Dr. Amesh Adalja, Senior scholar Johns Hopkins center for health security, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Welcome back. Well, as the Delta variant continues to spike around the country, there's a new study out that suggests that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine might not be as effective against that Delta variant of coronavirus. So we want to chat this more now. We're joined by Dr. Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Doctor, always great to have you here with us. So let's just start with this worrying news that that Johnson & Johnson vaccine might not be as effective against that Delta variant. Do you think that we're going to start seeing a lot more people around the country that have been vaccinated and have now been getting coronavirus? And if so, what, then, do you say to those folks that are out there that have not yet been vaccinated and say, what is the point of me becoming vaccinated if I can still get infected with COVID anyway?

AMESH ADALJA: It's important to remember that no vaccine is 100%. And what we're seeing is that breakthrough infections, although they occur, are very, very rare, and when they do occur, are usually asymptomatic or really clinically meaningless. So that means the vaccines are doing their job-- that they're protecting you against severe disease, hospitalization, and death.

And that's all we've ever wanted these vaccines to do. And if you walk through a hospital now and look and see who's being hospitalized, by vast numbers, it is people who are not vaccinated. So I would tell the unvaccinated individuals, breakthrough infections don't change the value of these vaccines.

Breakthrough infections are rare, and the reason you're getting vaccinated is not to prevent mild illness, but to prevent severe illness, prevent hospitalization, and prevent death. And that's where the vaccines are really off the charts.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Doctor, we got some news today that New York City's mayor says that the city is going to require health care workers to get vaccinated or undergo COVID-19 testing weekly beginning in early August. This is just for those who work for city hospitals. But do you believe that those kind of mandates will be spreading to municipalities and cities across the country as the virus gains more momentum?

AMESH ADALJA: It is something where I think mandates by private organizations, by hospitals are going to be indicated, because we have large swaths of the health care organizations that are not fully vaccinated. So for example, doctors might be 96% vaccinated at a hospital, but when you get to the nursing staff, it's much lower.

So this move by New York City with their Health and Hospitals division is important, and I think it is the right move. And I think what we want to do is show people that vaccination should be a norm, especially if you're a health care worker. And we will likely see more organizations outside the health care industry mandate the vaccine as a condition of employment, as a condition of participation-- probably much more after we get the full FDA licensure of the Pfizer vaccine, which hopefully is imminently coming.

But this is one way to move the needle. And I think it's important. The nurse's unions need to back down when they oppose these mandates for health care workers. I think it's a sign of professionalism to be vaccinated. And I think it's deplorable that we don't have higher vaccination rates among health care workers.

KRISTIN MYERS: So, doctor, I want to ask if you think that another vaccine or perhaps even a booster is going to be needed-- if so, by when-- for those that are vaccinated to really be able to battle against these new variants and mutations that we are seeing crop up.

AMESH ADALJA: To me, it's very premature to talk about booster vaccines, because what would be the threshold for a booster vaccine to me is seeing individuals who are fully vaccinated get breakthrough infections that are severe enough to land them in the hospital. That's not happening to any high degree. So the vaccines seem to be holding up with really good durability.

There might be questions about third doses, for example, with immunosuppressed populations. But for the general population, our vaccines are doing really well. They're doing what they're designed to do. They are keeping people out of the hospital with COVID-19. And that's what flattening the curve was always about-- preserving hospital capacity.

So I think in the near-term, for healthy people, boosters are not going to be something that's required. It's important to study boosters and have a quick pathway for approval. But we're not ready to pull the trigger yet on them.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And now, you know, we're coming up on school beginning in many parts of our country and just the next few weeks, doctor. What do you think the recommendations should be there? Should these students, especially given the fact that those under 12 still cannot yet get vaccinated, how should we be prudently reopening the schools?

AMESH ADALJA: It has to be a priority to have in-person learning be the norm. And we've got a lot of lessons from the pre-vaccine era about how to do this safely. And children have suffered a lot during this pandemic, not because of what the virus did to them, but what because of what adults did to them and what teachers unions did to them.

So I think there is a pathway forward. It's easier now because we've got vaccine-- vaccine for teachers, vaccines for those above the age of 12. And children tend to be spared from the severe consequences of disease. So I think when you're dealing with vaccinated children, vaccinated teachers-- and by the way, I think that schools should mandate that teachers be vaccinated as a condition of employment-- that becomes a pretty easy prospect to deal with.

It's the unvaccinated individuals where you need some flexibility in terms of, when do you pull-- when do you pull the trigger to use masks? And I think that's going to be something that's going to vary from school district to school district depending upon what the vaccination rate is in the school and how much community spread is going on. But we have a pathway forward with schools. We've done this even before the vaccine.

So I think this is something that can be done safely. And the more vaccine we have in people, the better It's going to be.

KRISTIN MYERS: I actually do want to ask about those folks that haven't yet been vaccinated. And just as an anecdote, I recently traveled, and it was a requirement, in fact. If you wanted to enter into a restaurant or go into establishments, you had to show that you were either vaccinated or a very recent, within the last two or three days, COVID test that showed that you were COVID negative.

But I do want to ask, because we do have these pockets around the United States where folks are vaccinated, and we are seeing the hospitalizations and the death rates really start to rise. So how do we get those folks, those last holdouts, to really go out and become vaccinated, especially as vaccinations and, frankly, just this entire pandemic has been so politicized-- how do we go about convincing those folks?

AMESH ADALJA: It's going to be very, very difficult. People who were eager to be vaccinated are already vaccinated. And we've sort of hit a wall. So what you have to do is really address what's preventing someone from getting vaccinated. Listen to them, ask what questions they have about the vaccine, and try to address them. And we have tons and tons of data on the safety and the efficacy of these vaccines.

So you really have to see what's driving their decision. It's also something about getting the vaccine fully approved by the FDA. That may push people, because that's a talking point of the anti-vaccine movement-- that this is somehow an experimental vaccine. And also when it's fully approved, you'll see more organizations mandate that as a condition of participation.

We also have to just really go door to door. I think that's something you can do, but you have to do it with trusted community advisors-- so primary care physicians, community health leaders that people trust and have them make the vaccine available to them. It's just going to be a lot of effort for each additional dose that you get into somebody's arm.

And I think it's the thing to do. And it's something that we have a lot of great evidence for. And everything that's going on in this country with the Delta variant is completely now vaccine preventable. So this is something that is really self-inflicted. And I think we have the tools in place to move the needle on vaccines, it's just going to take some time, and it's going to be difficult.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, Dr. Amesh Adalja from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, thanks so much for joining us today.