Dear Savvy Senior, Do currently offered vaccines against pneumonia provide seniors any protection against the coronavirus disease? I’ve always been bad about getting vaccinated, but this coronavirus pandemic is causing me to change my thinking. Pro-Vax Patty

Dear Patty,
This is a great question. Because the coronavirus (COVID-19) attacks the lungs and respiratory system, many readers have asked whether the pneumonia vaccines, which are administered to millions of patients each year, might protect someone if they contract the coronavirus.
But unfortunately, the answer is no. Vaccines against pneumonia, such as pneumococcal vaccine and Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine, do not provide protection against the new coronavirus.
This virus is so new and different that it needs its own vaccine. Researchers are in the process of rapidly developing a vaccine against COVID-19, but it is expected to take at least a year before it’s ready.
Having said that, you should also know that there are several other important vaccines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all seniors should get up to date on after the coronavirus pandemic dies down. Here’s a rundown of what they are, when you should get them, and how they’re covered by Medicare.
Flu vaccine: While annual flu shots are recommended each fall to everyone, they are very important for older adults to get because seniors have a much greater risk of developing dangerous flu complications. According to the CDC, last year up to 647,000 people were hospitalized and 61,200 died because of the flu – most of whom were age 65 and older.
To improve your chances of escaping the seasonal flu, this September or October consider a vaccine specifically designed for people 65 and older. The Fluzone High Dose or FLUAD are the two options that provide extra protection beyond what a standard flu shot offers. And all flu shots are covered under Medicare Part B.
Pneumococcal vaccine: As previously stated, this vaccine protects against pneumonia, which hospitalizes around 250,000 Americans and kills about 50,000 each year. It’s recommended that all seniors, 65 or older, get two separate vaccines – PCV13 (Prevnar 13) and PPSV23 (Pneumovax 23). Both vaccines, which are administered one year apart, protect against different strains of the bacteria to provide maximum protection. Medicare Part B covers both shots if they are taken at least a year apart.
Shingles vaccine: Caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox, shingles is a painful, blistering skin rash that affects more than 1 million Americans every year. All people over age 50 should get the new Shingrix vaccine, which is given in two doses, two to six months apart. Even if you’ve already had shingles, you should still get this vaccination because reoccurring cases are possible. The CDC also recommends that anyone previously vaccinated with Zostavax be revaccinated with Shingrix because it’s significantly more effective.
All Medicare Part D prescription drug plans cover shingles vaccinations, but coverage amounts, and reimbursement rules vary depending on where the shot is given. Check your plan.
Tdap vaccine: A one-time dose of the Tdap vaccine, which covers tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough) is recommended to all adults. If you’ve already had a Tdap shot, you should get a tetanus-diphtheria (Td) booster shot every 10 years. All Medicare Part D prescription drug plans cover these vaccinations.
Other Vaccinations
Depending on your health conditions, preferences, age and future travel schedule, the CDC offers a “What Vaccines Do You Need?” quiz at www2.CDC.gov/nip/adultimmsched to help you determine what additional vaccines may be appropriate for you. You should also talk to your doctor during your next visit about which vaccinations you should get.
To locate a site that offers any of these vaccines, visit VaccineFinder.org and type in your location.
Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.

Isolation has become the new normal as we all do our part to end the spread of Covid-19. But while we’re separated, experts at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation say there are important steps we can take to maintain our psychological and physical health.
1. Stick to a schedule
The lack of a set daily routine can be disruptive. Resist the urge to stay up late and sleep in, as it disrupts your body’s circadian rhythms, said OMRF immunologist Eliza Chakravarty, M.D.
“Sleep deprivation also causes stress hormones like cortisol to rise, signaling the body to go into fat-storage mode by slowing your metabolism,” said Chakravarty. “And when you’re sleepy, you eat more, which can put you on a slippery slope.”
2. Get moving
Research shows that even 30 minutes of moderate exercise lowers blood pressure, strengthens bones, improves mood and helps maintain muscle mass, said OMRF researcher Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D.
“Getting outdoors when the sun is shining boosts your physical and mental wellbeing,” said Van Remmen. “Do some gardening, mow the lawn, go on a long walk—whatever gets you off the couch.”
3. Say no to junk food
“Resist the temptation to graze all day long out of boredom,” said Chakravarty. “If you snack, have healthy options on hand like veggies and hummus, fruit or nuts.”
It’s no secret that obesity has a severe negative impact on health in a variety of ways. And that can be compounded by coronavirus, which appears to take a severe toll on people suffering from obesity-related conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
4. Stay connected
Sunshine and fresh air can work wonders for your mood, but so can maintaining contact with friends and family—from a distance. “Pick up the phone, send emails or write letters to stay in touch,” said OMRF President Stephen Prescott, M.D. “Even though we’re not together physically, we don’t have to be alone.”
5. Take a news break
“There’s a difference between staying informed and dwelling on never-ending commentary and speculation,” Chakravarty said. “Instead, go sew, paint, learn a hobby or rediscover an old one. Be creative.”
We don’t know when this pandemic will end, said Chakravarty. “But how you come out when it’s over depends a lot on the decisions you make now.”

