One dose of the J&J COVID-19 vaccine is ‘certainly not enough’: Doctor
Dr. Shereef Elnahal, University Hospital CEO and Former NJ Department of Health Commissioner, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the latest in the coronavirus pandemic.
Video Transcript
I want to talk about not only what's going on with these vaccine mandates but what a lot of us are expecting as we go to our holiday gatherings in the era of the pandemic, because we're not out of it yet. We invite into the stream Dr. Shereef Elnahal, University Hospital CEO and the former New Jersey Director of Health commissioner. It's good to have you back, Doctor.
And as we look towards the holidays, people who are vaccinated, those who've gotten their boosters, should we still wear our masks when we're inside with our family?
SHEREEF ELNAHAL: Well, thank you so much for having me. I think as Dr. Fauci has been saying and so many other public health experts, if you are fully vaccinated and all of your loved ones and folks you're gathering with over the holiday season are fully vaccinated, there is no reason to wear masks and there's no reason to not gather at someone's home. I think it's important to know that you can have a fairly normal holiday season with a fully vaccinated cohort of people. Not one person in that group should be unvaccinated for this to apply.
And it's encouraging and I hope that that does encourage more folks who have not gotten primary vaccination to do so. But more importantly, if you are eligible for a booster, which now every adult in this country is eligible for a booster after six months for Moderna and Pfizer and after only two months for Johnson & Johnson, really try to get that booster as well. You should be able to gather safely for Thanksgiving and Christmas and other winter holidays. But if not, then I would caution against traveling. I would caution against gathering in the first place. And certainly, if you have to travel, do wear a mask indoors, even when you are with family, if you are unvaccinated.
- And Doctor, I want to ask you based on what we're seeing in Europe, cases rising in Austria and Germany, Chancellor Merkel saying it's the worst it's ever been. How worried should we be here that we see a similar sort of situation and do we expect to see a surge in cases over the winter? And does that mean that we're likely to see mutations as well?
SHEREEF ELNAHAL: Well, unfortunately, we're already seeing an increase in cases yet again in this country. Almost a 30% increase over the last 14 days if you count cases nationally. And the way this is working out, is that you have significant increases on a regional basis. So the upper Midwest in particular. Michigan very notably having an almost exponential increase in cases. But also Minnesota, Wisconsin, a lot of the upper Midwest and even the Northeast and New England, these are highly vaccinated areas. States like Vermont and other New England states are starting to see increases as well. New York State and now New Jersey is part of that story as well.
Unfortunately, I think the biggest piece of this is actually waning immunity. We know now that boosters are available to every single adult and the reason that the CDC and the FDA quickly changed course on this is because of a lot of reasons. Studies that show significant waning immunity for all three vaccines, but also these significant up trends in cases in the real world that we're seeing in this country.
And so the way this is happening is that unvaccinated people who remain in these areas tend to be super spreaders. And for folks who even who are fully vaccinated but are more than six months out or more than two months out in the case of Johnson & Johnson are susceptible to getting the disease and spreading it to their loved ones, especially if they have not gotten their booster as well. So all of this in summation speaks to the strong importance of everybody getting a booster, every adult in this country. Again, six months after Moderna and Pfizer, two months after J&J.
- And Doctor, going over that, what have your conversations been like with your patients? Have people been receptive to the booster discussion or is there still do you think, a lot of confusion out there just in terms of who should be getting it and when they should be getting it?
SHEREEF ELNAHAL: Our patients here at University Hospital aren't really as much expressing hesitancy or antithesis to the vaccine. They're expressing this sense of fatigue, which I understand. A lot of questions around well, you're telling me that the two shots were enough. Now you're telling me I have to get a third shot and this possibility of potentially getting one every year or every six months. And so our response to that is look, this is about protection. It's not about encouraging you to do anything that won't benefit you. And that's when you point to the data and you really try to stamp the misinformation and disinformation out there about the motives of folks who are trying to do this.
The epidemiologists out there, the CDC officials, the public health officials, only have one agenda and that's to keep you safe. We won't know how many more of these shots will be needed into the future. But a lot of really important epidemiologists, Dr. Peter Hotez one of them, is not anticipating that we will need to do so frequently after that third dose. That third dose may be what confers even longer term immunity than what we've seen so far. But the data is going to tell us that. The science is going to tell us that and that's what we're trying to tell our patients in the community here.
- Are they studying that third dose long term effectiveness, all the vaccines. But if you got the J&J vaccine, what some doctors who've joined us in the past have said is go ahead, get an mRNA vaccine. What would you advise?
SHEREEF ELNAHAL: That's where I would lean as well if you got that first dose of J&J, which interestingly does confer I think more of a cell mediated immunity. It's a little bit different from the type of immunity generated with antibody so it has its own advantages. But certainly one dose of J&J is certainly not enough. And so what I think people need is a booster. You may as well mix and match and get that mRNA vaccine, which will confer a slightly different type of immunity but these things complement each other. I think that's a sound recommendation. But right now, if you'd like to get that second dose of J&J, certainly better than not getting a second dose at all. And I would encourage you to do it.
- And then I want to turn your attention to children. And how is your hospital coordinating with New Jersey schools for COVID-19 distribution of the vaccines?
SHEREEF ELNAHAL: Yeah, it's a really important question. You're alluding to the fact that kids age 5 to 11 now are eligible for a Pfizer vaccine. We're talking about a vaccine that is only a third of the dose used for adults. That was very intentional, to maximize safety and minimize risk. But over 90% effectiveness in this cohort at preventing severe COVID-19. Real world studies are showing close to 100% at this point. We're talking about three million kids who have gotten this vaccine at this point with no cases of myocarditis reported as far as we know. All of which is good news.
And so we're taking all of these facts to the community here. We're doing a lot of forums with parents and different school districts. And we're also setting up weekend vaccination days for the school districts that requested to do this in the community and on our campus to allow for parents to be there and to allow for more of our community to be vaccinated. It's very important for every leader in as much as we did this for adult vaccinations, to be talking to parents about this. Because the initial studies only showed that about 30% of parents at this point are willing to vaccinate their 5 to 11 year old. We really have to change that. This is a large cohort of people in our society, kids age 5 to 11. If they are vaccinated, that will get us even closer to this concept of herd immunity and better protect all of us.
- Dr. Shareef Elnahal, thank you so much for joining us. Have a safe, healthy happy Thanksgiving.
