Advertisement
U.S. Markets open in 2 hrs 1 min
  • S&P Futures

    5,195.00
    -19.75 (-0.38%)
     
  • Dow Futures

    39,140.00
    -83.00 (-0.21%)
     
  • Nasdaq Futures

    18,134.00
    -97.50 (-0.53%)
     
  • Russell 2000 Futures

    2,042.90
    -6.90 (-0.34%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    82.63
    -0.09 (-0.11%)
     
  • Gold

    2,158.60
    -5.70 (-0.26%)
     
  • Silver

    25.15
    -0.11 (-0.46%)
     
  • EUR/USD

    1.0851
    -0.0026 (-0.2387%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.3400
    0.0000 (0.00%)
     
  • Vix

    14.77
    +0.44 (+3.07%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2689
    -0.0040 (-0.3147%)
     
  • USD/JPY

    150.4540
    +1.3560 (+0.9095%)
     
  • BTC-USD

    62,480.54
    -5,839.41 (-8.55%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,704.56
    -17.99 (-0.23%)
     
  • Nikkei 225

    40,003.60
    +263.20 (+0.66%)
     

‘All the teachers should be mandated now to get the vaccine’: Doctor

Dr. Andre Campbell, Professor of Surgery of UCSF & ICU Physician and Trauma Surgeon Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You might want to rethink your travel plans this upcoming Labor Day weekend, especially if you're unvaccinated. That's because the CDC today is urging unvaxxed Americans to stay home over the holiday weekend, as the US battles back a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations caused by the highly contagious Delta variant. The US is currently averaging 160,000 new COVID cases each day.

Joining me now is Dr. Andre Campbell, professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, an ICU physician and trauma surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Dr. Campbell, it is always good to see you. Just tell us what you are seeing there--

ANDRE CAMPBELL: Great to see you, too.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --in California in terms of ICU beds and new hospitalizations

ANDRE CAMPBELL: So, Alexis, thank you for having me. We are in a new phase. It's a little bit Back to the Future again. We're back to where we were. But we have to remember, this is a new variant and a variant that is much more virulent, much more powerful, and there's way more patients than there were before. Overall, in California, we've had a decrease in ICU availability to about 1,500 beds or so. That's the worse it's been since January.

In our local area, it has not-- has been as tough. Although we do have ICU patients in our hospital, we have about 10 patients in the ICU. So we do have a number, but, you know, at one point, the worst of the pandemic, we had in our hospital, we had 70 patients. And now we have about 20 COVID positive patients. So we have less, and we're also 80% vaccinated. And I think that's impacting some of our numbers here in northern California. Southern California, it is worse. And there are a lot more numbers that are higher there.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You know, doctor, I did read, though, some encouraging news. And we'll get all that we can take, right, where we can get it. But hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients in the US are actually declining for the first time since late June. Do you read that as a sign that perhaps this latest surge may have peaked, at least for now?

ANDRE CAMPBELL: I think we have to hope that it is. And I think we have to take-- and we have to take good news whenever we could take it. And I'm happy to hear that that is. And I've seen the curves go down, like you have. The problem is we have multiple things going on. We have a pandemic, right, that is quite severe now, changing to the Delta brand.

But we also have multiple national disasters. We have, you know, a massive fire here in California, multiple fires. We have Hurricane Ida that just struck Louisiana. So all the things that you do to make sure you don't get infected-- the distancing, the well ventilated areas, wearing a mask, or washing your hands, all those things, you can't do. So Louisiana, Texas, Florida already hard hit. It will get worse there before it gets better.

That's combined with kids going back to school. There's a bit of a surge with kids going back to school, too, because there is a little bit more debate than I think that there should be. Masking is safe. We should mask our kids. Let's protect our kids until they can get the vaccine. It's now fully approved for 16 and over. We're waiting for the data for less-- younger kids. Let's protect our kids and make sure that they're not a source now of the next wave.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Right, exactly. I mean, I'm glad you brought up children because they seem to be increasingly in the fire line. More kids in the US were hospitalized with COVID-19 last month than at any time during this pandemic. What can they do? What can families do? We know that there's this huge debate with schools across the country as to whether or not kids should be mandated to mask. But how can families best protect those young folks who cannot yet get the vaccination?

ANDRE CAMPBELL: I think it's simple. And the simple message I have is that let's get the kids in masks, right? Masks don't hurt. They're safe. And the kids will wear them. So if we do that in the short term, that will help protect the kids. Remember, we've had 204,000 new cases in kids. On average, there's 330 new cases of children being hospitalized in the United States. So what we have to do, we have to do anything we can do. And this debate about masking up, it shouldn't be a debate.

Let's do what's safe for our kids. Let's protect them. Mask come up. Make sure all the adults around them, that means all the teachers should be mandated now to get the vaccine. All the people working in the school should be mandated. I'm actually encouraged that schools like Virginia Tech and other institutions are now beginning to mandate that if you don't have it, you can't prove it, you can't come to school. Because the schools, both small and kids who are in college, adults, right, they can actually spread the infection. And that's what we've got to stop.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Mm-hmm. Do you think that ultimately, it's going to come down to mandating vaccinations for this country to reach some sort of herd immunity and for us to finally start to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror?

ANDRE CAMPBELL: I think so. right now, we have about 52% people fully vaccinated. Now, I was sad, but maybe encouraged that the EU has 70% vaccination. They started behind us. We should-- our numbers should be way up above 70% because the Delta variant is much more virulent. And herd immunity, which kind of, the number we talk about, people say 70%, it may be 80% now, right? So we have to make sure that we protect each other. The boosters are coming for people who, first of all, are immunosuppressed and the folks who basically need to have their immune system augmented, and then for everyone in September.

But I think we have to do every single thing we can to push this back. Because think about what it was like in June. In June, we thought things were turning the tide. There was only 10,000 cases. Now we're up above 150,000 cases. And that's because the Delta variant in June was 1% of our infections. Now, it's 99%. So it has changed the character of the pandemic.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And what's your message, finally, to those who are looking at gathering over the Labor Day weekend, perhaps traveling? We know the CDC is urging those unvaccinated to stay home. That, I think, is a tall order. And, you know, if these people are thinking about perhaps doing activities indoors as well, what would your message be to them, doctor?

ANDRE CAMPBELL: So, remember, this is a pandemic now of the unvaccinated. So that means that greater than 96%, 97% of the people in the hospital and the people who are dying are unvaccinated. If you travel, you get exposed, and you expose others. So the unvaccinated folks are the ones who are actually spreading the virus around. So I think to protect everybody because they're even-- you know, when you read what the head of the CDC said, she said even if you're vaccinated, you should be careful, always wearing those masks, always protecting yourself and your family, being careful.

So the message is, I would say, don't travel over the Labor Day weekend, unless you absolutely have to. Obviously, the children going back to school and so forth. And there are adults-- young adults going back to college. And they have to go. But you have to make sure you're protected. Be careful. Mask up. The handwashing, the distancing, all those things that we know that work until everybody can get vaccinated.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, well, Dr. Andre Campbell, always good to see you. And thanks for that bit of advice.

Advertisement