Doctors in Connecticut are asking Governor Lamont to close gyms and indoor dining as coronavirus cases surge across America. Dr Luke Davis, Associate Professor at Yale School of Public Health & Attending Physician at Yale New Haven Hospital joins Yahoo Finance Live to weigh in.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. Well, on Thursday, we saw 216,000 new cases of the coronavirus reported in the US, 2,857-- roughly 2,900-- Americans dying as a result. And we've seen a number of governors move to impose new restrictions. Over in California, Governor Gavin Newsom laying out guidelines that are based on hospitalization rates. We've also seen that play out in New York. Over in Connecticut, Governor Lamont facing new pressure to close gyms and indoor dining, as the case counts rise there as well.

Let's bring in Dr. Luke Davis, who's an associate professor at Yale School of Public Health and an attending physician at Yale Medicine in Yale New Haven Hospital. Dr. Davis, it's good to talk to you today. I want to start by talking about this hospitalization issue or just more focus on that. We've seen-- we heard from Governor Newsom here in California talk about how the restrictions will be based on the capacity that individual hospitals have. That's a little different than what we saw early on in the pandemic where there was much more focus on the positivity rate. How much more effective do you think this can be, especially at a time when there is so much fatigue about restrictions?

LUKE DAVIS: Well, Akiko, thank you for having me on. And there are a lot of indicators, of course, that our governors are looking at and trying to understand. But I think the bottom line, we, as physicians, see the patients coming in the ICU, and we know that we only have so many beds. But even more importantly than that, we only have so many critical care nurses, respiratory therapists, and critical care physicians.

And the message that I would just want to send is that to get the best outcomes, we need to have enough time and enough capacity for those individuals to do their jobs. And as these numbers increase, it's taken us back to some of the dark days that we saw last spring.

ZACK GUZMAN: And Doctor, I mean, we've seen states battling in different ways. Akiko was kind of laying out the hospitalization percentage threshold used by some. It's different each state you go to here. And all of them-- I mean, we talk to governors or politicians-- seem to be pointing to COVID fatigue here.

How much of this state-by-state rules-making might be doing more harm when you kind of have to figure out what's right? You even saw the CDC kind of shrinking their quarantine guidelines here because-- kind of highlighting the fact that Americans might not actually follow the rules if you kept it so long. So talk to me about where we're at in terms of fatigue right now and how hard that's making it on medical staff to make sure Americans comply with guidelines.

LUKE DAVIS: Well, I mean, nobody likes to talk about serious things like being hospitalized or getting into the ICU, much less dying of COVID. So I think it's certainly natural and understandable that people are reluctant to face these items. But I think that's really why we wanted to speak out. It's to say, this is what we're seeing here on the frontlines and just to make people aware.

You know, we do have a choice. We know increasingly about COVID and what we can do to prevent it. And that's really the fundamental message that we want to get across is avoid large gatherings, wear masks. This is really a critical time.

I think one thing that's been misunderstood is that those things that-- we talk about limiting exposure help, but when the case rates get so high in the community, that is only reducing things from very high level to a moderately high level. And the best thing that people can do is stay home.

AKIKO FUJITO: And to that point that Zack just made about COVID fatigue kicking in, we had the Restaurant Association in LA, for example, sue public health officials and say, you have to present the science for why outdoor dining needs to be banned right now. I know in the state of Connecticut where you are, there is a push now to ban indoor dining as well. What does the science suggest on how much the virus's spread can be curbed as a result of eliminating any kind dining, except for just takeout?

LUKE DAVIS: Right. I think the approach that's been taken has been a phased approach here in Connecticut and other country-- states around the country. And of course, there-- we can monitor the number of cases and number of hospitalizations. But really, you know, at this point, we're approaching a critical point. Once our ICUs are full, we know from the data that's come out in the spring that the mortality-- in those dark days of March and early April, mortality was three times what it was as time went on into June.

And that's not so much because we have new therapies for COVID. We have some modest therapies that are beneficial. But it's really because of having enough providers to be able to have enough time to attend to these patients. And I think that's really the message that we want to get across is that the other indicators, you know, they are lagging indicators, compared to what we're seeing here in the ICU.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, that's really what's scary, when you think about how these are lagging indicators and you see cases continue to set daily records, what that's going to mean when you get further along down the road. I do want to ask you about one of the issues that the President-elect Joe Biden saying that he's going to try and institute when he comes into office, 100 days of wearing masks. At a federal level, it might seem small, but I'd be curious to get your reaction to that, if you do have a national mask mandate, how important that would be just to kind of put it top of mind for Americans everywhere, rather than having to deal with governors who might not even want to put that into place.

LUKE DAVIS: Right. Well, I mean, I think having spokespeople to get out there and encourage people I think can be as important as mandates. You know, I do worry that some people might take the wrong idea from a mandate. But we know that masks have an enormous benefit, both in terms of decreasing transmission to others and protecting the wearers. And we just really need, at this point, I think, to do everything that we can.

In regard to your earlier question, I think that the message that we have is that if we can get this crisis under control and move towards a vaccine, it's better to do that. It takes only a week or two to fill up our ICUs, but then it may take one or two months to empty them out. And I think that has a much worse impact on our society, in terms of deaths and also on the economy overall. The message to people is that we're almost there. Just hold on a little bit longer.

ZACK GUZMAN: All right, Dr. Luke Davis, associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, appreciate you taking the time to chat. I know you're busy. Be well, my friend.

LUKE DAVIS: Thank you, Zack. Thank you, Akiko. Nice to talk with you.