Betty Sakamoto: Aloha and welcome to Betty’s Real Estate Corner brought to you by Coldwell Banker Sakamoto Properties. Here we are again, Roy and Betty Sakamoto in the studio together.
Roy Sakamoto: On a cold rainy windy day.
BS: Very cold rainy and windy day.
RS: Yeah
BS: I was showing property this morning and had to get towels to dry people off. Now, you think they’re going to buy today? We are going to find out. They were really great in good sports about it. Life is good.
RS: If they’re looking today they are probably our buyers.
BS: Good point. Actually, I hadn’t thought of it that way. If they’re looking today I guess they are buyers. We have Dr. Norm Estin calling in a little bit and he’s going to fill us in on a lot of things relating to the corona virus, testing. Things that are going on and his different thoughts and where we are at so I think that’ll be kind of exciting for us all and what’s going on now with vaccinations and give you a little bit of information. We may start out with a tiny bit of real estate before we go into.
RS: Yeah. Well again let’s talk about..
BS: You know what I really wanted?
RS: The line at the Citizens Church.
BS: Oh, yes.
RS: Yeah
BS: This really is something that’s for all of us to think about because it could be any of us at any time. Any of us that aren’t in the line at the Citizens Church should feel very fortunate and if at all possible do our best to help because it’s one of the churches in West Maui that’s doing a whole lot for people that are hungry or that need additional food for their families. You can see the people that are lined up. They’ve all got a nice car, they are okay but getting through this as a family, has got to be a family on regular jobs, on everything and young, 2 kids, whatever it is it’s a heartbreaker and to be have to do that my heart goes out to them. We’ve done our best to kind of keep remembering the different people that are making this food available. The Maui Food Bank, there’s so many places that are doing something.
RS: Local churches, the Maui Food Bank. Maui Food Bank would be a great organization to help out. We have and I know many of you out there have also.
BS: Any of the local churches are doing things at least I think the majority of them are but again we just all say a special prayer today. We are getting so close to things getting better and on this kind of miserable rainy day to think that a lot of our friends, people that we’ve worked at, that are working in the stores and restaurants and all of the places that we all go are having to do that. That’s really sad because they’re all hard working people. Let’s maybe say a little prayer or give them all of our thoughts and energy in the airways for the moment.
RS: Yes, absolutely. It’s a good sign that more hotels are opening up, more restaurants are opening up, more shops but still there’s a lot of help needed out there.
BS: There is a lot of help needed out there. Let’s all remember and even remember some of the other things you’ve got people with children home. If there’s anything that you can do to help a neighbor maybe by picking up food for them or shopping, grocery shopping, maybe running over to watch their kids for a couple of hours will they get some shopping done. It’s hard I think people are really struggling in so many ways. They have more kids at home right now than usual and kids are getting back to school but again people are really stuck and they need help. If there’s anything we can do for our neighbors, someone that we work for to help with anything. Let’s all do it. Let’s help one another and for me from where I stand just thank heaven that we aren’t the ones that have to be in the line. We should be helping other people, all of us. RS: Lucky we live Maui because Maui always helps support Maui and thank you Maui.
BS: Thank you Maui and that is so the truth. The people of Maui do their best to come together. It is one community not perfect I’m sure but when you look around here if you’ve ever needed something. This is kind of a weird one to bring up but I tripped over something in the shopping center at the Napili market and of course face planted in front of everybody. There was a lady there probably about the same age as I am which is not very young and she immediately came over and I was bleeding. She didn’t hesitate at all to just come kind of help me. I could get up okay. I was fine as it turned out more embarrassed than anything but I’ll never forget that day. I’ll never forget her. I’d seen her many times and it was just a special moment we had never really talked to one another. In Maui people will never leave you down. If something happens there’s someone there that will help you. Let’s all remember that.
RS: Yeah. We’ve said it before, we are a village and we continue to be a village. Let’s not lose that on Maui.
BS: No. Let’s find our way to keep it up.
RS: Yes, absolutely.
BS: Keep it up. Did you bring some real estate stuff for today?
RS: Yeah. Why don’t we talk about while we wait for Norm’s phone call? What about this great property we looked at yesterday and we showed.
