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Wearing masks is something we should consider possibly in every flu, winter season: Doctor

Dr. Hiral Tipirneni, Emergency Medicine Physician, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

- Listen on this. For that, we want to bring in Dr. Hiral Tiperneni, Emergency Medicine Physician. And Dr. Tiperneni, it's great to see you again. I guess just based on the data--

HIRAL TIPERNENI: Good to see you.

- --that you have seen and what is out there right now, do you think a third shot is warranted?

HIRAL TIPERNENI: Well, thanks for having me. This is, you know, again, we have seen incredible data that has come from, for example, the study in Israel that has shown a clear drop in antibody protection for folks after a certain period after receiving their two-jab vaccine. But let's-- I like that Anjalee mentioned that, you know, the immune system has multiple components.

An antibody measurement is just one aspect of assessing the level of immunity. We have humoral, we have cellular immunity. There are other aspects of your immune system that are working. But as she mentioned, those are slightly more difficult to measure.

And although antibody levels are certainly very clear cut and easier to assess, we have to look at the whole immune response to really know if immunity is truly waning or is it just that those antibody levels are down. And that really, I think, is measured by the level of infection, the level of people who are getting those breakthrough infections. Those are other pieces of the data that, I think, really have to tie into this picture before we decide across the board that, yes, we need boosters.

And then also to decide what are the demographics, you know? I think we know that the elderly are obviously the folks that are most at risk. So it makes sense that if anybody receives them first, it would be the people over age 65, obviously nursing home, patients, health care professionals, immunocompromised individuals. Those are all those highest risk groups that we need to make sure we protect first.

- And Doctor, if we don't get 100% endorsement, I guess, how is this going to complicate then the messaging that's coming from the Biden administration? Are you worried about any pushback as a result of that?

HIRAL TIPERNENI: I am. And that's a great point because there's already so much vaccine hesitancy out there. And, I think, a big component of what leads to that is that there isn't always been clear messaging.

I think we have to be very clear and we have to be thoughtful about when we present the data and make sure that there's a consensus so we're not doing this piecemeal, you know? As , I think, you referenced earlier in one of the other conversations, you know, the Biden administration brought out some information a few weeks ago talking about rolling out a booster program. It's sort of putting somewhat the cart before the horse.

We need to, you know, address the fact that we still have a large percentage of our population that remains unvaccinated. And, I think, the vaccine mandates that the Biden administration recently brought out, I think, it was last week, that's going to have a huge impact. We've already seen rises in levels of vaccination related to companies mandating it or the federal government mandating it for federal employees and so forth. So we have to make sure that the messaging is clear, it is proven by the data, and it is consistent because we already have so much disinformation out there. And there's enough vaccine hesitancy that we don't want to muddy the waters.

- And Doctor, you're based in Arizona the state, as we talked about last time you were on the show, facing a shortage of ICU beds. As we now are in the middle of September what's the current situation in your state?

HIRAL TIPERNENI: Yeah, the numbers are still incredibly high. We are having cases around 2,500, I think, was the number today. That seems to be around the consistent place that we're at. Hospitals are certainly inundated. You know, the cries from the hospitals themselves, the hospital systems.

Physicians all across our communities remain strong asking people to please, please, please if you're not vaccinated, get vaccinated. We want schools to mandate masks because that is another point of discussion in our state. Our governor has banned any mask mandates, which has led to an incredible rise of pediatric COVID cases. The-- the under 20 population that demographic is now the second highest number of COVID cases in our state. So that's of concern.

Now, remember that you know fighting against this pandemic there's sort of a multifactorial way we can do this. It's a layered approach. There's vaccines, there's masks, there's appropriate ventilation, there's rapid and consistent testing. All of these measures have to be considered as we continue to fight this pandemic.

We are not out of the woods as we see clearly by the numbers. Every day we are-- here in our state we're almost a 20,000 Arizonans that have lost their lives. We are over 650,000 Americans that have lost their lives. We still have a ways to go. And we have to be very consistent about the measures that we are putting in place to protect all of our communities.

- And speaking of those measures, we're heading into the fall and the winter months, especially where I'm currently based in the Northeast. Certainly, more people will be gathering inside because the weather gets to be a little bit colder. What's the most important thing for people to keep in mind over the next several months?

HIRAL TIPERNENI: You know, if you saw the data from last winter, what we saw, especially here in Arizona was a huge decrease in flu-related hospitalizations and illnesses. And it's-- it's quite simple. At that time it was, you know, prior to vaccines being commonplace but people were masking, people were socially distancing, they were washing their hands, they were being very mindful of staying home and away from other folks if they were sick. Those are common public health measures that we can all continue to follow.

With the flu season coming people should certainly make sure that they are getting their flu vaccine, they're getting their flu shots on time. That they continue to use these common sense measures. If you are sick, stay at home, wash your hands frequently. We know about easy transfer of viruses.

You know, wearing masks is something that we should consider possibly in every flu season and every winter season when people are indoors, as you mentioned in, tightly packed areas. And, you know, we're-- we're not in the summer months necessarily the warmer times where you have windows open and easy ventilation. So all of those measures we saw that that had an impact on the flu incidence rates. And we should continue to implement those measures because those are smart public health measures that work regardless of whether we're addressing COVID or we're addressing the flu.

- And certainly I hope many people are listening right now. Dr. Hiral Tiperneni, emergency medicine physician, always great to speak with you. Thanks so much again for taking the time to join.

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