Students can now sit 3 feet apart, CDC says

Dr. Shikha Jain, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the latest with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and new guidelines from the CDC on social distancing in schools.

Video Transcript

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JEN ROGERS: Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live." A little bit of a mixed market here on the last trading day of the week. Health officials continue to monitor another COVID surge in Europe on the upside there. The continent's top drug regulator said that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe following several European countries suspending use of the vaccine. The EMA is recommending now a new warning label to look for a rare complication of blood clots and brain bleeding.

To talk about this and more, let's bring in Dr. Shikha Jain, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago. So Dr. Jain, I want to ask you about the AstraZeneca vaccine, because people have been excited about it because it's more easily stored, it's less expensive than Pfizer and Moderna, so really a key effort in vaccinating poor and middle-income countries. How concerned are you about what's happening in-- in Europe?

And I also want to add that the Biden administration has agreed to share doses purchased by the US with other countries, which has been applauded, but some people have also said, well, it's not approved in the US yet. So there's a lot of hesitancy and questions about AstraZeneca now. Are you worried about that?

SHIKHA JAIN: So as of now, I'm not worried. You know, the WHO has been pretty clear that there is no obvious evidence, there's no evidence right now that there's a direct link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and causing clots. The numbers of people who've developed blood clots after receiving this vaccine are comparable to what we see in the general population.

So we see blood clots in people, in general, whether they got the vac-- this vaccine or not. It's a common medical problem. So there is no real direct link, as of now, between this vaccine and the development of blood clots. I don't think that, as of now, we have enough data to say that the AstraZeneca vaccine should be halted, because it seems that it is very effective in what it's doing, which is preventing the spread of COVID.

And I would also like to point out that we do know that COVID itself does put you at risk for blood complications. So more than the vaccine, COVID is a higher risk of causing you to have some sort of complicating medical problems. So I would not think that at this point we should be holding the AstraZeneca vaccine. I think it should be administered, because we're in a race against time to get vaccines into arms.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Hey, Dr. Jain, Brian Cheung here. And on the point about the race against time, it does seem like we are hoping to hit that milestone of 100 million vaccinations today, actually, which the Bush administration said it had hoped to meet within its first-- beginning days of its administration. Do you think that pace is good enough? And how do you think that the emergence of the J&J vaccine, as well, might change that pace, lets say, over the next three months or so?

SHIKHA JAIN: So I think that pace is great compared to what we've seen over the last couple of months. I mean, it's really exciting. Now, I would like to see it even faster, and I'm sure everybody else who's still waiting for a shot would like to see eventually and very quickly our supply outweigh-- outpace demand.

So while I think President Biden has done a phenomenal job and his team has done a great job of getting vaccines out as quickly as possible, we're always looking for it to be faster and more efficient. I think that's really-- really important. And you know, the point you made about variants, it's really important to realize that variants spread when our numbers are up.

When COVID-19 is spreading amongst populations, when it's going from person to person, that gives the virus a chance to mutate and create even more variants. So when we talk about a race against time, our goal is to get vaccines into arms as fast as possible to prevent it from spreading from person to person so that we don't spread the current variants that we have and so we don't develop new variants as the virus continues to spread.

JEN ROGERS: Variants really seems to be at the heart of this debate this week that was featured very prominently in Washington between Dr. Fauci and Senator Paul. And I don't know if you've had a chance to see it, but I want to play it here and then talk with you about it. Here they are.

RAND PAUL: If we're not spreading the infection, isn't it just theater?

ANTHONY FAUCI: No, it's not.

RAND PAUL: You've had the vaccine, and you're wearing two masks. Isn't that theater?

ANTHONY FAUCI: No, it's not-- here we go again with the theater. Let's get down to the facts. OK, the studies that you quote from Crotty and Sette look at in vitro examination of memory immunity, which, in their paper, they specifically say, this does not necessarily pertain to the actual protection.

JEN ROGERS: So you heard it there. I mean, look, people that have been vaccinated want to know, I just want to take off my mask and go about life. Dr. Fauci isn't saying that. Dr. Rand Paul, who also has a background in medicine, has a different opinion. How will this be decided? Like, what should the American public be paying attention to in this debate?