BS: This was really interesting. Yesterday we actually went to Wailea. Roy is really good about it. He knows Wailea. I kind of say I don’t go to Wailea it’s just too far but there were some really wonderful people that we had met that wanted to look at property there. Roy and I went down together and I did go to Wailea but we saw some spectacular properties. One of them was is actually listed by another Coldwell Banker agent Meghan Clair. She is spectacular. She was so amazing. Her knowledge was phenomenal. She knew everything about the property and all that, her husband is a Lahainaluna High School graduate. The same year my daughter graduated. We need to zero in on that one but it wasn’t.
RS: Lahainaluna
BS: It’s always about Lahainaluna. Anyway, she was fabulous. I hope that I have learned a little from that to maybe digest and have every piece of information. She just had it all on the tip of her tongue and she was really fabulous. Meghan Clair.
RS: Let’s describe that property. It was 4 bedrooms, 6 baths.
BS: Got me.
RS: Yeah
BS: 4 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms. It’s an oceanfront subdivision the only one actually in Wailea.
RS:The only oceanfront residential subdivision.
BS: There’s 14 homes. This one is sitting kind of at the top so you’re not right on the ocean but the view of the ocean is absolutely the best.
RS: Superb. Fantastic.
BS: There’s a little clubhouse when you go down into the area.
RS: Oceanfront clubhouse. It’s in the Mahulia Estates at Wailea.
BS: Really spectacular.
RS: What is Meghan’s number to call?
BS: Her telephone number is right here. Cell phone, Meghan Clair ( 808)463-8485. If you are looking for a property like that in Wailea very knowledgeable for looking at anything. That one’s listed at $10,8000,000 and I know she knows the Kihei, Wailea market totally. This is one of the most impressive houses that I’ve seen. It’s spectacular.
RS: I think that property is worth every penny that they’re asking. Call Meghan. Absolutely call Meghan and I’m sure she’ll be able to help you view this and quite the property.
BS: 463-8485 for Meghan.
RS: Yeah and we also showed another property in Wailea. This is a single family home in the Wailea Gulf Estates at 192 Halau place. It’s listed by Riette Jenkins also with Coldwell Banker. A real pro. She knows Wailea inside and out. Riette is 870-4073 is her cell phone number. 192 Halau is a 3 bedroom, 3.5 baths it’s about 3,800 square feet. Really well done, well laid out. It fronts on the Blue Course at Wailea.
BS: It feels like it’s surrounded by the Blue Course, doesn’t it?
RS: The views are fantastic, lots of privacy, great landscaping. Quite impressive.
BS: It just seems that it’s a very updated house.
RS: Yes.
BS: It just has everything, very current, spectacularly furnished. The most of the majority of the furniture stays with it. Again, like you say it’s an impressive, it is.
RS: Extremely well done.
BS: Riette did a fabulous job also.
RS: Right.
BS: Her phone number is 870-4073.
RS: Riette Jenkins and tell her you want to see 192 Halau place. It’s listed as at $5,600,000.
BS: Tell her you heard about it on the radio and that they were talking about her and she will have no clue where that came from. She’s going to know after today.
RS: Betty’s Real Estate Corner.
BS: Absolutely, Betty’s Real Estate Corner.
RS: Yeah. While we are down in that Wailea Makena area, here’s another great listing it’s 3220 Pikai Way. It is listed by John Lyle also with Coldwell Banker. John’s cell phone number 283-8771. It’s a 4 bedrooms, 4 baths. It’s about 3,400 square feet and it’s in the Wailea Kai Subdivision. Call John 283-8771. This is listed at $2,685,000 is 3220 Pikai Way.
BS: Perfect. Looks like we now have Dr. Norman Estin on the phone to give us a little bit of information or a lot of information quickly in regard to what’s going on with the corona virus. What it’s going to take now to get people vaccinated etc. Are you there Norm?
Dr. Norman Estin: I am. Can you hear me?
BS: Absolutely. Aloha and thank you so much for calling to update all of us.
NE: Aloha. Things are going great from the vaccine point of view and the whole virus point of view. We’ve stabilized and even increasing the amount of vaccinations we’re given and we’re decreasing the number of cases we’re seeing throughout the entire country and throughout the islands and slowly on Maui as well so this is all good news.
BS: Where are we at now Norm from?
NE: We have great success with the vaccination program. We have more vaccines arriving of all 3 of the approved vaccines that are coming into Honolulu and getting distributed to the islands. As of tomorrow our state Department of Health director Dr. Libby Char says we’re going to have even more coming into the outer island. This is all good news.
