Dr. Arthur Caplan of NYU Langone Health joins Yahoo Finance to discuss COVID-19 travel concerns and the latest news on booster shots.

Video Transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: But of course, the big story continues to be the delta variant, which is continuing to drive the surge in COVID cases in the US, with the seven-day average of new cases now tilting up to almost 157,000. Now there are a lot of headlines on COVID, the latest being the European Union recommending a halt on non-essential travel from the United States.

So for a little bit more on this, let's bring in Dr. Arthur Caplan of NYU Langone Health. And Dr. Caplan, this halting is not necessarily binding. Each country can determine how to approach travel and whether or not vaccination status will weigh on that. But it still, it highlights how the US is kind of accelerating faster than other countries. I guess as a broader question, should Americans be very wary of traveling, just generally right now, given the spread of delta?

ARTHUR CAPLAN: Yeah, I think so, sadly. I think we basically have failed to control delta within our own country. We see that the major problem for travelers is, you know they come here, they're very likely to be exposed to people who are not masking, not distancing. And they're likely to have to rely on health systems that are overwhelmed in many parts of the country, ICUs and ERs just not able to take any more patients at present.

You know, one angle on this, I'm a university professor, we've got a lot of students, say, at my school, NYU, coming from other countries. I'm not sure what the policy is going to be with their travel. Some of them have had vaccinations, but they're not the ones that we commonly see in the US of Pfizer, Moderna, or Janssen. Will they be accepted by my school or other schools? Boston is an area that has a slew of students coming in there. So it'll be interesting to see how these travel advisories influence what happens to the colleges and universities.

SEANA SMITH: And Dr. Caplan, taking a look at the situation in Louisiana and some of the southern states after Hurricane Ida came through, and we know specifically in the state of Louisiana, many of those hospital systems are already strained ahead of this storm, I'm curious just to get your thoughts on what this could potentially mean or how this further complicates the state's ability to combat the virus. Because we've seen the number of cases continuously rise in that state.

ARTHUR CAPLAN: Well, let me say, I really think you've got to promote vaccination. And people keep saying to me, well, the people were vaccinated, what do they have to worry about, they're protected. But it's the unvaccinated who irresponsibly are filling up our ERs, are filling up our ICUs. And you can see that the strategy of not asking for vaccine mandates in the South has just destroyed the ability of those hospitals to respond.

Obviously, the hurricane, Louisiana, Mississippi is not helping. Those are states that are really already overwhelmed. So look, the key to getting on top of this is vaccination. Got one licensed. Another one will be within a couple of weeks, Moderna. Kids are going to come online, I think, by probably the beginning of next year. Vaccination is the key, not so much that you won't catch COVID, but it won't kill you and it won't put you in the hospital. When it does that, our hospital systems are just not able to handle the volume of people coming in sick.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Dr. Caplan, want to ask about the possible emergence of new variants in the future. There's a report that says that in South Africa, there's a detection of a new virus, new coronavirus variant that could have some mutations that might be more contagious. It looks like they're still researching it. What are you seeing around the world that could present maybe a risk beyond delta?

ARTHUR CAPLAN: Well, there are new variants. The South African report indicates a lot of mutation in the virus. We've already seen what delta can do just by increasing transmissibility. So we need better surveillance. We've got to have worldwide surveillance to pick up these new strains, want to be able to see where they are, maybe be able to contain them when they emerge by masking and quarantining.

The other big issue for new variants is boosters. So it's pretty clear that immunity, to some extent, wanes when you've had your shots. We're going to have to kick up our immunity with a third shot or a booster shot down the road. And that's a big task.

The real solution to COVID is international vaccination. We've got to set up more plants in other countries to make more vaccines. I don't think we're going to be able to get rid of it for another year, minimum, because we're not really in a position to vaccinate the world yet. And that's what it's going to take to stamp out these mutations.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, you brought up boosters. The CDC'S advisory panel, they met today, discussing the booster shots. And they said that they still don't have the data from Pfizer and Moderna. And then we had the White House's launch date of September 20 for boosters. And we've heard the White House say time and time again that they're following the science. What do you think this does to the potential timeline, I guess, of booster shots? Could it potentially delay getting the booster shots here in the US?

ARTHUR CAPLAN: Well, look, it isn't clear even that what we're talking about is a booster. What we may be talking about is a vaccine that requires three shots to really get sustained, strong immunity over time. Hep B shots do that. We've got HPV shots for cervical cancer, three shots. So we may have found ourselves using two shots when we really needed three.

All that said, I think the answer to the question about what are we going to do with the next shot is going to be somewhat evidence driven and somewhat it's going to be precautionary, that is to say, I wouldn't be waiting for all the evidence to come in before I started to say, let's shift to a third shot. You want to stay ahead of this. You don't want to be behind the curve if the virus is spreading.

So what I hear is a lot of uncertainty on the part of the public. Patients are telling me they're sneaking off to get a third shot, even when no one's recommending that they get it today, except for the immunosuppressed. So a lot of doubt, a lot of uncertainty. CDC, FDA, the government, and the governors really have to straighten this out and get consistent on their messaging. Otherwise, I think we're going to see some, if you will, third shot panic.

BRIAN CHEUNG: All right. Dr. Arthur Caplan of NYU Langone Health, thanks again for stopping by Yahoo Finance this afternoon.