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‘If you don’t get vaccinated, you will get Covid at this point’: Doctor

Dr. Lakshman Swamy, ICU Physician at Cambridge Health Alliance and Boston Medical Center, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. Surging COVID-19 cases and the rising number of children now contracting the virus are causing many health experts to worry about the outlook as the school year gets underway across the country. Joining me to talk about it is Dr. Lakshman Swamy, ICU Physician at Cambridge Health Alliance and Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Swamy, always good to see you. I'm curious what you're seeing on the ground there in your ICU at Boston Medical, because yesterday I had a physician on in Portland, Oregon who was talking about how their ICU unit is exhausted right now and they simply have no beds.

LAKSHMAN SWAMY: Yeah, thanks for having me. You know, fortunately, in Boston, from my experience and I'm sure the experience of my colleagues, is that it is getting worse, but it is not near there yet. I think when I read about and talk to my colleagues out in Oregon, I think that reminds me of last spring. Right now for us, we have pockets of that.

We're not yet expanding to extra teams, and expanding the ICU, taking over the hospital. The hospitals are so full. We're really chock full of just sick people who need care. And on top of that, we are getting more and more extremely sick patients with COVID.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And are those extremely sick patients with COVID those who are unvaccinated? Or are you seeing a growing number of those breakthrough infections where there are serious complications even in those who have been fully vaccinated?

LAKSHMAN SWAMY: You know, what I'm seeing is that there are people who are vaccinated with breakthrough infections that are coming to the hospitals and getting admitted. I'm not seeing any of them that are critically ill. You know, most of-- this is different, right? Before, we didn't see anyone who is vaccinated who was getting sick. I'm starting to see that now in Boston. But those patients are not the people who are, frankly, dying in the ICU. All of those patients are unvaccinated.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And are you able to, at least within your hospital, care for people who are coming in with non-COVID related issues? Because we know at the height of the pandemic last year, it was really, really tough to get any kind of care even if you were a COVID patient. But if you didn't have COVID, it was nearly impossible to get the care that you needed in a timely way in many parts of our country.

LAKSHMAN SWAMY: Yeah, and I think we're still dealing with the aftermath of that and will be for a while. No, fortunately, I think across Boston it's probably safe to say that we have the capacity to care for people. We want people to get the care they need. We want people to seek care. It's safe to come to the hospitals.

Please call us, please call your doctors, please don't delay getting the care you need. That said, like I said, the hospitals are very full. Now, hospitals are used to operating at very full levels like this. But you know, one patient with COVID in the ICU that's on the ventilator is just-- it's just so much sicker, and so much more time and work for the ICU staff. So it is changing.

You know, we're still taking care of people and I don't think that will stop. Of course, that'll never stop ever, but in the sense of elective-- so-called elective operations and all of that. But it's heating up. It is. And people are just so exhausted. I don't know what else to say. It's a different kind of exhaustion now.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, I mean, I can hear it in your voice. And it's exactly what the doctor that we spoke to yesterday in Portland, Oregon was relaying to us. I want to talk about the kids, because this is really troubling-- and I know both of us have children under 12. You have three under 12 who are going to school right now. Children now represent more than a quarter of all new COVID cases in this country. What are you doing, personally, doctor, to keep your kids safe as they go back into the classroom?

LAKSHMAN SWAMY: There's a lot of things, I think, that we can do. And I still think that there's a safe way to have kids in school. But that takes effort, that takes leadership, that takes you financial support, it takes all of that. In my school, you know, we're doing a lot. We've upgraded the ventilation significantly over the last year.

We are mandating masks for all the kids and staff. Everyone in the school is going to be masked. Everyone indoors is going to be masked. And we are seriously considering, and I'm certainly in favor of mandating, vaccination for our staff and teachers. Is that enough? I mean, the school is part of the community, so I think a big part of it is what we do with our kids outside of school too.

You know, I recently attended a wedding. My kids only went to the outdoor parts. When I was indoors, I was wearing-- a lot-- I was wearing my N95, frankly. And that-- you know, this is a highly vaxxed population that I'm with, but I think that we need to take Delta very seriously.

I think it is more important than ever to say that Delta is different. And if you don't get vaccinated, you will get COVID at this point. I don't think there's any avoiding it. So vaccination is just more important than ever.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You know, doctor, to stick with the kids for a moment, you know, here in New York City where Broadway is reopening, a lot of the shows that cater to younger kids who can't yet be vaccinated are not doing very well, frankly. Ticket sales are down for shows like "The Lion King" and other Disney shows that are on Broadway. You know, kids are being invited to birthday parties and parents are freaking out going, should I send my kid to this indoor party?

So you're right in saying that we need to think about how we're dealing with our children outside of school. What would your professional recommendation be to parents who are trying to do things with their kids in an active way outside of school right now-- how best to protect them there?

LAKSHMAN SWAMY: I think it's really important to keep the kids masked. That's the one thing we can do right now while we're waiting for a vaccine approval. So you know, that means that you got to really work with your kids to say, how can we make this comfortable for you? The mask is, in many ways, a ticket to be able to do more things, potentially.

Still, being in a crowded indoor space, I don't love it. I think to some degree, you know, we accept a risk of that with school. But in our schools, we saw that the enhanced ventilation and everything else we did made a huge difference. And when we were doing screening, testing of asymptomatic kids and staff, there was no COVID in there even while COVID was high in the community.

So there is a lot we can do. And schools, I think, can be safer. Outside of schools, you've got to think hard-- can this be done outside? You know, we're still in the tail end of summer here. I think we should still be doing everything outside as much as possible. When we're inside, can you keep it a little less dense? Can you keep the time down? Can you keep everyone masked?

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, I think that's, unfortunately, the key right now. My daughter started school this morning. She went in with a few masks. Dr. Lakshman Swamy, ICU Physician at Cambridge Health Alliance and Boston Medical Center, always good to see you.

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