* As of this advisory, there are 3,280 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Oklahoma.
* There are three additional deaths; zero occurred in the past 24 hours and the others died between April 24-April 25.
* One in Tulsa County, a male in the 65 and older age group.
* One in Carter County, a female in the 50-64 age group.
* One in Wagoner County, a female in the 65 and older age group.
* There are 197 total deaths in the state.
Note: The number of total cumulative negative specimens, total cumulative number of specimens to date, and the number currently hospitalized reported below are compiled through the Executive Order reports submitted to the governor. These reports are not submitted on the weekend, and therefore, those numbers found in this report will be updated Tuesday. All other numbers listed in this report are current.
* The American Association on Health and Disability (AAHD) has created a survey to assess health care and health care access challenges people with disabilities are encountering with the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey is open until May 1 and can be found here.
* A list of COVID-19 testing sites in the state can be found here.
* For more information, visit coronavirus.health.ok.gov.

*The total includes laboratory information provided to OSDH at the time of the report. Total counts may not reflect unique individuals.
**This number is a combination of hospitalized positive cases and hospitalized persons under investigation, as reported by hospitals at the time of the report. The data reflect a change in calculation and should not be compared to prior data.

OU Medicine and its academic partner, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, recently received $100,000 from CompSource Mutual Insurance Company to assist healthcare providers on the front line of treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To avoid potentially exposing their families to the virus, many healthcare providers are not going home at the end of a long workday, but are staying away from home for everyone’s safety. The donation from CompSource Mutual will be used to provide meals and a place to stay for those physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers.
“We’re grateful to CompSource Mutual for their generous support of our healthcare team to combat this pandemic,” said Dr. Dale Bratzler, Enterprise Chief Quality Officer of OU Medicine. “This donation will fund temporary housing and food for OU Medicine and OU Health Sciences Center team members living away from home to protect their families from potential exposure to COVID-19.”
CompSource Mutual Insurance Company, an Oklahoma-based business that provides workers’ compensation coverage, donated a total of $250,000 in Oklahoma to assist medical personnel and families coping with lost wages and other hardships because of the pandemic. Other recipients include the Tulsa Area COVID-19 Response Fund formed by the Tulsa Area United Way and the Tulsa Community Foundation, as well as the United Way of Central Oklahoma’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
“Our policyholders include many Oklahoma businesses that are currently experiencing the emotional, physical and financial tolls of this pandemic,” said CompSource Mutual President and CEO Jason Clark. “We are committed to being a reliable partner in our communities’ responses, which we first demonstrated earlier this month by implementing measures to help CompSource policyholders who are struggling financially to pay their premiums. This donation is the next step and supports our guiding principle to improve the communities in which we live and work. I am grateful to our leadership team for approving this vitally important assistance for three organizations who are working directly in support of first responders, medical professionals and affected families in our state.”

