CDC: Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks

Dr. Kathleen Jordan, SVP Medical Affairs at Tia joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the latest COVID-19 vaccine news.

Video Transcript

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ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live." Some promising headlines on the COVID-19 front. Not only do daily cases continue to fall here in the US as well as forecasters predicting that fourth wave might not materialize here later in 2021, but also, updates coming from the CDC here in regards to Americans who have now been vaccinated.

Just coming out moments ago, the CDC's guidelines for what vaccinated Americans can do, how they should act out there, including some serious updates when it comes to interacting with people after getting vaccinated, saying that you can visit with fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing as well as you can visit unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 diseases, indoors again, without wearing masks.

They also stress that Americans who have been vaccinated should refrain from quarantine and testing even after a known exposure to COVID-19 if they are asymptomatic. Very interesting updates here. On that front and for more, we want to bring on our next guest. Dr. Kathleen Jordan is senior vice president of medical affairs at health care provider Tia. She joins us once again. Dr. Jordan, thanks for coming on.

I mean, I think that that's very optimistic news coming from the CDC. We were wondering how they were going to change their guidelines for Americans who get vaccinated. So what's your take on those new guidelines?

KATHLEEN JORDAN: It's great. We've known for a while that once vaccinated, you had a markedly decreased risk to transmit or get disease. It's not zero, but it's markedly decreased. I think it's all a sign that we're getting to be a more safe-- our communities are going to be more safe.

We had a rapidly decreasing decline in deaths, and it coincided with increasing vaccination, so it speaks to how well the vaccinations work and how important vaccination is in getting out of this pandemic. So I'm excited to see it. I think it motivates people to get vaccinated, which I think is going to help all of our communities.

AKIKO FUJITA: It sounds like you agree with the new guidelines, then, coming out from the CDC. I wonder if you can address that concern that you talked about-- whether, in fact, those who are vaccinated can still be carriers. The CDC guidelines today seem to suggest that that's kind of been laid to rest. Do you agree with that?

KATHLEEN JORDAN: I think all studies and preliminary review of data prior to today-- I haven't read the CDC guidelines exactly as they came out, right as we're getting on air. But data suggests that you are at a markedly decreased risk to test positive. Whether those tests relate to actually being infectious, we haven't yet seen that proven out. But we do know you're much less likely to test positive.

And we haven't seen through contact tracing outbreaks related to vaccinated people. We certainly see it at our health care facilities. We haven't seen outbreaks, and those used to drive 12% of the outbreaks. So vaccinated health care workers have no longer been driving outbreaks. So certainly, review to date suggests that vaccinated persons are safe in the community. I think we don't know also durability. So how long will that vaccinated state last? So I think we still have to stay tuned as well.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and that's and that's kind of the update we're getting from the CDC too, saying this is kind initial form of guidelines to come, but they'll update it as the science progresses. And I think that's important to always see, that it is based in science, something that is refreshing here.

But when we look at it, there are also those questions that we keep hearing from a lot of people saying, look, if you couldn't go back to normal, what was the whole point of getting the vaccine anyways? And it seems like these guidelines are stressing that those that you might interact with after getting vaccinated-- you still need to worry about severe cases, those particularly in older populations and other things like that. And I guess that becomes a very difficult fine line to really stress to the public because it seems like you're starting to split hairs there in terms of this return to normal. So when you look at it from a public health perspective, how difficult does that then become for the CDC to really make these more nuanced guidelines as we move forward?

KATHLEEN JORDAN: It's going to be a complicated year. I mean, if you look, a quarter of Americans have been vaccinated now, so it's getting to be significant. But most of those people are in very specific age groups, and they don't live in households with everyone vaccinated. So vaccinated people can get together and have small groups, but that excludes, largely, part of your household.

So we're not going to see big shifts today because of the CDC guideline. I think hopefully, it will motivate people to get their entire household vaccinated so that we can see that light at the end of the tunnel and returning to more normalcy. But again, in our communities, while 25% are vaccinated, 75% are not. It is great because mostly the people vaccinated are in high-risk groups, and that's why we've seen the great decrease in deaths that's been phenomenal to watch and be a part of. But I think we still have some work to do.

AKIKO FUJITA: You are, of course, focused on women's health over at Tia. Throughout the pandemic, there's been a lot of concern that patients in general have been putting off their annual checkups as a result of the pandemic. For women, a lot of women putting off mammograms as well. To what extent have you seen some of those activities resume, and are there still concerns that a lot of patients aren't feeling comfortable enough to go back into the doctor's office because there's a lot of warning signs that could be missed?

KATHLEEN JORDAN: I think what we've seen is a couple of things. One, by really expanding our telemedicine capabilities, we really addressed access issues. So we've certainly seen women leaving the workforce because of childcare duties. But by adding telemedicine, we've given them access from home.

We've also added our access to mental health by adding therapists, because we've seen that demand grow. So we've certainly responded to the clinical needs of women in different ways. And those, I think, will be sustained for a long time.

I would like to see more engagement on the usual preventative medicine. We've been so focused on COVID as a nation, but we still need to get into dietary lifestyle issues, health, exercise, nutrition. We still need to see people return to getting mammograms, getting their cholesterol screened, getting pap smears. So I certainly don't want to see women pay a toll down the road for not having engaged in these preventative health cares for more than a year. So we are beginning to see that trickle back in and resume, but I'd like to see it happening in more volume.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah. Certainly hope that accelerates along with the vaccination process. Dr. Kathleen Jordan joining us from Tia. It's good to talk to you today.