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Doctor: Pediatric hospital units are 'getting stretched' due to Delta variant

Dr. Michael Saag, Associate Dean for Global Health at University of Alabama at Birmingham, tells Yahoo Finance what he's seeing on the ground in a COVID-19 hot spot.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: We want to continue this conversation with Dr. Michael Saag. He's Associate Dean for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And, Dr. Saag, it's good to see you. You're based in Alabama, one of those states where we're seeing more and more hospitals stretched to capacity. I guess just give us a sense of what you're seeing on the ground in Alabama right now.

MICHAEL SAAG: Well, it's pretty concerning, as we just heard. And the concern is twofold. One is that the staff are getting exhausted and beginning to burn out a little bit. They were heavy into this back in January, now they're going at it again. And the numbers are probably a little bit worse than they were back in January.

And the sad news is that this probably won't peak until after Labor Day, and then it's unlikely to drop precipitously like a lot of predictions have shown, simply because people still aren't getting vaccinated at a rate that's high enough, and people are not doing the simple things of mitigation like masking in large crowds, avoiding large crowds, and keeping safe at home. So those things are really getting a lot of concern.

The second thing that I think has us very concerned is that some hospitals, their hospitals are full, and the ERs have 20, 30 people on stretchers waiting for a bed, and then here comes an ambulance with yet another person. That person could have a heart attack or a recent motor vehicle accident, there may be no room at the inn for them. And I think the take-home point is that while people say I have freedom to choose, when the freedom that people choose to not get vaccinated starts impinging on the freedom of access to care for other people, that's where things get dicey and I think we need to start addressing more aggressively.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Doctor Saag, I want to ask about the impact of Hurricane Ida-- where you are in Birmingham not necessarily right in the direct path that, say, New Orleans was, but it does kind of underscore when people see a headline like 10% ICU beds remaining, that's not necessarily a good thing, because there could be other types of nonrelated COVID types of externalities or disasters like the hurricane that can bring people into the ICU for other reasons.

So first of all, was there any sort of impact in your area? Have you seen any sort of impact of that? And are there other ways in which this pandemic is also interacting with that disaster?

MICHAEL SAAG: Right. So in my neck of the woods in Alabama, we kind of dodged things pretty well. But unfortunately, for Mississippi and all of Louisiana, there's power problems. And that's the big deal-- think New Orleans, Baton Rouge, other places. They have hospitals filled with people. They're on generators. They run on diesel.

If the diesel supplies don't get to the hospital, there's a huge problem. Ordinarily without COVID, we could transport patients from one place to another. There's just nowhere to go because of the COVID situation. So it's very precarious right now in those places that got hit hard by Ida and don't have any power right now. Those folks are all in jeopardy.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, we also got the news today two senior FDA officials that are responsible for reviewing COVID-19 vaccine applications are leaving the agency this fall. I'm curious just to get your take-- when something like this happens, when you see two key officials like that leaving the agency, any thought just in terms of what this could mean for getting boosters approved? Could it potentially move the timeline a little bit further out?

MICHAEL SAAG: Yeah, I don't know. It's always disappointing and a little bit disconcerting when you hear stuff like that. But I think the take-home point is that this is a top priority for our federal agencies. And they're going to move heaven and Earth to get things done as fast as possible. I just want to give a shout out for just a moment to FDA, and CDC, and other public health departments who have really been working day and night on this.

They get slammed a lot in social media, but they really do their job pretty darn well. And we owe them a debt of gratitude because they're just like the workers in the hospital who are getting stressed. They're pretty stressed too, and they're just hanging in there doing their job as if they were in the military. It's a thankless job for a lot of them.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Doctor Saag, I want to ask about just the demographic of people that are coming into the hospital in your view-- and I know it's going to be different depending on where in the country you are. But there is a lot of concern, especially with schools starting to reopen-- I don't know if schools have reopened yet in your neck of the woods-- whether or not there could be some spread among kids, and whether or not that would present a danger to them. What are you seeing in terms of the types of people that are coming in with symptoms?

MICHAEL SAAG: All epidemics are local. So you're right-- it really depends on where you are. Our schools opened about 10 days ago, maybe two weeks ago. A lot of the school systems did not mandate masks-- and this is for kids below the age of 12. What that means is that they're at high risk. And as a lot of us predicted, this is not rocket science-- in fact, it's a lot easier to predict than the stock market, but we've found that those systems that did not mandate masks are getting flooded right now with cases.

That means that they have to send kids home to quarantine. Our pediatric units, especially in Children's Hospital here, are getting stretched. And we didn't see that before because Delta is different. The original SARS virus did not do that much in terms of causing illness in kids. Delta is different and is causing that. And so I think we're going to start seeing a lot of our school systems, especially those that did not mandate masks, starting to close down and going back to virtual.

Nobody wants that. And to be honest, I don't understand at all why a school system would say, yes, we want our kids back, but we're not going to give them maximal protection by mandating masks. It is not that big a deal. It doesn't cost much. And it does save lives and reduces numbers of infections. So I guess some folks have to learn the hard way.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, not to get too political, because this has turned into a political issue, but then that also brings up the case of mandating vaccines. We've seen more and more companies come out after the FDA fully approved Pfizer's vaccines, saying employees who want to return to the office need to get vaccinated. What are your thoughts on that? And I guess what needs to be done at this point in order to control the pandemic?

MICHAEL SAAG: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head in terms of politics. If this were another disease that was ravaging the country, we would have mandated vaccines, and nobody would bat an eye. There's plenty of vaccines that we have every day for people going to school but also for some work situations that people have to be vaccinated. This is a different story.

I will say this-- the companies that I've seen that have mandated vaccines are getting good responses. And in fact, people like me and others in public health have been screaming from the rooftops since January-- get vaccinated. We sort of hit a asymptote, a ceiling. What's changing things is when the employers mandate it, and then people line up. So my position, I'd like to see more companies mandate vaccines. It's not only good for their employees, it's good for society at large.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Have you seen any trends and uptick in vaccination? Because I was looking at Alabama's vaccine distribution numbers-- it looks like there was a trend up between the end of July and through most of August. Was it because of some of those workplace mandates? We know that the vaccination percentage is still lower in Alabama compared to other states in the country, but it seems like there is that bit of a positive trajectory as of the last month and a half or so.

MICHAEL SAAG: Yeah, I think that's one thing. We have seen an increase, to answer your question-- a lot of reasons for that. One of which is that 95% to 98% of the deaths of people from COVID are among unvaccinated people. That means a lot of folks know someone who got COVID, went to the hospital, and died.

And pretty universally, those individuals were not vaccinated, in a lot of cases, they were vocally anti-vaxx, and then ironically and tragically, they end up in the morgue. And I think people start seeing that and go, wait, wait, wait, we need to rethink that. And I think that's part of what's going on. But I think vaccine mandates are starting to help accelerate the vaccines for us. And I'm sort of heartened to see that.

SEANA SMITH: Dr. Michael Saag, great to get your perspective-- Associate Dean for Global Health at University of Alabama at Birmingham. Thanks so much for taking the time.

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