Mark Rolfe, M.D., is a Lung Transplant and Critical Care Pulmonologist at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center. He says we are starting to see an increase in COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization. Many of those end up in the intensive care unit, where he works.
“The first time I walked into the room of a patient known to have COVID-19, I paused at the door,” admits Rolfe. “I was a little frightened at facing this disease for the first time.”
It was the first case to be diagnosed at INTEGRIS Baptist, and Rolfe reveals it brought back memories from early on in his career. “I grew up in medicine at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and remember the hysteria around that diagnosis and all the precautions people took to not catch it. We initially wore hazmat suits with those patients and put them in different wings of the hospital.”
He continues, “It feels like I am living those days from my medical school years all over again. This disease, unlike HIV, is very contagious though. A person can spend five to six minutes with someone who is infected and catch this disease.”
In Rolfe’s ICU, every patient there either has the virus or is considered high risk. But despite the apparent danger associated with COVID-19, Rolfe feels his unit is very safe. “We have developed protocols that protect us, and everyone is very careful,” he says. “I feel I am more likely to get this disease shopping at the grocery store than in my hospital or ICU.”
He further explains, “In the public, there are unknown asymptomatic carriers who are very contagious and just don’t know it. In the hospital, I know where the danger is, and I am prepared to deal with it safely.”
Rolfe understands the importance of his work. “We are doctors. We are supposed to take care of the ill to the best of our ability. It is a challenge, but it is also a calling. God gave us these gifts for a reason. It’s time to step into the breach and use them.”
But don’t call him a hero, he says that honor is reserved for America’s finest. “Doctors are not heroes. We are doing what we were trained to do. Generations of physicians have fought off diseases throughout the years. It is our legacy. It is why we are respected in this society. The efforts to fight this disease and help people through it is the price of that respect,” states Rolfe.
“The people who put on a uniform and protect our country are the heroes.
Masks, gloves and hand washing will stop a virus. Nothing stops a bullet, a missile, a grenade, or a knife. The police and military are our heroes.”
However, Rolfe does acknowledge that the novel coronavirus has completely altered life as we knew it. He says each one of us has the power to reclaim it, we just have to work together to do so. “It’s all been said before, but it is worth repeating – wash your hands, don’t touch your face, avoid crowds and stay home to stay safe. Do what you can now, so you don’t become one of my patients later.”

Hawaii and just enjoy the atmosphere. Janice Hanna

I was going to say Hawaii, too. Just lay on a beach and stare at the sky. Melanie Wright

Probably Ireland because I’ve never been. Janet Gatlin

The Carolina Coast. Lots of beach and lots of food. Connie Bailey

story and photo by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

It’s been two years now since Emily Spitler decided to channel her creative energy into stained glass.
And the world is a better place for it.
“I really enjoy working on the mosaics as it is very rewarding seeing the finished product and knowing that it was something I created,” Spitler said. “It also gives me tremendous satisfaction when someone sees one of my pieces, their eyes light up and they point to it and say ‘I want that one’ with a huge smile on their face.”
She originally set out to do it as a hobby but as she got more and more involved with it, decided to put some things up for sale. Her daughter, Stacey, created a Facebook page for her to share her art work and then it just blossomed from there.
Besides having her online store at www.emilyscreations.net, she has also had a booth at last fall’s Affair of the Heart and the Santa Market. She is hoping to have a booth later this year at a few more shows.
Spitler used to own a knitting and craft store in Prague originally called The Knitting Needle then once she added more gift items the location changed and the name was changed to Emily’s Gift World.
She’s always been involved in arts and crafts. First there was ceramics, then of course knitting, crocheting and all kinds of needlework. She started sewing during grade school and was involved in 4-H.
She still plants a garden each year and, of course, she starts the seeds from scratch and even mixes up her own soil. Her tomato and okra plants have been known to reach over 8’ tall. She enjoys cooking and collecting recipes to try. She even makes her own bread (including hamburger buns), pickles and tomato sauce!
She really enjoys doing the mosaic art because of the mystery of how each design will turn out. She starts by cutting the glass sheets, then laying it out on a pattern. The glass has to be ground on the grinding wheel to get the desired shape and to smooth out the sharp edges. Each piece of glass is glued down into the design.
She then mixes up the grout and applies it to the entire piece. After approximately 15-20 minutes, the grout is cleaned off. Many times, the grout has to be cleaned off with a pick to get between the tiles/glass.
Just by changing the color of the grout, you can get a completely different look.
On the large mural 3’x6’ mural called “The Wave”, it took 4 months to complete. Many hours were spent grinding each piece of glass and mirror. She enlisted the help of both her daughter and husband to assist.
Depending upon the complexity of the piece it can take up to 3 weeks or longer to complete. She has used other mediums in her pieces including sand, shells, rocks, mirrors, beads, tiles and broken dishes
Her artwork brings out the best not only in herself but others.
Daughter Stacey recalls a funny story at her aunt’s 95th birthday celebration.
“We put her mosaic cross into a Harry and David box so she thought she was getting a box of clementines when she unwrapped the gift,” Stacey remembers. “Before she unwrapped the gift she was so happy and excited to get the box. When she unwrapped it and saw the Harry and David box, the expression on her face was priceless! She was so disappointed and at a loss for words. I actually thought she was going to start crying.”
“Then she went ahead and opened the box to unveil the mosaic cross and a big smile appeared. She said that she was so happy to get the cross instead of the clementines!”
Spitler’s work has been honored, most recently winning 1st and 3rd place at the 2019 Oklahoma State Fair.
You can also connect with her on Facebook at Emily’s Creations.

