“We have more vaccine reserve for use in the U.S. than we have people who could even use them”: Columbia Univ. Dr.

Dr. Craig Spencer, Emergency Medicine Physician, Director, Global Health in Emergency Medicine at Columbia University joins the Yahoo Finance Live with the latest COVID-19 vaccine update.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: I want to spotlight the continued drop in COVID cases in the US on a daily count, now coming in around 50,000 cases per day, according to the COVID Tracking Project. That's down from a post-holiday peak of more than 300,000 a day back in January. And on the vaccine front, more than 13% of the US has now received at least one dose.

But our next guest says focusing solely on our vaccination program here in the US is too narrow minded, that not supporting vaccine rollouts across the globe, including in developing countries, will come at a cost with potential variants continuing to emerge. Research by the International Chamber of Commerce backs that up, saying a vaccine nationalism could cost the global economy $9.2 trillion in 2021 alone.

So joining us now to discuss all that is Dr. Craig Spencer, emergency medicine physician and director of Global Health and Emergency Medicine at Columbia University. And Dr. Spencer, appreciate you joining us again. When we look at it, you know, a lot of attention is put on vaccines here at home. The Biden administration's booster counts now to cover 300 million Americans by July. But we only got 330 million people. So it seems just like a good amount here now back at home. Talk to me about why it's going to be so important to now focus across the globe.

CRAIG SPENCER: Trick question, and let me clarify-- we have 330 million people. But there's only 260 million people who are eligible for a vaccine in the US. Remember, these vaccines haven't yet been proven-- haven't even been studied in children. So we have about 260 million people who could be vaccinated. We have deals for 300 million people to be vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna, but we also have hundreds of millions of other pre-purchase agreements for other vaccines like the Johnson & Johnson.

The point being is that we have way more vaccine reserved for use in the United States than we have people who could even use them. Now there are 59 million healthcare workers all around the world. And my argument is that, one, we should be focusing on the most vulnerable, regardless of whether they're here in the US or anywhere else. I think that's true from a moral and humanitarian argument. It's true from a public health argument because variants will continue to develop wherever the virus is able to replicate and mutate.

And those could impact the effective protection that we're given by any of these vaccines. So if a variant develops in South Africa or South Carolina or Southeast Asia, it could come here, and it could undermine the vaccine efficacy we've already seen, regardless of whether we've been vaccinated. But as you pointed out, the economic toll could be huge, over $9 trillion. More than a trillion dollars here just in the United States, because supply chains don't just exist here in the US. They exist in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, other places that are continuing to be hit by COVID. And we won't get back on line until they're safe as well.

AKIKO FUJITA: The focus in the US in terms of the vaccine supply has largely been on the Pfizer, BioNTech vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, Johnson & Johnson. What we have seen with developing countries, it seems like, are the Chinese drug makers moving in, the Russian drug makers moving in. To what extent can they pick up the slack, if you're talking about so much concentration in the Pfizer and Modernas of the world focused in developed countries?

CRAIG SPENCER: It's really going to have to be a full court press for all of these. We're lucky that we have multiple vaccine candidates that have shown high efficacy. The Sputnik vaccine out of Russia, over 90% effective. There are questions on their ability to push out a sufficient number of doses, both for their use domestically, as well as their commitments internationally. Same with commitments from India.

The point being is that we cannot just rely on existing capacity. Remember that a year ago, none of these vaccines existed. We weren't making any of these mRNA vaccines at anything close to the scale that we are now, and that if we start now, we'd be able to, should we reconsider the patents on these medications, these vaccines that have been largely financed by the US. If we can start building plants, other places where we could be producing this vaccine outside of where they currently exist, that would help us increase the supply and prevent my friends in southern Burundi and East Africa, for example, having to wait two to three years before they're vaccinated.

ZACK GUZMAN: Doctor, let me play devil's advocate, because I know some of our viewers might be listening to this and say, hey, well, it makes sense on economic terms to maybe get vaccines to developed economies first, since that's really where some of this value creation is stemming from. On the flip side, though, another health point might be that, you know, the US has the most cases for any country. So you could make the argument that that's important, too, on the variant front.

But I mean, are you kind of surprised? It is kind of surprising with that many cases that we maybe haven't seen more variants, or at least haven't discovered and know of them here in the US. Maybe talk to me about that point, too.

CRAIG SPENCER: Absolutely. No one is arguing that we should give up all of our vaccine doses here in the United States and send them somewhere else with the US stamp of goodwill. What I'm arguing is that we should think about what percentage of them we would be considering to donate or to use concomitantly with the rollout here in the US.

We're vaccinating nearly two million people per day. We're increasing production supply. We are going to have enough vaccine to vaccinate anyone who wants a vaccine here in the US in just a few months. It will be until 2023 for a good chunk of the world before they're able to see a vaccine. If we were able to take 1%, 2% of that, as Angela Merkel and Macron in France have suggested, if we take a small percentage of that, we could vaccinate the most vulnerable people all around the world, including healthcare workers, at the same time with almost no impact on the speed of our rollout here.

Why is that important? One, for the economic reasons, but think about the places around the world where variants are going to emerge and the next infectious disease will come from. I was treated for Ebola in a hospital in New York City that had on staff 1,700 doctors in one hospital. Where I worked in West Africa treating Ebola patients, three countries-- Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone-- combined had fewer doctors than the one hospital where I worked in-- where I was treated for Ebola here in the United States.

It's not just an equity issue, it's a protective issue, so that places around the world where these emerging infectious diseases will come from, if we're able to nip them in the bud there, it will prevent them from coming here and having what will also-- be ultimately $3.4 trillion, as well as probably another $1.9 trillion in an economic boost that we've needed here in the US. It's a great investment. Keeping the world safe is ultimately which will keep us safe.

AKIKO FUJITA: Doctor, I'd love to get your thoughts on where we are in the pandemic here in the US. Yesterday, we surpassed that half a million mark in terms of deaths. We are seeing case counts come down significantly. But you brought up the point recently that we're right back kind of where we were in the summer, and we saw a spike after that, too.

As somebody who has been right in the thick of things from the very beginning, what's the difference this time around? Is there-- is it the vaccine that we can point to, to say, even as the case counts come down, we don't expect it to go back to the levels we saw in January or December because of the population getting vaccinated?

CRAIG SPENCER: To your question, it's a little difficult to tease out exactly why. We know that there was that big jump in January likely from holiday travel. We had millions of people traveling every single day. Undoubtedly, the virus went with them. Part of this is that we're getting 12%, 13% of the population vaccinated. And we likely have another significant proportion, probably around 70 or 80 million people, that have already had COVID and have some protection.

But what that leaves us with is still the majority of the US population that has no protection, either from previous infection or from vaccination against COVID. So I would not be surprised if we see an increase in cases again. You're right that we are at the numbers where we were at, at the peak in the summer in terms of hospitalizations and cases. And our deaths are much higher than they were then.

But I think even if cases go up, because we've been targeting the right communities, long term care facilities, older populations who are more vulnerable and more likely to have severe cases from COVID, I don't think we're going to have the same dramatic rise in deaths as we have had in the past. But the only way, I think, to continue to prevent cases from going down is doubling-- I'm sorry-- have cases continue to go down is to double down on what we've been doing over the past few weeks and really been arguing over the past months or past year.

Even if your governor says you don't need to wear a mask, continue to wear one. Don't dine indoors unless you absolutely need to and unless there's very little virus in your community, which, in the US, is nearly impossible. Continue to do the things that have kept us safe for the past year, and we will get out of this pandemic much quicker, much safer, and much better.

ZACK GUZMAN: With so much focus back here at home, important to highlight the importance of looking across our borders, out to the rest of the globe. So appreciate you coming on here to chat. I know you're very busy, but important points to highlight. Dr. Craig Spencer, director of Global Health and Emergency Medicine at Columbia University, thanks again.