Doctor on Texas lifting mask mandate: Covid-19 protocols still needed to keep numbers mitigated
Dr. Dori Russ, Medical Director of the Russ Group, joined Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest on Covid-19.
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: Governors of Texas and Mississippi rolling back most of their COVID-19 restrictions, including the statewide mask mandates. We're going to talk more about this with Dr. Dori Russ, the medical director of the Russ Group. And Dr. Ross, great to have you on the show. The decisions that we just got out yesterday from Mississippi and also from the state of Texas, the big question is, is it too soon to do this? What do you think?
DORI RUSS: Well, you know, we have the numbers. We know that in Texas, about 12% of the adults have been immunized. Our concern is that the theory of herd immunity, we're actually shooting for about 70%. So it's going to be a matter of people still using all of the health imaging that they've received over the past year. So, social distancing, still washing hands, still, if they choose, wearing a mask to keep the numbers medicated.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Dr. Russ, I was curious what we should consider when a state like Connecticut has changed the protocol by which they innoculate. They're just doing it by age now. They still prioritize teachers, first responders, that kind of thing. But now they're doing it in blocks. I think it's as young as 55. Whereas states like New York are not doing that. Is one or the other a better way to do this?
DORI RUSS: I think we all hope that there be a coordinated response, but we do understand that states know their populations best, and they can assess where the most benefit from an impact will come. Again, I'm down in Florida so we've been different than everyone else in the country since it began. But again, we have a huge senior population.
Again, a coordinated approach would have been preferred. But as long as states are actively notifying their citizens that they can be vaccinated, that they're going through the process, the goal is to get as many people vaccinated as soon as possible.
SEANA SMITH: Well, and Dr. Russ, just give us a better picture of what exactly is going on in Florida right now. Do you have access to the number of vaccines that you needed, and how has that process been going over the last several weeks?
DORI RUSS: So, yes, Governor De Santis on Friday actually just issued a new emergency order allowing patients with chronic medical diseases to be immunized. So that's been huge, especially for the patient population that I serve. So, again, we started with healthcare workers. Then we started with senior citizens. And we actually had our first cutoff at 65, whereas most states had 75. Then we opened it up to vulnerable populations, but they had to have documentation from a hospital setting. And now it's open to the outpatient setting for those same patients.
We are one of the states that are immunizing pregnant women. And again, that's been something that's been very popular to talk about because, again, pregnant women were included in the trials. So most of the academies have come out and stated that the benefit of the COVID vaccine outweighs the risk of pregnant women as well. So that's exciting to see that we are part of that curve and getting everybody immunized as fast as possible.
One of the biggest things that we've had to deal with in Florida are health disparities, of course. And so, initially, there was a problem with both vaccine hesitancy, where certain populations didn't want the vaccine and certain populations didn't have access to the vaccine. So making sure to address educating those populations to understand why it is critical was part of reducing vaccine hesitancy and opening up access in a variety of centers, whether it be partnering with faith-based organizations, using different community centers, as well as different state agencies to make sure the vaccines were able to be distributed.
ADAM SHAPIRO: I'm curious, too, doctor-- a native Floridian here.
DORI RUSS: Oh.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Both of my parents in South Florida got their vaccines, thank God. I saw that Publix is going to start offering vaccines, the big supermarket chain down there. What is Florida doing right? And compared to New York, almost to the same size-- Florida is a little bit larger-- you've vaccinated more people. It's more than two million. We vaccinated, I think, roughly two million.
But your outcomes, the number of infections, the number of deaths, I think Florida, despite its less rigorous lockdown than New York, has actually fared better than New York. Is that accurate? Is there something at play there?
DORI RUSS: I will do full disclosure. I think there's always been a question to how accurate Florida's reporting of the numbers are. I'm just going to put that out there. If we assume that the data is accurate, then, yes, again, we have a lot of places where people can go outdoors, where they can socially distance. And that might be one of the contributing factors, if we assume the data is correct. If we assume that there's a problem with the data, that leads to a whole host of questions that I'm unable to answer. But I have my own personal thoughts.
