Having these COVID-19 candidate vaccines in the pipeline is 'very reassuring': Expert

Clinical Professor of Epidemiology at NYU School of Global Public Health Dr. Robyn Gershon joins Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita to discuss the coronavirus outlook as Novavax begins human trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: All right, let's move on to some of those headlines that we saw, the latest developments on the race for a coronavirus vaccine. Shares of Merck seeing a pop on news it is working on two potential vaccines and an experimental drug. We also saw Novavax yesterday come out and say they've started the first human study of its experimental drug in Australia. And then Gilead's Remdesivir getting a bit of a boost of confidence on the latest report coming out from "The New England Journal of Medicine."

Let's turn to our next guest, Dr. Robyn Gershon. She is a clinical professor of epidemiology at NYU School of Global Public Health. Doctor, it's great to have you on today. So you know, certainly a number of headlines here that sound promising, at least on the vaccine front. How are you breaking that down? How are you digesting that?

I think you're muted. You'll have to press I think command D there to get you back there you go.

ROBYN GERSHON: For me, it's very promising and I think for many of my colleagues in public health. Look, we have 8 billion people in the world. We have over 75%, about 330 million Americans who are adults who will need this vaccine. We have huge demand. We have demand that will far outstrip supply. So having all of these candidate vaccines in the pipeline is very reassuring to us.

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's talk about a company like Merck, throwing their hat in the ring, so to speak here, through some partnerships, certainly a big name with a long history of these vaccines. I mean, how does this kind of change the game, in terms of the race that we've been watching?

ROBYN GERSHON: Well, there is so many frontrunners. Certainly Novavax, AstraZeneca, Moderna, we have some fabulous candidates in the pipeline, but we need all of them. We need a huge volume of doses, and we need them of course for our frontline people who will, of course, get the first. Essential workers, frontline health care we'll get them first, and then the rest of us will get it.

So I think this competition is good. They're really spurring each other on. I hear that they are sharing a lot of their initial findings, which I think is very reassuring. But we hope that they don't cut too many corners. They seem to be just on a super fast track with tons of money pouring in for the development. So I feel things are going fast but I think appropriately so.

AKIKO FUJITA: We were just talking to our previous guest about some of the scenes we saw play out over the Memorial Day weekend. There's no question, there is a lot of frustration that's built up over the last two months. People are eager to go out and engage. And yet, I wonder, as a doctor, as you see those scenes play out, I mean, what were you thinking, given the risk that still exists?

ROBYN GERSHON: Yes, and of course, I'm a public health specialist, not an M.D. But I was out and about yesterday outside wearing my mask, socially distancing. But there were so many people without a mask, so many people in fairly big, sizeable groups that I cannot believe they've been hunkered down with all these past couple of months. So that does concern me.

Right now, we can see the trend is kind of up and down a little bit every day. The rural areas right now in the US are getting hit pretty hard. But we will know what's happening ' right now in about two to three weeks because there is a lag, of course, for infection. And then an even better indicator will be our death rates, which are even a lagging indicator, and that will come probably about three, four, five weeks from now. So that's what we've got to see. How is this opening up of society going to impact this COVID?

Look, a lot of people, they believe, have not yet been infected with this virus. So we have a lot of people who are vulnerable to this infection. We've got to wait and see what's going to happen.

AKIKO FUJITA: Given that lag time you just pointed out and the data that you have right in front of you, what are you going to be watching over the next few weeks to see whether we are really, in fact, making progress that's sustainable on this front?

ROBYN GERSHON: Well, definitely for me, being in New York City, I am closely watching New York City numbers. We have had a few very hot spots in our city-- Queens, out in the Bronx. We're going to be looking at those numbers as more and more people get onto the subways, which you know they are furiously cleaning and disinfecting and putting everyone in face masks. But I'm very concerned that people keep remaining to wear those face masks. Those face masks will protect others from you but also confer some degree of protection from everyone else.

AKIKO FUJITA: On the issue of face masks, we saw a number of governors come out over the weekend and plea for people to, number one, wear the masks but also not to politicize the wearing of them. We certainly heard these stories of small business owners who have asked, you know, customers coming in to wear a mask and then, you know, having the customer put up a fight.

I mean, you know, when you see that happening, help us understand what that risk is. Because the mask is just one element of it, and yet it seems like that's the one guard that we have if people are already going to start going out and states are going to lift these restrictions.

ROBYN GERSHON: It's critical. If we do not have A, people wearing their mask until we have that vaccine and if we B, do not have a big uptake in that vaccine, this virus is not going to go away anytime soon. We need at least 80% to 90% of the US population, and actually the world's population, to be either immune because they got the infection and got over it or they've gotten a vaccine. Now we can do that.

25% of the US population is saying they won't take a vaccine. A lot of those are anti-vaxxers, but a lot of them are simply afraid. But in the US and with some of these other companies, we have a strong history of safe and effective vaccines. That's what we have to tout as much as we can to get uptake as high as we can.

AKIKO FUJITA: And the threat of that second wave that we keep hearing about, how should we be looking at that?

ROBYN GERSHON: I'm looking at it every day. I'm really watching it and so are many other people. We will know-- as soon as these data come in, we will know in the next two to three weeks how well our social distancing is working.

AKIKO FUJITA: OK, Dr. Robyn Gershon with the NYU School of Global Public Health, good to have you join us today.

ROBYN GERSHON: My pleasure.