One dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is 80% effective: CDC

Dr. Gustavo Ferrer, President of Aventura Pulmonary Institute, joins Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Kristin Myers to discuss the latest updates on the coronavirus vaccines.

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ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: The US finds itself in a race between vaccines and variants. Despite a rise in the number of vaccinations, new COVID cases and hospitalizations are also up in a number of states. Joining us now is Dr. Gustavo Ferrer. He is president of Aventura Pulmonary Institute. Doctor, good to see you here. We see a number of states now raising their mask mandates, relaxing some of those COVID-19 restrictions. A number of people now on spring break. How real could a fourth wave of coronavirus be in the coming weeks?

GUSTAVO FERRER: Unfortunately, very real. If we remember back at the same time last year, we were having nationwide kind of the same conversation. As the spring break comes in, we're going to have more gathering. And unfortunately this time, we're relaxing way too much the measures that help us mitigate the cases of COVID.

KRISTIN MYERS: And Doctor, so does that mean, in your mind, that we really need to be reinforcing or reintroducing more restrictions back?

GUSTAVO FERRER: I think what we see now, and if we're analyzing the data, is three things. Number one, we see a number of new variants. We see a variant coming up from California. We see those in South America, the European and South African making their way into Americans. And that, it is a concern, number one.

Number two, we see the vaccination taking a momentum. But we do not know how the response to this vaccine is going to be to those new variants. Number three, relaxing those rules way too early can give us a revamp in the number of cases. And then we're going to be back to square one.

I don't think that we have to close down and close all the way to the systems that we established in the past. I think we need to learn to live with the virus. And what I mean by that is that we need to start using all the mitigation rules and techniques to help us get here, where we are today.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: Now, Doctor, I'm sure you saw the CDC has this new study of health care workers out today. And it found that a single dose of Pfizer or Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine was 80% effective in preventing infection. I know there were some people in the health care community saying that perhaps we should just start with that one dose and then move on to other folks in an effort to get more people vaccinated. What's your thought on that? Or should we be focused on getting those two shots in one person's arm first?

GUSTAVO FERRER: I think that this is a great data. And we've reviewed that in our team. And it's encouraging. But by the same token, we cannot forget that that was done in Europe. And the results were kind of special in England. And the results were kind of partially effective. So we need to stick to the rules that we have to give people the two vaccines, to expand the number of people, the access to vaccination, to increase the number of places and locations where people can get the vaccine, and to have a more effective system or system that we are improving constantly, as we increase the number of patients and people that are going to have access to the vaccine.

KRISTIN MYERS: Now, Doctor, Governor Cuomo announced that all New Yorkers aged 30 and up will now be eligible for the coronavirus vaccine, at least by the end of March. And I've seen other doctors say that right now, this is a race between the vaccines and those variants that you've been talking about. Where would you say we are in that race right now? Are the variants winning, or is the vaccine distribution winning?

GUSTAVO FERRER: I think that the vaccine rollout is taking a great momentum. And we don't see a significant increase as we were expecting on the number of those variants coming in. The problem is that we are now facing another break where we're going to have an increase in the number of gatherings. And that is when we see this virus taking a wildfire approach and increasing the number of cases.

So I think we need to stick to the plan and keep on vaccinating people. I think it's a great idea to lower the age and begin to vaccinate all groups and all people that are required or want to and desire to be vaccinated. By the same token, we need to keep our eyes focused on those number of cases and locations and variants that are coming up.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: We keep hearing how important it will be for us to achieve herd immunity. We know that some of the vaccine makers are now testing their vaccines on children 12 and under. At what point or what percentage of the overall population, at least here in the US, Doctor, do we need to get vaccinated to achieve that herd immunity?

GUSTAVO FERRER: That's an excellent question. We have seen the discussion from the CDC to the Society of Infectious Disease of America. And actually, to the Society of Pulmonary and Critical Care and some of the doctors that are trying to explain what number could be the ideal one. And there are three challenges in there.

Number one, it is the speed of the transmission. Number two, it is the number of people that were vaccinated. A number three, it is the mutations that we're seeing on those variants. If the vaccine were to be responsible for lowering the number of transmission for all variances that we have out there, then we need to reach about 80% of the population or more or higher. So those are the numbers published by the CDC and different organizations.

And some organizations actually mentioned numbers about 90% to 95%. But that has to be not only our American people, also the people coming in and out of our country or people traveling to other places. It's a big challenge. I think that the key here is to stay focused on vaccinations and all the other mitigation techniques and rules that we have and keep our eyes open on new things that may be coming down the line.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOUROS: Yeah go into it with eyes wide open, for sure. Dr. Gustavo Ferrer, president of Aventura Pulmonary Institute, thanks for being with us today.