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COVID-19 fears mount as new U.S. hot spots emerge in Texas, Arizona

Suzanne Judd, Ph.D., an Epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, joins Yahoo Finance’s Heidi Chung to discuss a potential second wave of coronavirus, as cases spike in some states.

Video Transcript

HEIDI CHUNG: All right, COVID-19 very much still in the spotlight as cases are back on the rise across several states. There are total of more than 2 million cases and 113,000 deaths here in the US, and case counts are important. But our next guest says hospitalization numbers are far more important. Suzanne Judd is an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. Suzanne, can you tell us why we should actually be focusing more on hospitalization figures as opposed to case counts?

SUZANNE JUDD: Yeah, absolutely, Heidi. We weren't doing a great job testing in March and April. We didn't have very many tests that we could give to people, so only really sick people could get a test. Now the tests are more widespread, so we actually expect to see higher numbers of cases, which doesn't necessarily mean that we're seeing that big second wave that everyone's waiting for.

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On the other hand, the hospitalization rate, that's the rate that we want to be tracking, because that tells us how many people have severe COVID infection-- the ones that are likely to need health care services, nurses, ventilators. So we want to make sure to watch the hospitalizations more than just the actual case numbers.

HEIDI CHUNG: Suzanne, I myself, along with very many others, have been calling this a potential second wave. But there have been a lot of arguments out there that we shouldn't be calling it that, that we're still very much in the first wave of infections, and so it's not fair to say that. That being said, could we potentially see a rise, I guess, in the first wave come fall?

SUZANNE JUDD: We certainly could. Schools-- that's the big factor we're all watching. That's one of those high density activities, as one of the previous callers mentioned. You get a lot of kids together, you have a lot of chance for the disease to spread. So one of the reasons we all are looking for a second wave in the fall is the reopening of universities and the reopening of schools.

HEIDI CHUNG: And, Suzanne, to that point, if we do reopen schools and children could potentially be carriers and pass on the virus to their parents or their family members, what happens at that point? If we don't have a vaccine on the market, if we have any treatment, how are we going to contain that without shutting down the economy?

SUZANNE JUDD: We will likely have to close the schools. And honestly, closing the schools probably has an impact on the economy. Parents can't work as much as they were. They have to take care of their child or do homeschooling. So it is pretty hard to not impact the economy if schools closed down. So that is quite likely for the fall.

And it is quite likely that there will be different time periods when schools will have to be closed. They'll be more locally administered. So you might see schools and Oregon closing and then maybe Florida and kind of moving around the US as the outbreak moves to different places. I doubt you'll see what we saw this time where everyone closed at the same time. But it is quite likely that local areas will have to close their schools for certain periods of time.

HEIDI CHUNG: And, Suzanne, I want to get your expert opinion on perhaps a vaccine or treatment, like we were just talking about. We've heard from several companies, specifically Moderna saying that its COVID-19 vaccine has cleared key safety hurdles in a mouse study. And yesterday we also heard that Regeneron is looking to start doing a test trial on humans as well.

So in terms of a realistic timeline, what do you think we can expect here? Because President Trump has touted the fact that we're probably going to get a vaccine very, very soon, but a lot of experts have said that is not the case.

SUZANNE JUDD: That is not the case. Even if it clears the various hurdles, which you're talking about trials that take months to get the actual data, then you have to manufacture the vaccine. And that takes time as well. So between manufacturing and the clinical trials, we'll be lucky to have a vaccine that 20% of the US population could get in early spring. And then there will be a slow trickle into the economy-- or into the population of vaccines available for people.

Treatment is a totally different story. We're learning more and more about medications that treat COVID infection and reduce the severity. And we may be closer to having a decent treatment that keeps the infection from getting severe as the months go on. So that's more, I think, where we have more of a chance of something happening this year in 2020.

HEIDI CHUNG: Suzanne, I want to go back to what we were talking about a little earlier in terms of reopenings and seeing a spike in hospitalizations and cases across several states. Oregon is one of the states that has paused its reopening process in order to deal with the spike in cases that it's seen. But in terms of Texas and North Carolina, should the local governments and lawmakers be doing something here in response to the spike that we're seeing? Because if we do start to see a really meaningful number spike in terms of hospitalizations, then that could prove to spread over and spill over to the rest of the country as well.

SUZANNE JUDD: Absolutely. We are going to have to think about-- we're going to watch Oregon, every state well and see what happens with kind of a slow when you open and then slow back down again. Especially states like Texas, my own state of Alabama, we're going to want to watch that closely to see if that's something we should be considering as well. At this time, a lot of states have said, no way, we are not going to slow back down again. But we have to just keep giving information to governors and to public health officials so they have the best information they can possibly have. And again, we'll watch and see what happens in Oregon.

HEIDI CHUNG: And, Suzanne, finally, before I let you go, I read something really interesting today that a group of scientists in California found that some people might be able to build up their immune systems to fight off COVID, even if they've never even come in contact with the pathogen. How likely is something like that?

SUZANNE JUDD: That's a tough one. I read that as well. It's very interesting and hopeful. It gives us hope that there's a way that you can potentially have your immune system ready to go, to kind of put up a wall to keep yourself from getting infected. It's definitely possible, and we're seeing more and more with things like vitamin C and vitamin D to help lower inflammation. There may be options out there just to keep the immune system boosted, so that the person-- or any one of us could keep from getting infected.

HEIDI CHUNG: All right. Suzanne Judd, epidemiologist at the University of Alabama, have a great weekend.

SUZANNE JUDD: Thanks. You, too.