'Real key here with these new variants,': is to increase rate of vaccine rollout: Doctor
Kristen Choi, PhD, MS, RN, Assistant Professor, UCLA School of Nursing joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down the best course of action when it comes to dealing with the new variants of COVID-19.
Video Transcript
ADAM SHAPIRO: Let's keep talking about COVID-19 and where we are headed with Dr. Kristen Choi, PhD, MSRN, assistant professor at UCLA School of Nursing. Thank you for being here. I just want to get to one of the headlines real quick we're seeing because it's frightening to a lot of us who aren't on the front lines of the medical world, which is this new variant out of California. They know it might be more contagious. They don't know if it is perhaps more deadly. Can you give us any insight on this?
KRISTEN CHOI: Yes, absolutely. So thank you so much for having me on today. Certainly, the new variants of COVID that we're seeing coming out are a concern, seeing as they do appear to be more infectious and potentially more severe than the original strain of COVID that we've seen. We saw these variant strains coming out of South Africa, the UK, and now California as well.
The good news is that it's looking like our vaccines will probably be effective, at least to some degree, against some of these new variants. We don't know for sure yet if they will be as effective as they are against sort of the original COVID strain, but it does look like they offer some protection against the variants that we're seeing. And so that is really good news, seeing vaccination ramping up.
The other good news is that many vaccine makers have indicated that in the future, it will be easy for them to create new vaccines against variants if they continue to emerge. A real key here with these new variants is that it's critical that we continue getting vaccines out to as many people as possible to try to achieve herd immunity before they can spread too much further.
SEANA SMITH: Well, and speaking about those vaccination efforts underway here in the US, we know Johnson & Johnson is coming up for that emergency approval by the FDA at the end of the week. We just heard from an executive during the hearing in front of the House today saying that he expects J&J to be able to ship nearly four million doses of its vaccine once they do get approval. My question, though, to you is, how big of a difference would this be just in terms of getting people vaccinated as quickly as possible, once we get Johnson & Johnson's one dose vaccine approved?
KRISTEN CHOI: That's a great question. You know, from my point of view, it will be hugely helpful. You know, as a nurse, I've been helping to give COVID vaccines in Los Angeles at some of the drive-in max vaccination sites. And I can tell you that our number one problem is supply. We have people lined up around the block, driving in, trying to get the vaccine. And we know that demand is dramatically higher than supply right now.
To be able to have a vaccine that we can give with just one dose will be extremely helpful in helping us get to herd immunity. One of the other challenges that we're seeing is that while we do have limited supply of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, we have to often prioritize second doses over getting first doses to more people.
And again, that limits the pace of vaccination and getting us to that place of herd immunity. So absolutely, I hope that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be approved soon. And from the front lines of giving them, it will be hugely helpful in meeting the demand that's out there.
ADAM SHAPIRO: I think we're all looking forward to it getting there, but I can remember reporting that they were going to make a billion doses of this at risk. And they kept telling us how they'd be ready to send it out as soon as they got approval, and now they're saying 100 million doses perhaps by the end of June. Does that disappoint you?
KRISTEN CHOI: It does. We know, again, that demand is much higher than supply. And certainly, some of the actual numbers are looking less positive that we may have initially thought when these vaccines were first being talked about. That being said, though, having a third vaccine out there to be able to give to people will be hugely helpful.
And the one dose will be a big deal. It's a challenge logistically to think about getting people to come back for the second dose. There are barriers to signing up, to people potentially having side effects and concerns about coming back for the second dose, that we will be able to omit a lot of the logistical challenges with that one-dose vaccine.
So I am disappointed. I wish that they were going to be more of them and that we were prepared to roll them out. But even a small amount will help because, again, we just see demand so high right now, and it's so critical that we get ahead of these new strains.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Dr. Kristen Choi is a PhD assistant professor at the UCLA School of Nursing. We appreciate your giving us this insight on COVID here at Yahoo Finance Live.
