COVID misinformation: ‘There are facts, and then there are opinions,’ doctor says

Dr. Shikha Jain, Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of Illinois Chicago, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss hospitals dealing with COVID surges and staff shortages, medical supply shortages, COVID misinformation from media figures such as Joe Rogan, and vaccine mandates issued by private companies.

Video Transcript

JARED BLIKRE: And now we want to continue the discussion by bringing Dr. Shikha Jain. She is the Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago. Thank you for joining us here today, Doctor. And you were just listening to Anjalee talk about the hospitalizations ticking down. I'm just wondering what is the state of the hospital system in the US? How overburdened is it how much capacity is there, also recognizing it varies by region?

SHIKHA JAIN: So it's really important to remember, Jared, that right now, we're in a very different place than we were 2 and 1/2 years ago when the pandemic first started. Not only do we have a very high number of COVID cases, we also have people who delayed their medical care for a significant amount of time, because people were avoiding hospitals and clinics when we didn't know much about COVID and when we were trying to really get the pandemic under control.

Now we're at a point where we have COVID patients, we also have patients with other medical problems, and then we have an immense amount of people who have left the healthcare systems because of burnout, because of work conditions that they're not happy with, because now healthcare workers are getting sick with COVID. So our hospital systems are really overrun. Even though our COVID numbers are starting to come down across the country, the hospitals are still bursting at the seams and are very overwhelmed because of this kind of multitude of factors that are impacting hospital systems' ability to treat patients effectively.

- Doctor, do hospitals currently have the necessary inventory for treatment that we do know with the COVID-19 pandemic and what we've seen with the different variants? The treatment and the efforts there have been critical for them even being able to mitigate some of the more severe symptoms if a patient is hospitalized.

SHIKHA JAIN: I think it really depends on where you're looking in the country. There are places across the country that are having monoclonal antibody shortages, that are having drug shortages, that are having other supply shortages. We know that there are blood supply shortages across the country. So many hospitals are struggling because they do not have either the supplies or the medications they may need because of the really big strain that is happening to our healthcare systems, and so it's impacting care not only to COVID patients, but also impacting the medical care being provided to people with non-COVID related symptoms and disorders.

JARED BLIKRE: And, Doctor, one of the stories I was tracking with interest over the weekend-- well, over the last week-- is what's happening with Spotify and Joe Rogan. I'm not going to ask you to comment on Joe Rogan specifically, unless you want to. But just in the general sense, there's a lot of misinformation about COVID that has been spread. And I'm just wondering how you think that the public, the media, et cetera, should be handling it.

SHIKHA JAIN: I think it's really sad that we've gotten to this point where we have gotten to a point where people are taking opinions and trying to pass them off as medical fact. You know, as the famous Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, the good thing about science is it's true, whether you believe it or not. The problem is, we're in a society right now where people who are spouting incorrect, inaccurate information are being given very large platforms and are actually resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, because we see these celebrities with large platforms utilizing their platforms to give a voice to people who are not giving information based on data, based on science, based on evidence.

And by having these conversations where you give a similar voice to people who don't have the evidence and who are spreading dangerous lies-- to be perfectly honest, it's really impacting public health. It's impacting communities. And on a real basis, it's impacting people's lives and their ability to survive a pandemic. So I think it's really unfortunate that we're at a point where there are people out there who are spreading misinformation. They may not be doing it with the desire to hurt people, but what they're doing is they're giving a platform to people who are providing inaccurate information.

And we're at a point where we should be trusting our scientists, trusting the people who have the evidence. And it's not a, well, we should hear all opinions type situation. There are facts, and then there are opinions. We need to be using facts and data and science to be driving decisions, not opinions of people who don't have the expertise to really give an opinion based on science and data. So I think it has been very dangerous giving people a platform when they are spouting misinformation that's killing people.

- Believing in that misinformation can also have employment implications as well. We do know many companies are trying to restart the ability to bring people back into the office, and with that comes policies that many companies have rolled out. We do know that on the other side of that, there have been memos that have been leaked, T-Mobile being one of those, where they were looking to terminate corporate employees not vaccinated by a set date being April. And so with that in mind, how can companies who are looking to bring back their workforce in a safe manner best communicate that strategy and lay out a policy for vaccination and for reopening a corporate office or any type of workplace safely? I believe we may have lost--

SHIKHA JAIN: Did you lose me? Am I back?

JARED BLIKRE: Yes. You are back. Go for it.

SHIKHA JAIN: OK. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened. So I think it's important to emphasize the messaging that vaccines are safe and they're effective, and people are asking to be taking the vaccines to protect their coworkers. You want to keep businesses open. People need to be vaccinated to protect each other and to protect the businesses.

So the vaccine, while people feel it's a personal choice, remember, your vaccine status will have a direct impact on people you come into contact with. And you getting COVID and spreading it to other people may result in your business getting shut down. So getting the vaccine should really be a way to keep businesses open and to protect your friends, your family, and your coworkers. So it should be required. If you're going to be working in spaces with other people, you need to be vaccinated to protect them and to protect the business.

JARED BLIKRE: Well, we always appreciate it when you stop by here with your mountain avalanche of facts. Dr. Shikha Jain, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago.