Dr. Paul Offit, Vaccine Education Center Director & Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the surge in COVID cases among unvaccinated children and the importance of getting people their initial doses to curb infection rates.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, omicron concerns continue to linger as the COVID variant spreads quickly across Europe and the UK. Here, in the US, new infections have shot up 40% in the last two weeks. Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani with the very latest. Anjalee.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right, Akiko. And not only have cases increased, but we've also unfortunately gotten very close to a new milestone of more than 800,000 deaths in the US overall since the start of the pandemic. Various trackers have been reporting that we've actually already surpassed that or will by the end of today.

That, of course, has really created a lot of concern with health experts who are advocating for continued vaccinations, as well as for boosters. Dr. Anthony Fauci saying over the weekend that getting a booster will provide the best protection, even though the US is not ready to change the definition of fully vaccinated to three doses or two in the case of Johnson & Johnson. Here's what he had to say.

ANTHONY FAUCI: I think if you look at the data, the more and more it becomes clear that if you want to be optimally protected, you really should get a booster. And I think we'll be continuing to evaluate what the official designation is. But for now, if you want to be optimally protected, absolutely get a booster if you've already had your primary vaccination.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Meanwhile, we know that across the pond in the UK, they're really seeing an increase not only in cases and hospitalizations, but they reported the first death, prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to say that we should stop thinking of this as a mild variant. So that's the first omicron-related death reported there. Meanwhile, down in South Africa, the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has tested positive for COVID. And that, of course, we know is an area which is still struggling to get vaccines.

Meanwhile, back over here in the US, Philadelphia just announced that they're going to be requiring vaccines for anyone entering indoor spaces. That includes restaurants, casinos, stadiums, et cetera. So that mandate is going to start by January 3, right after the new year. So a lot happening in the space right now. Back to you.

AKIKO FUJITA: All right, Anjalee Khemlani, thanks so much for that. Anjalee just mentioning the new restrictions in place for Philadelphia. Let's bring in Dr. Paul Offit. He's Vaccine Education Center director and Children's Hospital of Philly attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases. Doctor, talk to me what it is that you've seen in your emergency rooms. And we've heard so much about case counts going up among kids, particularly those that aren't vaccinated.

PAUL OFFIT: Right, well, there is a surge among children, about a 30% surge. And I was on service about a week and a half ago. And during that week that I was on service, we saw a lot of children admitted to our hospital. Most were over five. Many were over 12. And certainly, there were a handful that had to be admitted to the intensive care unit.

What all of those children had in common is although most of them could have been vaccinated, none of them were, nor were their parents, nor were there siblings. So, you know, we talk endlessly about booster dosing, but the fact of the matter is the real problem I think right now in this country is that we need to vaccinate the unvaccinated. That's the issue.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Dr. Offit, Anjalee here. I want to talk about that death in the UK because it seems like that really shifts the tone and the concerns, even though, largely speaking, here in the US, we still see just milder cases from omicron. And we're still looking at the winter surge to be largely delta. Does that make it more concerning for you in terms of how you think especially about the unvaccinated, but largely speaking, how omicron might hit the US?

PAUL OFFIT: Well, I think people should be reassured, frankly. If they've received two doses, for example, of an mRNA containing vaccine, I think they're very likely to be protected against severe disease caused by omicron-- I mean, the kind of disease that causes you to go to the doctor's office or go to the hospital or go to the ICU. I think the additional booster dose offers a protection against mild or low, moderate infection, but for only a certain period of time.

I think we were seduced, in many ways, by those phase III trials that were presented a year ago to our FDA's vaccine advisory committee. Those were big trials, 40,000 for Pfizer, 30,000 for Moderna, but those were three-month studies. I mean, those people in that trial had all received recently their second dose. So protection against mild illness was 95%. There's no way that was going to hold up over time because neutralizing antibodies fade. Protection against mild illness will fade over time.

And that's what the booster provides. It provides additional protection against mild illness. But again, I think we're not going to boost our way out of this pandemic. What we need to do is find a way to vaccinate the unvaccinated, and don't give up on that. I have to believe there is a way to make this happen.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I suppose maybe to lean in on the optimism there, there's also kind of the case count that we've seen in South Africa, though they're rising, you are seeing a dropping off of ICU patients and also the use of ventilators there. And that also comes at a time when omicron has really phased out the other strains of COVID, too.