BS: What do you think right now? Is everybody able to get vaccinated now or is it still certain age groups etc.?
NE: That’s a good question. Pretty much I think within a week or 2 we are going to be able to vaccinate everybody. We are focusing in on the high risk people still. There are some elderly people, some people over 75 and over 70 who have not yet been vaccinated so they have the first priority. We are pretty much done most of the folks in the nursing homes and congregate group living centers. We do have some outreach programs going specifically to elderly people who are homebound. We have a program going to the homeless. We have people going to places where they’re doing kidney dialysis and so we’re focusing in on both the at risk populations as well as the general populations. We are starting to open it up to people who are younger and younger. Pretty much if you’ve been over 65 or over 60 it’s been possible to get a vaccination now. It’s going to be easier this next week as we have more and more vaccinations.
BS: That’s fabulous.
NE: Each time we give a vaccination not only are we preventing somebody from getting sick we’re preventing anybody there around from getting sick. We are decreasing the spread of the illness. The only thing that’s going to allow us to control this pandemic is a vaccination. The faster we get people vaccinated the faster we’re going to return to normal. The good news is that a lot of people who were initially cautious about the vaccine saying well let’s wait and see what’s happened and what kind of side effects there are. We haven’t seen any. I’ve personally supervised over 5,000 vaccinations through the Department of Health and Dr. Lorrin Pang with the vaccination center at the Maui College or the University of Hawaii Maui campus as correctly called down and we’ve had no serious reactions. Occasionally, after the 2nd shot some people feel a little achy or like they do after a flu shot or so for a day but it’s temporary and that actually means that people are responding and having a good reaction and will be protected. We know the data now on the vaccines is fantastic even after 1 shot. People are protected sometimes 60% and even 80% after about a month. With the 2nd shot for the 2 dose programs for both the Moderna and the Pfizer they get up to 95 protection which is absolutely fantastic. This is probably in reality the best vaccine collection ever made in the history of mankind. It’s amazingly a safe profile of effectiveness. It’s been distributed very well. The receptiveness over the first 3 months has been fantastic.
BS: Norm, we’ve got a question for you from here because we’ve been talking about it and we’ve got to move along a little bit. Your Kaanapali office I know so many people are looking to be able to get shots in Kaanapali. I know you’ve been able to take over the small office that used to be a sunglass place. When’s that going to open and how’s that going to work for the people of West Maui or from anywhere but particularly the West Maui folks?
NE: Well, we are trying to do a dedicated vaccine center there on the weekends. We are going to be doing that this Saturday. Right now we’re probably full and subscribed with reservation for this coming Saturday. I’m going to give you a couple of websites for anybody in Vest Valley or the entire island where they can sign up and get a vaccine fairly quickly certainly within the next couple of weeks. One is mauihealth.org and that is through the hospital. They will preferentially vaccinate Kaiser insured members but they will do anybody and they will sign you up online on that site for an appointment one of their vaccination centers. The other is through mauicounty.gov. That’s the Maui site and that’s the does the Department of Health vaccination clinics like we did last yesterday at the college where we did 750 people. Now, we are also reaching out and we are doing some programs at work sites and hotel and restaurants. For instance, tomorrow we are actually going to the Andaz Hotel to vaccinate some employees and then this is through the Department of Health. We are going to be able to do that in a number of other resort and hotel sites on both the South side and the West side in the coming couple of weeks. It will probably take a couple of months to get everybody on the island vaccinated but again the faster we can get everybody vaccinated the faster we return to normal.
BS: Norm, what about and you kind of started in a way to say something before but what about the people who are so hesitant? They are so afraid of vaccinations. What’s your thought to them?
