in very tangible and visceral ways over the course of the pandemic, but it was always true. And so my take is as a Doctor Who had the privilege of serving as the health commissioner. You have the chance to shape that. And to shape it in a way that is.
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"The city should really be pulling here in the future to make sure that the quote unquote next COVID-19 isn't so deadly for people who are suffering from these types of vulnerabilities. Yeah, thank you. This is something that I've thought about a lot and my colleagues here at the health department have as well. We can't squander this opportunity that we have. As we hopefully continue to emerge from COVID-19 and really put in place the things that we should have had before the pandemic hit us so hard in the spring of 2020. So there are three things that I'll point out. The first is that we need massive investment in public health. This is the time to do that to make sure that we have the public health workforce that we needed at the beginning of COVID-19. We've started that in New York City with something called the public health core. We need that in every city across the country and we need it at the right scale for it to have an impact. The second is for us to contend with the unacceptable racial inequity that we have seen during the pandemic. And to do it in a way that recognizes that so much of what we're seeing with respect to the racial inequities in COVID-19 outcomes can be traced back to structural racism and all of the ways that it manifests in our society, whether it's about affordable housing or better quality education or nutritious food. When we look at the effects on particularly black and brown New Yorkers, the fundamental driver is in disinvestment and discrimination that is the manifestation of structural racism. And then the third one, and this is an area where my successor, doctor ashwin vasan is particularly passionate, isn't making sure that we focus on behavioral health on mental health just as much as we do on physical health..
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"Even if there's more work to be done, does mean that it's safer to take some of these steps, particularly when the community risk is lower. And lastly on this, as you know, there's lots of parents frustrated with the masking continuing to be required in pre-K and three K and day cares. What do you say to the parents who say, at least make it optional for us to unmask our kids in those settings when you're letting hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated other kids go to school with no masks now? Yes. I've heard the frustration and I know there's a lot of discussion about this. The key distinction is that kids under 5 are not yet eligible for the vaccine. They don't have that layer of protection and safety available to them yet. And look, we will continue to follow what the numbers and the science show. And this is not a permanent intervention with respect to the mask mandate for kids two to four. It's something that will continue reevaluating and figuring out when the right time is to make the same change that we did for those 5 and up. What do you think the time frame on that type of decision would be I think it's sooner rather than later because our cases remain relatively low, I'm hopeful that we'll hear from the FDA about the vaccine for kids under 5, also sooner rather than later. So I'm optimistic. Those are potentially two very different sooner rather than laters, right? A city decision on the mass for the youngest kids could be within a week or two. No. It could be, you know, this is something that we continue to discuss each day. You know, we're taking the feedback that we're hearing from community members, we're following the data, including hospitalization rates to understand how to calibrate this..
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"Risk is lower. One more on the recent decisions, the young New Yorkers and the decisions around mass, you set the policy at kindergarten above, which mostly captures 5 plus, there's lots of 5 year olds in pre-K, obviously turning 5, but you set that policy at kindergarten and above removing mass. That's the age of vaccination eligibility. But that was not tied to any vaccination levels. That was not tied to school based vaccination levels. It wasn't tied to burrow based vaccination levels. So the fact that 5 plus are eligible for the vaccine when we've seen pretty low uptake so far in the 5 to 12, especially category, I'm not quite sure I understand the rationale there for not if the mass or a problem then extending that to the three and four year olds in city programs three K four UP. It is there really a difference there and why not tie it to some sort of vaccination rate if you're going to make that decision based on the eligibility threshold. Yes, thank you. That's a thoughtful question. And it's one that there's a little jumbled. It was a little jumble, but I think you kept my point. No, I understand it because we deliberated on exactly that, you know, in terms of the right timing and how to think about how things should change, depending on the different risk thresholds. You know, where we came down in terms of thinking this through was it's a combination of the level of community risk, which is measured by cases, as well as what we're seeing with respect to severe outcomes, particularly hospitalizations, with the availability of vaccination and at least a sufficient period of time for people to have availed themselves of the vaccine for themselves or in this case for their children..
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"That is particularly important in the context of omicron. As we talk about the importance of being vaccinated and up to date on the vaccination, the importance of breaking through to those who've been hesitant or those who have either been duped by a misinformation or whatever, what have you, it would seem to me and along with the sort of mission altogether of avoiding another wave and other surge and other variant taking hold that relaxing those key to NYC vaccination mandates would be undermining this message that you just you just gave. I've not yet quite heard the problem that was being solved other than that for some businesses. It's an inconvenience to check people's vaccination cards. Is there.
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"A lot of colleagues in city hall, other agencies from emergency management to sanitation to others, really doing their part for what I hope will be a once in a lifetime pandemic. You know, a disaster that required resources and a commitment of that scale. I'm glad you brought up the vaccination rate because I wanted to go there next. According to health department data, it's 77.1% fully vaccinated in the city of the total population, obviously, under 5, not eligible yet. There are some pretty big gaps within those numbers. There are certain demographic groups, black New Yorkers, the oldest New Yorkers, those young children more recently eligible, although eligible for a while now and other groups, even a lot of white New Yorkers as well. I mean, of the four sort of big racial ethnic groups, Asian New Yorkers and Hispanic New Yorkers are far outpacing black and white New Yorkers. What's the key here in your estimation to getting those numbers much closer to 100%? Are there a couple of key steps for the future of the vaccination program to get from 77 to as close to 100 as possible? Well, first I'll say you're absolutely right to point this out. Even as we can point to the success of the vaccination campaign as a whole, we still do have work to do in redressing the inequities that you're pointing out and closing the gaps for certain age groups beyond race and ethnicity as well. You know, our overall approach was organized around the idea that age race and place that really matter for us to stay abreast of the data and understand where we needed to do more. You know, I'll say there are some things that we've learned over the course of the campaign that we just need to have the discipline to continue and double down on..
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"The second was to plan and prepare for our historic COVID-19 vaccination campaign. And then the third was also to address all of what we call the parallel pandemics. Things like mental health and structural racism and the overdose crisis, which in many cases were exacerbated by COVID-19. Interesting. And are you the youngest health commissioner in the city's history, or at least it's modern history? I'm not sure about that. I can't say that I've looked into the archives on that one. I do know, and I wear with pride that I'm the first health commissioner of Asian descent. Yes, yes. One of the things that was part of that conflict I mentioned before you took over was the decision that the mayor and health leadership in the city made to do the test and trace protocols and program led by health and hospitals and taken out of the health department. In retrospect and you've obviously spanned both those entities, those city entities. In retrospect was at the right move, did that wind up having a significant impact one way or the other was the city just so overwhelmed by COVID cases that test and trace didn't really matter that much. Well, look, health and hospitals and the Department of Health and mental hygiene are two institutions that I love dearly. And I just think about this from the perspective of an everyday New Yorker. One of my patients that I take care of. Frankly, they don't care about the bureaucratic distinctions between two aspects of city government. What they want to know is that their city is working on their behalf..
Max & Murphy on Politics
"dr dave chokshi" Discussed on Max & Murphy on Politics
"This is Ben max from Gotham gazette, publication of citizens union foundation. Thanks so much for tuning in here for this episode of the show in just a moment. My guest today is doctor Dave chaki, the outgoing commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and mental hygiene, doctor.