Omicron: 'We have yet to see the full force of this surge' on health systems, doctor explains

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Dr. Anand Swaminathan, an emergency medicine physician in New Jersey, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss booster shots, the stress on hospital systems and health care workers during the current Omicron-driven COVID-19 surge, and the latest guidance from the CDC

Video Transcript

- Welcome back to Yahoo Finance well the FDA just cleared Pfizer's COVID booster shots for adolescents aged 12 to 15 paving the way for millions more to reach maximum inoculation. The move comes as hospitalizations tied to the virus among children are soaring. And as schools reopen across the country, here to help us discuss all of it is Dr. Anand Swaminathan, assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at St Joseph's Regional Medical Center and Emergency Medicine Physician in New Jersey. Doctor, thank you so much for joining us and happy new year to you.

All of this comes as US infections are at an all-time high. The seven day average has just hit 404,000 cases. That is a 104% increase over the previous week. So this is great news on the booster front. The CDC still has to approve it before it can sort of start taking effect. How important is this move? And then given the surge in infections, doctor, at this point, is it prudent to open schools at this particular point in time.

DR. ANAND SWAMINATHAN: Well the booster news is interesting because it will definitely help to protect that 12 to 15 age group. But one thing we have to remember is that even if this gets approved tomorrow, and you can get in, you can get an appointment, it still is a little bit of time after you get that booster before you're fully protected. At least one to two weeks, which for where I am in New Jersey, we may already be moving out of that Omicron surge by that point. So this might not do a whole lot to protect people in that age group as much as we'd like it to.

That being said, we know if you're about six months out, you have a little bit of reduced antibodies. You have reduced effectiveness of the vaccines against any infection. The good thing is that the vaccine efficacy against hospitalization in severe disease is fairly well preserved, even without the booster. So I don't know that the booster is going to have any kind of a huge impact. You can't really boost yourself out of a surge. And we're just starting to see the leading edge of that surge right now. We're about seven, eight days out of Christmas. We're just out of New Years. And we know that the surge in hospitalizations is going to lag behind cases.

So we're gonna see, over the next two weeks, the real full force of this Omicron surge in the Northeast. And then spreading across the rest of the country. And that's the real danger. We have yet to see the full force of this surge. And Omicron really has the potential, if it already hasn't, destroyed many health care systems. It's already wreaking havoc in the places that it's been surging the last couple of weeks. So unfortunately, I don't think the booster is gonna get us out of this. But it is good news that we can offer a little bit of extra protection down the line.

- Doctor, what's staffing like at your hospital there in New Jersey right now. I know lots of health care workers themselves are getting Omicron and now have to quarantine. So I'm just curious what that looks like for you. And also we know that deaths are down, hospitalizations are up. Are you seeing those hospitalizations more in the unvaxxed? And what are they being hospitalized for?

DR. ANAND SWAMINATHAN: The staffing issues are really the biggest issue that we are facing right now. We were already strapped with staff in the last month or two months. And now with Omicron and that surge, it's becoming more of an issue. If you look in New Jersey, they're reporting about 800 health care workers that are currently out. That's four times the number that were out last January when we were in a surge. So it's a huge number of health care workers that are not available to work.

And if you don't have nurses and you don't have techs, that means that patients can't be seen. Patients can't be admitted. There are no places for them to go in the hospital where they can be cared for. The operating rooms are closed, except for emergency surgeries. Everything gets changed around. In the coming days, we're gonna see a lot of nurses redeployed from other areas of the hospital that have been closed to help in the areas that are strained.

But we have to remember that while that's good news, those nurses aren't specifically trained for the areas that they are going to. They will do a fantastic job because we know that nurses know how to do a great job, but they're not gonna be as well trained as those who were working there before. So what we're really seeing with Omicron is that even though we think that it is less severe, or it causes less severe illness overall, with the massive numbers that we're seeing. The absolute number of patients that need to be admitted and need to be hospitalized are actually higher. And that's a problem.

As far as what we're seeing, the severe cases that I've been seeing are all in unvaccinated patients. Yes, you get the rare case of somebody who has been vaccinated, but their immune system doesn't respond well because of other comorbid conditions that they have. Medications that they take that suppress their immune system. But by and large, it is unvaccinated people who are getting severely ill. So Omicron on an individual basis may not be as severe if you're vaccinated and if you're boosted. But if you're unvaccinated, Omicron is just as bad as the prior iterations of this variant that we have seen. And that's really where the danger lies.

- And Doctor, as a follow up to that really quickly, are you seeing more Omicron cases or more Delta cases at this point. And then also, I really quickly want to get your perspective on this new CDC guidance about ending isolation after five days. Wearing a mask, not getting tested. And then Dr. Fauci now saying that that may change again, the guidelines. And that one may have to test out after that five day period.

DR. ANAND SWAMINATHAN: Well as far as Omicron versus Delta, we don't get that information on an individual basis. Those samples are sent to local labs or state run labs to find out what the overall percentages are of Omicron versus Delta. In New Jersey, we're probably running over 60, 70% Omicron at this point. Although those numbers also lag. They're not completely reliable. Either way, we are facing both Delta and Omicron right now, which is a huge problem.

As far as the recommendations for isolation if you have COVID and testing out, that testing out piece really needs to be there. I think the CDC is trying to make up for an error that they had, which is yes, five days seems like the right number, especially if you're vaccinated that by that point you are less infectious. You're not shedding as much virus. But what we want to see is a negative test before returning because we know it varies. There are people who are symptomatic for 10 to 14 days and they continue to test positive up to 10 to 14 days, which means that they're still shedding virus. They can still be infectious.

So that isolation period should be paired with a rapid antigen test to tell you that you're not gonna be spreading it to others. This is the way that we can really keep people safe, whether it be in a health care setting. So for health care workers, or just for the general population. So I think this is gonna be a good move to add testing. Of course it also means that we have to get more tests available to people, which is still a problem right now.

- That is definitely a key problem right now, getting those tests. And I'm not sure how comfortable I would feel sitting across from someone after five days without having that test. We'll have to leave it there, Dr. Anand Swaminathan, assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at St Joseph's Regional Medical Center and Emergency Medicine Physician in New Jersey. Thank you so much for your time.