“The virus is not gone. It’s still out there. It’s still circulating,”: Doctor

Global Outreach Doctors Board of Directors & Emergency Medicine Physician, Dr. Natasha Kathuria, joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down how all U.S. adults will be eligible for vaccines by April 19 and how this will impact the U.S. reopening.

Video Transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance. White House officials are saying that the US is on track to have half of all Americans receiving at least one shot of the vaccine by the weekend. But this comes amid concerns over a fourth wave, as we're seeing in states like New York. So let's bring in Dr. Natasha Kathuria. She is a Global Outreach Doctors Board of Directors and emergency medicine physician in Austin, Texas. Dr. Kathuria, where are we right now with both the upside of the vaccine, but the downside of those case counts going up?

NATASHA KATHURIA: Right, so we've seen the light at the end of the tunnel. And that's great. And we can see it ahead of us. But I think a lot of us are just slowing down too soon. We've got about 40% of adults with at least one dose of the vaccine and 23% with both. You know, that's nowhere near where we need to be and that's just adults. To get herd immunity, we need to have much more robust vaccination.

And we're on our way there. We're doing great. You know, we had a goal of 100 million vaccines. We've surpassed 150. Our now new goal is 200 million. And we can get there. We just need to keep pushing. We've seen the end of the marathon. And this is just not the time to slow down. And unfortunately, there's so much pandemic fatigue. I feel it just as much as anyone else. We're all ready to get back out there and living life like normal. But we're just not at a point where we can do that.

There is a risk of a fourth wave. We've seen 44% of all of our new COVID-19 cases pop up in five states. And that's pretty-- you know, it's scary for us. We don't know if that's going to lead to another wave, like we saw around this time last year. You know, just a month ago, this time, last year, we were in the midst of this epicenter in New York City. And so, we still need to be on guard.

SEANA SMITH: Well, Dr. Kathuria, talking about being on guard and the fact that we are at risk for a fourth wave, you're based in Austin, Texas. So what was happening in your state just a few days ago? We had the Texas Rangers. They filled their stadium for their home opener. It was the largest crowd that we had seen since before the pandemic. I think a lot of people were shocked once we saw the footage here that we're showing on the screen right now of people just packed into tight spaces here. What was your reaction? Or what were you thinking when you saw the videos and the pictures coming out of the gate?

NATASHA KATHURIA: Oh, man. As you can imagine, as a physician, that was very terrifying for me. You know, I've seen-- I'm still seeing people come in with COVID-19. There are still people dying in our hospitals of COVID-19. The virus is not gone. It's still out there. It's still circulating. And to see, you know, our state just kind of open up 100% and not do any kind of gradual opening, you know, that's been a little bit of a shock for us, I think, in the medical community.

And seeing that, you know, it's a little bit upsetting. I think we're nervous on many levels. The good thing is, it's outdoors. It's not like a concert that's indoors. And they are still requiring masking. But that only goes so far when you can't social distance and when there's thousands of people cramped together. So we are very nervous. There's no requirement for being vaccinated for going to that game and going to upcoming games. There's no requirement really at all.

So it's different. While in Houston, you know, with the Astros, they're opening up at 50% capacity. And different stadiums across the nation are opening up at varying capacities. But as you mentioned, the Rangers are just going for it, as Texas has kind of gone for it in America. So, you know, it's not-- we're not happy about it in the medical community. We're very nervous of what may be to come.

BRIAN CHEUNG: And quickly, Dr. Kathuria, some interesting news out of California. I'm in Los Angeles right now. They plan to lift the-- most COVID restrictions by June 15. In short, is that a good idea?

NATASHA KATHURIA: Right, well, it's interesting. They're going to lift COVID restrictions, but they're going to keep the mask mandate in place as far as I know. And that's very different from what Texas did, which is, open up and no masks are required. And there has to be some kind of balance. You can't open up and have both. And what's also very important is, this message is what's going out nationally, right? So us opening up our economy in Texas or California opening up, you know, we should be doing this on a state by state level right now, based on where the surges are and what our case counts look like.

But we also have to take into consideration the message that this sends to other states. You know, we just saw in Florida a few weeks ago during spring break a record number of spring breakers there and beaches crowded, Miami, you know, just kind of crazy with people everywhere. And within the last two weeks, they've had a 20% increase in cases.

And, you know, a lot of that may not be necessarily attributed to the policies in Florida, but also to the policies in Texas and other parts that have opened up right before spring break, sending this message to the country that, hey, you know, it's time to let our guards down. We can travel. We can go about our lives, when, really, we're not there yet. And I think that's the important thing to know is that we still have a long ways to go. And wearing a mask and social distancing and being safe is critical right now.

SEANA SMITH: Dr. Natasha Kathuria, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. We look forward to having you back once again soon.