U.S. states begin easing COVID-19 restrictions despite concern surrounding virus variants. Medical Director for the Milwaukee COVID-19 Emergency Operations Center Dr. Ben Weston joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss.

Video Transcript

- A new variant of the coronavirus, this time found in Minnesota, raising fresh concerns about the spread of the infections. The variant was originally found in Brazil, seen as much more highly contagious. Let's bring in Dr. Ben Weston. He's a medical director for the Milwaukee COVID-19 emergency operation center. And Dr. West, when we talk about this new variant that was found or originated in Brazil, there are some studies that suggest it is as much as 37% more infectious than the more common strains. You're in a neighboring state here. How big of a concern is this?

BEN WESTON: So it certainly is a concern and absolutely something for us to keep an eye on, and good morning and thank you for having me. We've seen three main new variants. So there's the one out of UK, and then South Africa, and more recently this one out of Brazil. What's concerning in all three is this increased infectiousness, especially Brazil and South Africa, but I think one of the key points to remember is the prevention measures remain the same. It's still physical distancing. It's still wearing a mask, and it's still avoiding those large groups.

- Yeah. And obviously, you know, there's only so much you can do as an average American, but as president, Joe Biden has been pretty active in restraining travel to prevent some of these new things popping up. A lot of concerns, though, are already being made that, you know, if this is the case, it's now being formally documented. You wonder how much of this spread has already existed before we knew about it. What's your estimation on that front about how long this could have been going on?

BEN WESTON: Yeah. So it's a great question, and we know that not everybody who tests positive for COVID is having their variant genetically sequenced to figure out. And so, presumably, when we find one, it means there's a lot more out there. Now, they are spread, obviously, through travel. And that's why right now for a whole variety of reasons we want to minimize travel as much as possible, both to spread these-- not to spread these variants, but also just not to spread infection. It's inherently difficult not to be in groups, not to be in higher risk settings when traveling.

- Do these new variants increase the likelihood for patients who have already had coronavirus to be reinfected? In other words, if somebody was infected with the more common strain back in April, let's say, is there a high likelihood of that same person getting infected through the UK strain or the strain from Brazil?

BEN WESTON: So two of the strains in particular, the one from Brazil and the ones from South Africa, appear to not only be more infectious, but also have mutations that particularly affect how they interact with the immune system. And so they're better at avoiding the immune system, avoiding the antibodies that our body has made in the past. And so, certainly, to what you're asking, it does appear that the Brazilian and the South African strains you are more likely to get even after you've had the COVID-19.

Now what-- the question that remains and what is so important is how the vaccines are going to affect these three strains. It appears on initial tests that the vaccine is still going to be quite effective, highly effective against all three strains. It's going to take pretty significant mutations, much more significant than we're seeing here, to have the vaccine no longer be effective. But we did see from Moderna that they're working on a booster dose to ensure that even down the line, should it be needed, we can be protected from future strains.

- Yeah. We had Moderna's CEO, Stéphane Bancel, talking about that yesterday, very interesting to hear his take. But when you already look out at vaccine rollout here in the US, interesting to see people pointing to North and South Dakota when it comes to potentially already-- between the people who had gotten vaccine doses and also who got COVID, you know, just through community spread, interesting to see the 60% threshold that people talk about in herd immunity getting approached there in those states already. What are your estimations in terms of how other states could follow there as we continue to see this rollout? West Virginia, Alaska some of the states among those leading the distribution so far.

BEN WESTON: Right so one of the keys to that herd immunity is it still is a little unclear whether we should be combining the infected along with the vaccine recipients when we get our percentages for herd immunity or just look at the vaccine recipients. We certainly know that the vaccine likely provides much more durable immunity, so longer lasting, stronger immunity. We're already seeing that a little bit with the Brazil and the South African strains that we were talking about before where natural infection-- or natural immunity, excuse me, through infection might not be quite as strong as the immunity we get through the vaccination, and that's the case with a lot of different diseases.

But nonetheless, it is going to be important to have more vaccine supply. The demand far outstrips the supply right now. And so the faster we can ramp up supply, the faster we can get it to states, to localities, and into people's arms, the better.

- All right, Dr. Ben Weston.

- Dr. Ben Weston, medical director for the Milwaukee COVID-19 emergency operation center. It's great to talk to you today. Thanks so much for your time.

BEN WESTON: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.