New U.S. cases rise; deaths, hospitalizations decline

Dr. Tom Tsai, Senior Fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute; Assistant Professor in Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the recent rise in new COVID-19 cases in the U.S and why deaths and hospitalizations are going down.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: So we want to continue this conversation with Dr. Tom Tsai. He's a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute. And Dr. Tsai, just going off of what we just heard from Dr. Fauci on the heels of the report from Anjalee here, just what is your assessment of the new strains, and how potentially, I guess, serious, and what it could mean for the outbreak here in the US?

TOM TSAI: Great. Great to be with you. The new strains are concerning. But I think the broader message is that there will always be new strains. The RNA viruses tend to be relatively unstable, have higher rates of mutation, so it's not uncommon to see new strains emerge.

The more important message is that the response remains largely the same. It's even more important with the higher transmissible strains, like the UK variant, to make sure that we're wearing masks, and make sure we have effective vaccine rollouts and still follow through with our physical and social distancing guidelines. So I think all of that makes it even more important to follow through with the current public health guidance that we have that we know are effective against all strains.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Doctor, I think we're going to ping pong back and forth between that issue, but then another issue that is very troubling, that we're running out of vaccine in different parts of the country. I have a family member in South Florida who was supposed to get their shot. It was canceled because they don't have enough vaccine. That's now happening in New York City. We know that they're taking steps in other cities. How alarmed are you by this? Because it seems to be either a production issue or a bottleneck in distribution.

TOM TSAI: Right. And I'm encouraged by the resolve that the current administration has shown to solve this exact problem, which is highlighted in the COVID action plan that was released by the Biden administration over the last several days, and then it's being enacted in the form of executive orders. Right now there's been 38 million doses that have been distributed, and about 17 and 1/2 million doses that have been administered. So that's significant progress, but we can continue to make that progress.

What I'm slightly encouraged by on the one hand is that there will be new vaccines that will be coming onto the market with likely approval with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. But there's also on the other hand that announcements that there are productions that may be also delayed. I think the more important part is that there is now a true federal strategy, and the resolve to implement the Defense Production Act to both secure our vaccine supply, as well as the raw materials that's needed, to not just develop those vaccines, but also to make sure that we have all the supplies that we need to administer the vaccines safely.

So again, I think it's too early to, to be alarmed. But this is the time to take the strategic goals that have been announced, work with our state and local jurisdictions, and turn them into actionable plans for vaccines in an equitable way.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Let me just ask you, though, until we get to those plans producing results, there are localities that have the second dose of, say, the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, being held back so that people get the second. Would it not make sense to release those so that people who've now been canceled could get the first dose, because there is some protection after the first dose, is there not?

TOM TSAI: Yeah, so there's a nuance there though. So it's not that we only need to administer the-- the first dose only, it's that, from a ordering of the vaccinations, it wouldn't make sense to open up the supply that's been held in reserve to maximize the number of people getting their first dose, so we can buy time in order to eventually get the supplies up to get everybody a second dose as well. So it's not a either/or of one or two doses, it's really an issue around timing. It's let's make sure we take all the supply that we have in reserve or otherwise, and vaccinate as many people as we can now, but still work concurrently to ensure that there's still an adequate second dose available.

SEANA SMITH: Dr. Tsai, in addition to what the Biden team laid out that they're going to do to help increase the vaccine supply and help it get distributed as early as possible, they announced some other policies that they're putting forward, asking Americans to mask up. It's something we've been talking about over the last couple of months. We expected the Biden administration to announce this.

He also mentioned the fact that he thinks that if we do wear masks until April, it may save up to 50,000 lives. I guess, how effective do you think some of these measures are going to be in curbing the spread of the virus here over the next couple of months?

TOM TSAI: Seana, I think they're going to be absolutely effective. We've seen the effectiveness of these interventions when they've been followed through, and resulting in behavior change. So the masks are incredibly important.

And I think even with all these other variants, the masks work. The mask will work for any variant. I think that's the important message is that our public health interventions are still effective, and it's even more important to follow through with that. There's more urgency to follow through with these public health guidelines.

And then the other issue, right, there's also the role of testing. And there's been an announcement of a pandemic national testing board, which will help coordinate and move a shift from a more reactive testing of symptomatic individuals to more proactive testing of asymptomatic individuals to increase the number of testing, which has been stuck at 1.6 million tests per day for the last several weeks. Our test positive rates are back to levels they were, you know, in-- in April, May and June.

So in some ways we're heading in the wrong direction with testing, and there's been a focus on vaccines. But really, we need to use all the tools that we have available, and that's what the Biden plan refocuses on is we need not just specific plays, but we need an actual game plan.

ADAM SHAPIRO: So, Doctor, I'm going to ask you to guess, partially because I think a lot of us need something hopeful to grab onto. It is your expertise health policy and management-- when do you think we're going to have 50% of this population in the United States inoculated, vaccinated?

TOM TSAI: The only thing I've learned in this pandemic is to not guess. The answer is, I don't know. You know, there are a lot of contingencies along the way. There may be bottlenecks. We don't have the EUA for the J&J vaccine yet. There are others in the pipeline.

Again, the important part is, do we have the processes in play to make sure we get to that level of herd immunity. Dr. Fauci, you know, yesterday in the press conference, if he himself didn't venture a guess as to the levels. But in his words, you know, if we get to that 70%, 80% level herd immunity, then we can return to some level of normality in the fall, and I think that's absolutely correct.

So, you know, again, the emphasis is still let's wear masks. And this is the moment to unite together around these interventions that work. Let's get our schools open again with testing and infection control in schools, get people working again. But we can do this with a concerted effort to follow through with the guidelines.

SEANA SMITH: Dr. Tom Tsai, always great to talk to you. Senior Fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute. Thanks so much for taking the time.

TOM TSAI: Great. Great to be with you all.