Even though COVID cases and hospitalizations have decreased over the past month, one doctor doesn t think the pandemic is ending any time soon.
The tricky thing is that we all expected variants, Professor Ali Raja, of Harvard Medical School, wrote in the Yahoo Finance Live video above, but there was really no way to predict something as transmissible as the Delta variant has been found to be. And unfortunately, the pandemic is something that won t come to a quick or hard and fast close. The general public seems to be sharing that sentiment. A new Axios poll found that 30% of U.S. adults expect it to take more than a year to get back to normal for life at least once in a decade.
I was talking to a couple of nurses I work with just yesterday when we were both in an emergency department, Raja said. And we talked about the fact that some of us might actually wear masks much longer term, especially at work, since they haven t been seeing all the colds which typically result in a bunch of callsouts because everybody wore masks and protected themselves. I do see this going longer than i think many of us would hope. 'Think about all immunocompromised people"
Vaccination numbers in the U.S. slowed over the summer and several states implemented policies that downplayed the threat including Texas Governor Greg Abbot banning vaccine mandates through executive order.
I m from Texas and I love so many things about the state and people, Raja said. But going back on the ability for businesses to have a COVID mandate is just a really bad idea. We know vaccinations are safe and effective, and that a lot of businesses that deal with large segments of the public — think the travel industry, think hospitals — we need the people using those services to feel and truly be safe. Twelve states have outright banned vaccine mandates by employers, though some companies like American Airlines AAL and United Airlines UAL are defying those orders.
For example, the Texas Medical center is a huge health care metropolis, Raja said. And be thankful for all the immunocompromised people and those young children who come to hospitals for care. They need everybody caring for them to be vaccinated. Not allowing a vaccine mandate like this for certain businesses leads to confusion and a lack of safety. Another issue is the evolving information coming from health and government officials, which creates confusion that drives vaccine skeptics further away.
What gets to people, what confuses and demoralizes people is when there is constantly changing of recommendations, Raja said. When you think about it, unfortunately right now we re making policy as evidence comes out. It is inherent in the process that things will change. But once you know more than we do now and if you can get to a steady state in terms of what you need to do to keep us safe, I think people will eventually come to expect it. As an example, Raja compared the COVID policy changes to new TSA screenings after 9/11 attacks.
Now we re just used to doing it as standard course of air travel, he said. I feel like once we know much more than now, we will be able to get to a steady state and that confusion won t make people as demoralized as they are. As the pandemic continues, another question on at hand is whether or not children should be mandated to have COVID-19 upon eligibility.
California has already made it mandatory for children in grades K-12 to get vaccinated once the vaccine for these age groups received full approval from the FDA. Some parents have pressed back, claiming that the risk of complications to children is low.
A vaccinated 70-year-old has the same risk of hospitalization as an unvaccinated child, according to the New York Times, which Raja described as actually accurate. He noted, but there is a caveat: Even though the child doesn t get seriously ill, they can still pass it on to others who are more vulnerable, particularly as the holidays approach.
We all know that youngsters don t do all the other things that vaccinated 60 - year olds do not do well — wearing masks indoors, distancing indoors, washing their hands, Raja said. The risk of transmission is increased, especially as we talk about going into the holiday season with Thanksgiving and Christmas and young children being around potentially immunocompromised adults. And if the FDA and the CDC approve it, I’m going to be vaccinating my kid. How safe is that? You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at Adriana's Yahoo Finance.com.