So I mean, if there is maybe a silver lining here, we are seeing vaccinations rise in the US, as maybe more and more people pay attention to maybe the dangers of omicron. But when you look into the case, I guess, outcomes doesn't necessarily seem like that spike in deaths that a lot of people feared last week or the week before has manifested.

PAUL OFFIT: Now that's a really important point. I mean, what natural infection does and what vaccination does is that both of those protect against serious illness. What they don't do over time is protect against mild illness. So therefore, if you're counting infections, that may still be high, but what you should start to see, and you're starting to see it, as you point out, is a separation between infections and serious infections, meaning hospitalizations or deaths. That's what you would expect over time.

I think we expect way too much when we're trying to prevent mild illness. We expect that if no other vaccine, no other so-called mucosal vaccine like rotovirus or influenza or whooping cough. Those vaccines are not very good at protecting against mild illness or asymptomatic infection. So I think we've held this vaccine to a much higher standard. We should be reassured by the fact that hospitalizations and deaths are going down. That's what you want to make sure happens.

AKIKO FUJITA: Doctor, at what point should that definition of fully vaccinated with these vaccine requirements, at what point should they include boosters?

PAUL OFFIT: My personal belief is that if the goal is protection against serious illness, all the data in this country is that these vaccines continue to do that. So for example, in our hospital where we do mandate a vaccine, we have a two-dose mandate. Nonetheless, there are other research institutes or hospitals or universities that have a three-dose mandate. I think this has been very confusing.

And I think we have to define what the goal of this vaccine is. If the goal of the vaccine is protection against serious illness, then two doses has certainly consistently been enough. We'll make sure that continues to be enough. And so if the goal, however, is to protect against even mild illness, then a third dose becomes a value. But for how long? Because even if you give a booster dose, neutralizing antibodies will fade over time. And then you're talking about another booster dose down the line, which becomes, what, a four-dose mandate? It's just confusing.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Well, speaking of confusing, Dr. Offit, I want to touch on all of that because we know that largely speaking, the global view on how to curb this pandemic is really a vaccine plus is the phrase that I've heard. So when we talk about masking or testing and all of that, making sure that there's enough access for that, we've seen that mandates, like the one that just rolled out in Philly, have been largely pushed back against. People get really all up in arms about it. So I just wonder, have we, two years into this, really found any effective way to communicate properly and also ensure that people are taking the right steps?

PAUL OFFIT: Right, well, certainly, I'm in Philadelphia. So the mandates, I think it's the right thing to do. They're certainly doing it in New York with some success, but there's always going to be pushback. I think in many ways, we could do a better job at dramatizing this infection.

When I was on service last week, in some ways, I wish I looked have shown you what I saw. I mean, what I saw was children struggling to breathe on three liters of face mask oxygen or nine liters, still having low oxygens in their bloodstreams, being wheeled up to the intensive care unit with sedated, put a tube down into their windpipe, attaching it to a ventilator. You see parents crying. And no one's vaccinated.

It's just really frustrating. And I think we're, in some ways, numbed by the statistics. You know, 750,000 deaths. You know, millions and millions of cases. There's an old, awful quote from Stalin, which is one death is a tragedy, and a million deaths is a statistic. I think we're sort of numbing people with statistics. I think we have to find a way-- and the media can do this-- to make this much more real. Honestly, if people saw what I saw last week, I can't believe anybody would then still choose not to vaccinate a child.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, doctor, lastly, just to follow up, too, on that, I mean, you're talking about things that are very visible and things that have been documented, but maybe not as closely as people in your position have seen. When we talk about the other things that maybe are hard to document, we're hearing a lot of reports about long COVID and patients who have symptoms that manifest and stay in the body for quite some time.

I mean, that seems rather difficult to kind of put it in the context of how big of a problem that could be when you think about how many cases, though you might have people escaping death. If it becomes a problem for a lot of the people who have already got COVID, I mean, what are you hearing on that front and maybe how big of an issue it could become?

PAUL OFFIT: Well, it certainly does happen, and it does happen in children. I do think that's more likely to occur with someone who has a moderate or severe illness and less likely to occur with someone who has a mild or asymptomatic illness. So, again, I think the focus on prevention and with this disease should be in preventing moderate to severe illness, which these vaccines do, and do it two doses.

So I think but you're right. I think that is another thing that can be dramatized to make it clear for why it's so important to vaccinate. You know, as Rochelle Walensky said, we're not going to boost our way out of this pandemic. And we have to-- we're going to have to find a way to vaccinate the unvaccinated. And we can't give up on that.