Merck's new COVID-19 pill 'not a replacement for the vaccine': Doctor
Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Divisions of Infectious Disease and Pulmonary, Critical Care Medicine at the University of Virginia Dr. Taison Bell joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the latest coronavirus developments.
Video Transcript
- We stay in touch with COVID-19 and the trends which have impact on the markets with the infections as well as the death rate. We want to discuss what's going on with the latest now with the pandemic as we invite in Dr. Taison Bell, assistant professor of medicine in the divisions of infectious disease and pulmonary critical care medicine at the University of Virginia. Thank you so much for joining us, Doctor.
TAISON BELL: Thank you for having me.
- Want to start off with the news that Johnson & Johnson is filing for approval of its vaccine to do booster shots. What do you take from this?
TAISON BELL: I think this is good news and the FDA is going to have a very busy October. So, the 14 to 15th we're going to be discussing Moderna boosters in addition to Johnson & Johnson, and then at 26 on their schedule are booster shots for Pfizer for kids five to 11.
But I'm particularly happy about the Johnson & Johnson announcement because a lot of folks who have received Johnson & Johnson, about 15 million, have had a lot of questions. We did see that there is a lower efficacy against hospitalization compared to Moderna and Pfizer, so hopefully this means that we'll have a decision on boosters by the end of the month. I do anticipate, based on what I've seen, that they will be approved but welcomed news.
- Doctor, we heard from Dr. Fauci over the weekend, he was warning that it's still too early to let our guard down, although he did say, of course, that we are progressing in the right direction. Are we at risk of another wave in your opinion? And I guess, what should we prepare for over the coming months?
TAISON BELL: Sure, a good question. And as we've seen the nature of the virus has really been to the peak to subside and then to come back with a bang. So it's true, our cases are down, hospitalisations and deaths are all going down, I'm certainly encouraged by that and I certainly hope that it stays that way.
But we really can't let up right now and have complacency set in and pull back on things like masking indoors or pull back our vaccination efforts. We really have to keep our heads down and do what we need to do to try to prevent another wave from coming because, again, the nature of the virus has been they come back and they come back over again.
- Dr. Fauci also advised as we all get ready to say for Thanksgiving, that the way to protect yourself and others is, one, make sure you're fully vaccinated, two, wear a mask, if you're going to gather with people, do it outdoors.
But the best way to celebrate he suggested would be a virtual kind of holiday. I think a great many of us are going to cheat and not do the virtual holiday. Does it worry you that even if you're vaccinated and follow those protocols that just getting together with the people you love may pose a risk?
TAISON BELL: I think for many things like this, Adam, is going to be a combination of your risk tolerance and of those who are around you because many of us have many different circumstances. I mean, some families are going to have people that are older in age, immunocompromised or for whatever reason are going to be higher risk. And even if you're coming around with the majority are vaccinated, that might be a higher risk sort of setting.
So I think what Dr. Fauci and the White House is trying to do is set the tone because we don't want to get ahead of ourselves and say that it's going to be OK if we do unfortunately see another wave peaking around that time.
We saw over the winter, over the winter last year that the coronavirus really exploded with the indoor-- with travel, being indoors more, and not being able to do things like open windows, and that's really a great environment for the virus to circulate. So, we just have to be prepared for that possibility.
- Doctor, we also had the Merck news out on Friday, just in terms of what we could potentially see in order to keep the pandemic under control. Certainly there are some excitement around that news, the fact that their COVID pill it's cutting the risks of hospitalizations, also cuts the risk of deaths in just about half I believe. How significant is this in fighting COVID and getting the pandemic under control?
TAISON BELL: Well, this will be a huge development because this would be the first oral anti-COVID therapy and we haven't had one so far. So the monoclonal antibodies, they work very well but they require an IV and that means you need a facility and you need extra staff, which are hard to come by nowadays. So this is something that you could see easily distributed in pharmacies and doctor's offices and the efficacy is very good.
Now, I want to remind people that this is not a replacement for the vaccine. It's 50% efficacy, you know, that's still good but the vaccines are much better than that. So this would be like going out to a rainstorm, leaving your umbrella at the door and putting a magazine over your head. Yes, it'll do something but you'd rather have that full umbrella protection of the vaccine. So I'm happy to see it, we still have to make sure that we're vaccinating as many people as possible.
- The New York city public school system, largest in the nation. I think the data shows that well over 95% of the faculty as well as the administrators have gotten their vaccines, I think in one case it's like 98%, yet there was opposition to this. What's the takeaway for you that so many finally did comply despite trying to fight it, with the vaccine mandate?
TAISON BELL: I think what it means is that the sentiment is tipping towards more and more vaccine requirements which I think is a good thing because we know vaccines save lives, therefore vaccine requirements also save lives. My wife used to be a teacher and one of the things that I've seen from working with children is that it can be very physically and emotionally exhausting.
People are drained by the time they come home and they love what they do but it can be very challenging, and the pandemic has added just another layer of complexity and mental strain to that. So one of the benefits that I have as a health care worker is the colleagues that I work around me are all vaccinated and so we know that we're all maximally protective, which means that ourselves we're safe and those around us and those that we love are safe, and I think teachers deserve that too.
So, a lot of this is framed in a context of children, which of course 48 million, five to 11 aren't eligible for vaccination yet or younger but I think this is really good for teachers. It means that we'll have more teachers alive and thriving by the time the school year is at the end.
- Dr. Taison Bell is an assistant professor of Medicine in the Divisions of infectious disease and pulmonary critical care medicine at the University of Virginia. Thank you so much for joining us on Yahoo Finance Live.