But the people that are at the board of supervisors in chambers or watching live remotely or watching on the replay, even to the custodial staff, even to the passersby, at least we're planting those seeds.
Unfortunately, there aren't very many brave local officials, but the point is this is an issue. It's going to be a gubernatorial issue, and it cannot nor should not be ignored.
Thank you for allowing me to talk. Ronald, appreciate that. I can hear your passion and conviction, and it sounds exactly like what the rest of us, the other 49, are hoping that California does.
So appreciate your service and appreciate everything you guys are doing out there to make an actual difference. Since you did call out Mr. Markham, I'd like to go to him real quick and kind of let him jump in there and kind of talk about a couple of the issues that you had, and then we'll go back to Julie and then
How are you? Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Ronald F. Owens, Jr. I was a California Department of Public Health public information officer for more than 14 years. I learned more than three years ago, specifically on April 14th, 2022.
Then Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra said this regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. We know these vaccines are killing people of color, blacks, Latinos, indigenous people at about two times the rate of white Americans. For the past 17 months, Julie and I, we've been going from county to county informing the Board of Supervisors about the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine.
She's gone to 33 counties. I've gone to 50 counties. I've got eight more counties to go.
I'm going to the counties because the California Department of Public Health has a relationship with the county health officer, with the county public information officer. So we're going from county to county informing 296 locally elected officials that there have been 96,887 COVID-19 vaccine cases filed, according to theirs. And I wanted to acknowledge Welcome the Eagle down there
