CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss NY lifting its indoor mask mandates as the nation exits ‘full-blown’ phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorization from the FDA on vaccines for children ages 5+, and communication with the public.
Video Transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: Well, New York is just the latest state to lift its indoor mask mandate, as we see the Omicron wave slowly ease. This announcement today coming as Dr. Anthony Fauci says the US could be headed out of the full-blown pandemic phase. Let’s bring in Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani for the latest, in a conversation with the CDC director. Anjalee.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That’s right, Akiko. We know that Dr. Fauci did make these comments in an interview yesterday. And it really speaks to what we’re seeing, especially in the Northeast. We’ve got many governors lifting mask mandates, either fully or within schools, in particular. And that is setting the tone for what we see as the reduction of Omicron cases.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky did speak to this. And specifically, because we know that there had been some concern building up about that new sub variant of Omicron and whether or not it could start to take over or whether or not it would just burn out really quickly. So here’s what she had to say.
ROCHELLE WALENSKY: We’ve seen so far we with the Omicron variant in general, is the cases have come down dramatically. And so I’m cautiously optimistic that that can and will continue. We are seeing an increased number of the BA.2, which we’re calling this stealth variant, up from about 1% to about 3.5% nationwide.
We have seen in some areas of the world where that variant has emerged, that it has slowed down, the decline of cases. So we’re watching for that carefully. But so far, we haven’t seen that happen.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: What about the vaccines? Now, I know that we are pretty set when it comes to the adults and other age groups, but that under five is still a question. I know that there is set to be some action in the coming weeks, especially to start off with. And we’re anticipating that there might be a third dose needed.
And to just start that off, can you walk me through that logic and sort of why that’s being deemed the best possible route right now?
ROCHELLE WALENSKY: Right. So the process and maybe I’ll just walk you through the process, and that is that the Pfizer will submit, has submitted the data to the FDA or in the process of submitting the data to the FDA. Those data will be reviewed by their advisory meeting– their advisory group. That group will render an opinion and then the FDA will take action towards authorization or not.
That will then come to the CDC and our advisory committee will review those data as well. And then I will take an action based on their advice as well. I have not yet seen the data from the Pfizer study. As you note, the data that will be presented are for two doses and there is always an opportunity for a third dose as well.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: So just kind of following the suit of what we saw with the adults almost. When we talk about that though, when we talk about the process, and I know you’ve been really under a large microscope in the past several months, maybe in the past year to be fair. And there have been some hiccups along the way.
I think on one hand, you’ve done an attempt at really giving the full information that’s required, to understand what’s going on. But that’s maybe gotten lost in translation for the general public. What is it that you see as sort of key to recouping that and sort of helping move forward from now, considering the time lost and all the maybe misinformation and mistrust that’s been building up?
ROCHELLE WALENSKY: What we’ve committed to is a scientific process that is very transparent. All of our meetings of our advisory committee, with all of their scientists, are open. They are public. They are watchable on the web.
And because of that transparency in science, you have a lot of scientific opinions. And then my job is to synthesize those opinions and render a judgment based on the opinions of incredible experts in the field of vaccination. And so that’s what we will continue to do.
We’re in a pandemic. We are needing to make decisions at speeds that we have not had to make many decisions before. But ultimately, CDC and FDA together, are responsible for the safety and efficacy of these vaccines. And I’m really pleased to say that through all of this, we have extraordinary safe, extraordinarily effective vaccines and that’s really paramount in this.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: On that point on the safety, I know there have been some concerns over time about, especially the mRNA vaccines, the myocarditis that’s been present. And I know the discussions are just starting on sort of expanding that time between initial and booster.
What do you have to say about that moving forward? Sort of where your thoughts are and how that really impacts the future of vaccine uptake.
ROCHELLE WALENSKY: So we are looking those data. Those data have been reviewed what I’ll go back to though, is these vaccines are extraordinarily safe. They’re extraordinarily effective when they’ve been given, as they’ve been given, in the zero to three weeks. Dose at zero and three weeks for Pfizer and zero and four weeks for Moderna.
We will look at those data. Continue to review those data and the discussion about whether that timeline should be extended and/or whether it should be permissive to be extended is certainly under consideration right now. But maybe I’ll go back to a really important premise and that is while people have commented on the safety of these vaccines with regard to myocarditis. There was just a study last week demonstrating the real risk of myocarditis in the setting of COVID itself, a 15-fold increased risk of myocarditis associated with COVID. So I think we really need to understand the risk of disease, as well as the risk of death, hospitalization, and many other manifestations of COVID itself.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Speaking of timelines, I want to talk about masking. We’re seeing some states sort of advocate for removing mandates, obviously, with the decrease in Omicron and the current surge. But generally speaking, I think it’s safe to say we’ve sort of shifted to understanding that this virus is airborne and that masks are, in fact, helpful.
That’s obviously why the administration decided to send masks to people, or rather, to the pharmacies. But tell me about how you see these movements. I over time it’s always been a controversy whenever a state decides to lift mandates or impose them. What do you see as sort of the answer and how we should be thinking about masking?
ROCHELLE WALENSKY: So first, I’ll say that we, CDC provides guidance and that these policies have always been at the state and local level. And we would encourage state and local level to continue in those policies. We don’t make those policies.
What I will say, though, is that we still have 290,000 cases every single day. That we have about 2,300 deaths every day. That death count is still higher than the peak of our Delta surge in the fall. And so while we understand what governors are saying, we also want to make sure that people are safe, and that the CDC has not amended our guidance right now.
We continue to recommend masking in schools for everyone. We continue to recommend masking in public indoor settings, in areas of higher substantial transmission. And that right now, is everywhere in the country.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Still on these masks mandates, or rather just regular, just using the mask. And that may seem like it’s contradictory to Dr. Fauci’s comments, but really, they kind of go hand in hand. As they’re looking– his outlook is a little bit more long term. Meanwhile, Dr. Walensky is looking a little bit more short term with those masking comments. Back to you.
– Things moving very fast, especially with jurisdictions like the New York State area actually lifting mask mandates. But Anjalee Khemlani, thanks so much for bringing us that conversation. You can catch that full interview with the CDC director, by the way, on our website, YahooFinance.com.
