Putin claims Russia has COVID-19 vaccine

Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani joins the On the Move panel to discuss Vladimir Putin’s claims that Russia has a COVID-19 vaccine.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: I want to get to that Russia news first because that is what's really prompting and spurring this risk-on tenor that we are seeing in the markets. As I mentioned, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced registration of the first vaccine for coronavirus. Our Anjalee Khemlani covers all the vaccine developments for us. Anjalee, What does this mean, exactly? So we talked about registration. There there's a lot of skepticism globally about this, and it seems clear that Russia has not gone through the various-- all the stages of clinical trials that are necessary elsewhere in the world.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's correct, Julie. That would be the equivalent of really any of the front-runners here in the US getting approval for their vaccine right now. What we know is that, you know, generally, in the-- in this race for a vaccine, the timeline has been condensed, when you talk about phase one and phase two trials. And that is just to test whether or not the vaccine is tolerated and effective, to some degree. But really seeing the full effective features of the vaccine and the long-lasting ability of it, that is what takes the time that cannot be rushed, and that's something health experts have repeatedly said.

So right now, what we've seen is that the Russian government has approved this vaccine, based on just those initial stage results, and it's still ongoing in their late-stage trials, which is what is happening here in the US as well. And many other front-runner vaccines are also, you know, in their late-stage trials with expected results by the fall.

So the fact that we've seen this pretty early is concerning, and we don't have any data to support what the Kremlin is saying. So that's something that everyone is really concerned about. It's the equivalent of really the concerns here in the US where, you know, the president keeps saying that he's confident about-- or optimistic, rather, about a vaccine by the end of the year or before election day, while health experts are warning that you cannot, in fact, rush this last stage of the trials. And so that is pretty much unlikely right now.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, and Putin also saying, by the way, his own daughter is receiving the vaccine there. Anjalee, meanwhile, here in the US, we have seen the pace of new cases slow down, to some extent. Do we know why that's happening, and do we know whether it can last?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: It really is a question of whether or not measures that have been put in place-- you know, we've seen increasingly, at the state level, mask mandates coming out. And so that has certainly helped, as well as some social distancing rules. So with greater adoption of that is what health experts have repeatedly, you know, asked for. With greater adoption of that, that can continue.

Right now, we're seeing cases below 50,000 a day for the second day in a row, and that's a month after they surpassed that mile marker, which really started some concern among health officials. So whether or not this continues, we'll see. We also know that deaths have been a concern, but we've seen some promising, you know, trends in that respect with, you know, protocols, including Remdesivir and Dexamethasone and proning, which is, you know, laying patients on their stomachs. So as more is being understood about the virus and how it spreads, the response to that is key to reducing the trend.

JULIE HYMAN: Anjalee, thank you very much.