SHIKHA JAIN: So I think the American public should be paying attention to the people who are dedicating their days, their-- their life to this type of work, and Dr. Fauci is one of those people. He is an expert in the field, and he looks at all of the data, he looks at all the research, and he's talking to the top health experts around the country and really, around the world. I think it's important to remind people, even though you're vaccinated, right now we do not know if all of these vaccines prevent asymptomatic spread, meaning you could still contract COVID-19, not have any symptoms, and potentially spread it to somebody else.

I think that's a really important point. We have seen some data that some of these vaccines do hopefully prevent that asymptomatic spread, but that's one really important point that we don't know that yet. We also don't know how well these vaccines protect against these new variants. So you don't know if somebody has that variant that might be something that could potentially infect you, even though you've been vaccinated.

You know, the CDC did put out great guidelines where people who are vaccinated can spend time with each other in small group settings without their masks on indoors eating and socializing if everyone is vaccinated. But again, now is not the time to be getting rid of our masks and pretending like the pandemic is over, because we need to get through this next couple of months. We need to get vaccines into arms before a surge happens again and before variants get out of control. Because if it gets to a point where we have variants that these vaccines don't work against, then we're going to be back where we were six to nine months ago, and we don't want to be in that situation again.

BRIAN CHEUNG: No, we definitely don't want to be in that situation again. But you bring up the CDC, and I want to ask for your reaction to some new guidance, actually just this morning, from the CDC, which said that social distancing in schools can actually be reduced, so students can now sit three feet apart instead of six feet apart as long as they're wearing masks. That's probably good news for people that are worried because they physically couldn't stop kids from being within six feet of one another anyway.

What do you think is the update on where kids stand? There's a lot of interesting differences in whether or not they should be prioritized in the vaccine distribution. What's your take on the CDC guidance there?

SHIKHA JAIN: So I think it's really interesting. And actually, I think the data with kids has been really interesting throughout this whole pandemic. I mean, I have three children, and I can tell you kids are germ factories, right. We see kids transfer the flu and colds very, very easily. But we haven't actually seen that in kids. I mean, there are schools across the country that have been able to go back to in-person learning, and we haven't seen really super spreader events, especially in younger children.

So these new guidelines that are coming out where three feet is OK, I think it's based on some studies that have shown, one, I believe, came out of a school in Massachusetts, that kids, especially the younger kids, could potentially be three feet apart and not be at higher risk of transmitting and spreading the virus. And I think that's really great information for schools, because one of the challenges with reopening schools has been finding the space to keep children three-- more than six feet apart when-- when trying to reopen schools.

So I'm-- I'm cautiously optimistic that these new CDC guidelines will help reopen schools safely. And as more and more teachers and other individuals are getting vaccinated, hopefully that will be another added layer of benefit and protection. And then, of course, wearing masks is really the key to controlling the spread, and we've known that since almost the beginning of the pandemic. So I think all of these guidelines that the CDC is putting out will hopefully get our kids back to school across the country.

JEN ROGERS: And finally, I just wanted to ask you as an oncologist what you're seeing, because we've been hearing about patients showing up with more advanced cancers, survival rates not looking as good here. How concerning is it?

SHIKHA JAIN: I think it's very concerning. I've seen lots of patients who are coming in with a new diagnosis that would have been diagnosed six to nine months ago if they'd come in when they started having symptoms, but they didn't because they were worried about COVID. I've had patients who have had cancer and who missed their surveillance scans or who are having delays in getting their-- their appointments and so they're recurring and we're not finding out as soon. So I am very concerned that in the near future, we're going to start seeing a rise in the number of late-stage cancers and, really, people who are recurring who just didn't know.

So I've definitely seen that in my practice, and I know colleagues across the country are seeing that as well. So that is definitely a concern. So I strongly encourage you to make sure that you're going to your doctor for your regular appointments, your screenings, your mammograms, your colonoscopies, wear a mask. You can protect yourself in a lot of ways. Just make sure you're getting to your doctor's appointments to prevent that type of thing from happening.

BRIAN CHEUNG: An important reminder right there. But again, Dr. Shikha Jain, the Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Thanks for joining us here on Yahoo Finance today.