NE: Well, you know they are absolutely right and being cautious. I think people are always cautious and concerned when there’s a new medicine, a new treatment. The question with the vaccine is because it got developed so quickly were all the steps followed to make sure it’s safe. We are the people in medicine are concerned about safety just as anybody else is and in fact they were followed. They were just done a lot more rapidly so a lot of the steps were done at the same time as opposed to sequentially instead of one after the other, after the other, after the other with a vaccine taking normally 10 or 12 years to be produced. They were able to do all this simultaneously because of the number of people involved, in a number of research centers involved. They will be able to create these very safe, very easy to administer, very effective vaccines, very quickly. It’s phenomenal in 10 to12 months how these top 3 vaccines are working very well. There’s a Pfizer which is a 2 shots vaccine. You need one and then you need it ideally another one about 3 weeks later. The Moderna in which you get one and then you get one anywhere between 4 weeks and 10 weeks later. Then the Johnson & Johnson one which just arrived in the islands and is not available in great numbers yet but maybe where you only need one shot. All these 3 are fantastic. There’s a couple others on the market around the world that are probably not as effective. You may have seen that the AstraZeneca product that’s in Europe doesn’t work as well as these do. Nobody knows how the Chinese or the Russian product or the Indian product work but the fact that we have 3 that are home runs. It’s fantastic. The bottom line when somebody says which one should I get? The answer is you should get whichever one you can as fast as you can. The evidence for the people who have been hesitant to get one is fantastic. For instance, in September we had about 64% of the population when we did studies, we were saying, you know what I’m going to wait a little bit and see how it goes. By the time, it was December and we came out with it they were down to 51%. In January just a couple of months ago nationwide we had 38% that were hesitant and now as of this month we’re down in the 20s, 28%. We are dramatically approaching the point where almost everybody’s going to want to get this vaccine.
BS: That’s major Norm.
NE: Their life can then return to normal. They will be able to go to public events, they’ll be able to get on an airplane and feel safe.
BS: We are going to kind of winding down quickly right now.
RS: Is there a charge for this Norm?
NE: There’s no charge. The government has picked up the cost of the development of the administration and all the insurance carriers have bought into that.
BS: Perfect.
RS: Great
BS: Pretty much in the not too distant future everyone that wants to be vaccinated will be and it’ll be a blessing for each and every one of us, the more of us that do step up.
NE: Absolutely.
BS: Fortunately, we’ve been able to be vaccinated because we were older but we’re really happy and had no side effects. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left Norm so I think we’ve got as much information now. We will repeat the websites in a minute but thank you so much for calling in.
RS: Thanks for all you do Norm.
BS: Norm, you’ve done so much for the community. Thank you, thank you.
NE: Well, thank you all for helping to spread the word and we are all looking forward to when we can do these things safely with the people we love outdoors and in public. It will be great.
BS: Absolutely. We are looking for hugs again Norm. Talk to you soon. Okay.
NE: We all miss that.
BS: We all do. Yes. Aloha.
RS: Thanks Norm.
NE: Thank you.
BS: Thanks Norm. So, I guess we got a little bit through I mean we got a little sidetracked on that but that’s perfect. I can’t believe we could jam that much information in and I hope it helps everyone. Those 2 websites are really worth having mauihealth.org and mauicounty.gov. You should be able to go to those and sign up. The more of us that do the better.
RS: Absolutely and no charge.
BS: I’m glad you asked that because I wasn’t thinking about it right then. That is amazing.
RS: That’s a common question.
BS: It’s a huge question.
RS: Yeah
BS: Especially again you get back to families where have a number of people trying to get vaccinated it adds up to a lot of money. I say, let’s all get vaccinated although we all know that there’s people that for many reasons won’t get vaccinated. They say that if enough of us are vaccinated then again we cover all of us and that’s what it’s all about on Maui. We take care of one another in every way that we can.
RS: Wouldn’t it be nice to have everybody get back to normal again and we can travel, see friends, relatives.
BS: Go to Honolulu, shopping.
RS: Yes. It’s been a strange world.
BS: It has been.
RS: Thank goodness we’re getting through this.
BS: It all matters.
RS: As Dr. Norm mentioned. The more of us they get vaccinated the better it is. The faster our economy will get back to normal.
BS: We have his and her kids and my daughter Julie Ehu Flynn, Sherlock now is going to arrive here Sunday for the first time. I haven’t seen her for way over a year and I usually got to see her a lot so I couldn’t be any more excited. My daughter and granddaughter are both going to be here for a week and hopefully we’re going to just do everything we can on Maui. We are so excited and of course we’ll be up at Lahainaluna High School trying to check out what’s going on.
RS: They have their Lahainaluna face mask that they’re traveling with.
BS: Yes, we all have those. They’ve been the most fun we’ve been wearing them and we’re back to Danny Couch with I love Hawaii. Thank you everyone for listening call us, Roy 870-7060 and I’m 870-7062. Aloha.
RS: Aloha.
BS: Danny Couch. Let’s all give it a little something.