www.LegendSeniorLiving.com

Story by Susan Slater

How Seniors Can Trust They’ve Found a Reputable Roofer
A lot of companies say they specialize in working with seniors. But Dennis Helm, of Smooth Finish Roofing & Construction, shows it.
Dennis is an industry partner and a member of OKALA (Oklahoma Assisted Living Association). He also has industry partnerships with several important senior organizations: Oklahoma’s Senior News and Living, The Oklahoma Senior Journal, Senior GuidePost, and The VillagesOKC. When Dennis says he enjoys working with seniors and wants to help them, he means it!
Dennis has been a senior advocate for as long as he’s been a business owner of Smooth Finish. He came about this from a place of caring for those who may be vulnerable to scammers because of difficulties he faced as a child.
How Smooth Finish can help seniors
1) If you are working with a senior who would like to stay in their home, Smooth Finish can install a good-quality roof on their home that will last.
They can also help with other repairs and modifications on the homes of seniors who want to age in place. Besides roofing, Smooth Finish can do ceiling leak repair, guttering, siding, garage doors, fencing, painting, and more.
2) If you have a client who is moving into a senior living center and needs to sell their home, they may likely need a new roof or other repairs. Smooth Finish will do excellent work at a fair price, so your client’s home can pass all the inspections required for a sale.
3) Smooth Finish is not only certified and licensed* to do roofing for residential homes, but for senior living facilities as well.
Owner Dennis Helm—a true senior advocate
With his sincere desire to help seniors, Dennis always works to encourage people to use only local, licensed, and insured roofing contractors with hundreds of verifiable references. There are just too many terrible stories of things going wrong when people don’t.
Warning: roofers may not be who they seem to be!
“I’ve heard it many, many times,” Dennis says, “most people don’t trust roofers. That’s because in this industry there are a lot of fly-by-night roofers. They come in town, start a ‘company,’ get magnets on their car, and in 24-hours they look like a legitimate business. But they’re not.”
Unreliable scammers always rush into town after a storm has hit to solicit people who need roofing services. These unscrupulous “companies” many times will claim to be local, even though they’re not, and may go to great lengths to look like they’re hometown guys.
Dennis tells about having a man from out of town contact him after a bad storm hit the Oklahoma City area. This man wanted to “buy” the Smooth Finish company name, and use Dennis’s address and phone number for six months. He offered a good price, too! He wanted to appear to be a local, established company when soliciting roof jobs.
Dennis warns people to not be fooled. He says, “I wasn’t about to go for that deal, but other companies will.” He continues, “I want people with roofing needs in Oklahoma City to rest at ease. I want them to know that when they use Smooth Finish Roofing & Construction, they’re getting an honest, reputable company. I’m a lifelong resident and have 32 years expertise in this business.”
Ask for licensing numbers and for references, and then check them out! Dennis explains that reputable roofers live and work in the same city where their business is located. “We don’t go out of town, except for previous and existing customers. There is always more than enough work for us right here in the 620 square miles of Oklahoma City.”
Your clients will thank you for a Smooth Finish recommendation
You can feel confident in recommending Smooth Finish Roofing & Construction to the clients you’re helping. For the homeowner, Dennis can work on the rooftop, the floor, and everything in between. He’s licensed General Contractor for the City of Oklahoma City* and has been in business for 32 years.
Since 1987, Dennis has been helping customers with decisions concerning their homes. Many times, he’s found simple solutions for complex problems. He works to keep the costs fair and reasonable, and lives by the Smooth Finish motto: “Where quality craftsmanship meets fair pricing.” Give Dennis a call on his personal cell phone at (405-923-5127).
He’ll be happy to come visit you for a free consultation, inspection, and estimate. And he’ll be glad to give you references so you can check with people who have used his services! Dennis adds, “We are proud of and enjoy our solid reputation. We enjoy serving seniors, military, and single mothers—and we only move forward with a job when you’re comfortable.”
*Oklahoma CIB #0242 and City of Oklahoma City license #13705

www.smoothfinishroofing.com