Local doctors available during Thursday night town hall

For those with COVID-19 questions, Rep. Jeff Shawan will host a virtual town hall tomorrow night with local physicians Dr. Chris Montgomery and Dr. Michael Caldwell.

Those who wish to participate in the town hall can call into 855-962-1452 at 6:10 p.m. tomorrow.

“This is less about me and more about them,” Shawan said. “They’re the experts. They’re probably two of the most knowledgeable people in this region”

Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, Shawan created the website semostrong.com with the goal of it serving as a resource center for the area and a way for people to ask his office for assistance with issues.

“If you’re not sure not sure what the latest COVID count is, it’s got the health departments,” he said. “If you’re not sure what protocol is, you’ve got it’s got the emergency management agencies all over Southeast Missouri. It’s got a form to fill out that if you fill out those to me, if you need help with something.”

That website led to the idea of this town hall to cover the latest information about the virus. Shawan said the town hall will talk about the latest case count and what people should be doing right now among other topics related to the situation. There’s “a lot of misinformation out there,” Shawan said, that they’d like to address during this town hall.

Along with the planned topics, listeners will be able to ask Montgomery and Caldwell questions. Shawan said people can submit questions ahead of time on the semostrong.com website by filling out the form that goes to his office and saying what they’d like to ask.

He said they anticipate thousands of people on the phone call and they plan to address as many questions as possible during the hour-long town hall.

“This is not a Facebook Live. This is not a video event of any kind,” he said. “It’s strictly a call in and listen and submit your questions.”

Shawan said if the COVID-19 situation continues, he’ll likely organize more of this kind of event, but he wants to see what the response is to this one.