Speaker 1: (00:00)
Some recipients of the Pfizer vaccine were given a shot of good news last week when the FDA approved a booster dose for certain eligible at risk age groups, while a sign of relief for some many Americans who went the way of Moderna or Johnson and Johnson are waiting and wondering when booster doses of non-fire vaccines will be approved. In addition, dozens of cases of the highly mutated are one COVID variant have been detected in California all while flu season looms, right around the corner here. Now with answers to some of our most pressing COVID-19 concerns is Dr. Eric Topol director of the Scripps research translational Institute in LA Hoya. Dr. Topo, welcome back to the program. Thanks
Speaker 2: (00:45)
Very much. Good to be with you again. So
Speaker 1: (00:47)
Let's begin with this new variant R one. What do we know about it and how concerned should we be?
Speaker 2: (00:54)
We shouldn't be at all concerned. It's been around for a while. It has no worry with respect to out competing Delta Delta is the issue. There hasn't been a variant yet that we've seen including our one that has any, uh, um, features that will compete with Delta. So right now there's only one variant, uh, one strain to be concerned about.
Speaker 1: (01:18)
Well, with flu season approaching, a lot of health officials are again, concerned about a possible twin Dimmick of flu. And COVID, what's your opinion on that? Should we be concerned?
Speaker 2: (01:29)
Yes. The problem with flu of course, is our vaccines are not great. They're not nearly as protective as vaccines against COVID. Uh, and we have learned that using mask does help reduce the toll of flu, but, uh, it certainly is a potential for a significant flu season and they can be co-infections that is people can get both flu and COVID. So it's something that we want to protect against against the use of vaccines against flu and mask to help prevent that as well will be helpful.
Speaker 1: (02:01)
This week. Pfizer submitted data to the FDA to clear use of its vaccine for the five to 11 year old age group. Uh, do we have a timeline for when approval for children under 12 will be
Speaker 2: (02:14)
That application was based on 1500 children between ages five and 11 that had the vaccine and another 700 or so, who got placebo? The data, uh, we haven't seen yet, it's just by press release. It was submitted to FDA. We're expecting that sometime in the month of October, it will get reviewed possibly by indoc Tobar or early part of November. If everything looks good, it could get, uh, an emergency use authorization. So that's, that's the timeline that we're expecting
Speaker 1: (02:45)
To UC San Diego experts recently wrote in the Washington post that once a week testing for the virus in schools, isn't enough to prevent spread. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: (02:55)
I couldn't agree more. In fact, daily testing would be that's what's used in many other countries to promote safe school or test it to stay policies, but once a week is totally inadequate. And so every other day would be the minimum, but if you could do it every day and that's part of the problem we have is not enough rapid tests that are freely available or very inexpensive that are widely used. And so we're not still now so far into this pandemic into its second year, and we have not gotten the testing part straightened out yet.
Speaker 1: (03:34)
Third shot of the Pfizer vaccine is now approved for those most at risk. How does that play into the fight against the pandemic?
Speaker 2: (03:42)
Well, the people over age 60, uh, are at high risk and what we saw from the data from Israel, which by the way, are the only data that we have about boosters, restoring effectiveness. There's no other place in the world that it has gone ahead with a booster program, but in over 1 million people over age 60, by getting the booster, there was a 20 fold increase of protection that is restoring it to the original level of protection in the high, in the mid 90% against severe illness, which includes hospitalization. So that is clear, uh, and age 60 should have been in the cutoff, not age 65.
Speaker 1: (04:23)
So then if approval is dependent upon data for these other, uh, vaccines, why are they lagging behind?
Speaker 2: (04:30)
Well, that's because there's no Israel, uh, you know, there's only one place that's given booster shots, third shots at, at scale and has data. And there is no place. I mean, there's no place that has done that yet from a journal or J and J. And you could extrapolate if we weren't purist and say, there's there's enough, uh, homology or similarity between modern and Pfizer, that we know that the boosters are going to be needed maybe weeks later, but it's an inevitable, uh, situation for people who are at high risk and age is our best way to determine high risk. So we could go ahead right now, the problem we have with the modern application, which is the same as Pfizer, asking for age 16 and older to get boosters, that's going to just shot down because the data doesn't exist even for eight 60, with respect to restoring effectiveness. So we're going to have to do some extrapolations because we don't have data. We only have data for the antibody response from the Medina and J and J we don't have the same type of data in a million people showing that it restores the high effectiveness of the vaccine.
Speaker 1: (05:40)
Now, while we have talked about herd immunity for vaccines previously, uh, does there need to be a critical mass of people getting boosters?
Speaker 2: (05:49)
It will help because in order to get us truly in the level of containment where we have just so few around the country on any given day, we need to get at least 90% of our population, either with, uh, a, uh, a vaccine induced immunity, which in certain people will require a third shot, maybe a large proportion we'll see over time. And then of course, those people who've had prior COVID, which gives some immunity as well. They'd be better off to at least get one shot, but where we're at, you know, in the, in the mid 50% right now, uh, if you just take the vaccine side and if you add the prior COVID, you know, might get you to 70, we have a big gap. We need 20% more of the, of the population to get vaccinated at this point. Uh, and certainly the, the third shots will help in the people who are highly vulnerable.
Speaker 1: (06:47)
You know, even this far into the pandemic, there is persistent misinformation about how effective masks are, or how some masks may be more effective than others, like in 95 versus K in 95. What's the best guidance you can give to people on this?
Speaker 2: (07:03)
Well, I think the studies are unequivocal supporting the benefits of mass, uh, the most recently large study, uh, from Bangladesh, but it, if you can get a can 95 or an N 95 minutes, those are better, but there is some expense attached to that. Even a, um, uh, any mass, especially where it's tight fitting over the nose, uh, is, is, is good. But the higher quality surgical mask are better than cloth mask. And as you go up the ladder of quality and medical grade, you get even more protection, but masks are essential. And, uh, there's just no way to counter the evidence, which is so compelling.
Speaker 1: (07:50)
I've been speaking with Dr. Eric Topol, director of the scripts research translational Institute in LA Jolla. Dr. Tobel. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank
Speaker 2: (07:59)
You.
Speaker 3: (08:01)
[inaudible].
