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'The abundance of caution is good,' it gives clinicians time to figure out if the complications are due to the vaccine: Doctor

Dr. Owais Durrani, Emergency Medicine Resident Physician, UT Health San Antonio, joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down the upsides of Americans being overly cautious of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. We're about 45 minutes to the closing bell. Our attention is on COVID-19 and the FDA advisory panel, which is meeting to try and figure out what's going on with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We don't have answers yet, but we do have someone who can help us understand the things at stake. That's Dr. Owais Durrani. He is emergency medicine resident physician at the UT Health Systems in San Antonio. Good to have you back. And what are you looking for to come out of this? You know, the emergency advisory panel, what might they share with us, do you think?

OWAIS DURRANI: Yeah, good to be back. I would say I'm looking at three different things. One, is there causality between taking this vaccination and getting this particular type of blood clot? If there is causality, are there more cases out there that we don't know of? And if so, how many? That would be number one.

Number two, amongst the six patients that we know about, are there any commonalities that led them to get these blood clots? So did they have a particular medical condition that led them to get these? Or are they on a particular type of medication? And then, finally, looking at the recommendations, how long is this pause going to be for? Are we going to take this vaccine away from a particular subset of the population in how we proceed? So those are the three things I'm looking for.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, any thoughts on how this could potentially affect the vaccine uptake here in the US if people are a little bit hesitant or concerned here about this newest development coming out of J&J?

OWAIS DURRANI: Yeah, I think it should inspire confidence, to be honest. A one in one million complication, and that was enough for us to pause the brakes, look at the data, and make sure that we're making the right decisions. So I think people should be more confident in the trials that we went through and the post-vaccine surveillance that we have. I think it might lead to some small amount of hesitancy. But we need to talk to those folks and answer their questions to make sure that they have everything answered and that they take the vaccine that's appropriate for that.

ADAM SHAPIRO: So if it's one in a million, I think Johnson & Johnson's latest numbers are seven people out of 7 million doses administered. Was this an overreaction to stop administering the vaccine?

OWAIS DURRANI: You know, I don't think so. I think there's points on both sides of the aisle in terms of, could we have gone and kind of given an advisory, or should we have issued this pause. I think the abundance of caution is good. I think it also gives us clinicians time to figure out what is going on, be on the lookout for these complications, if it is, in fact, due to this vaccine.

And then what you've probably heard mentioned is, normally when you have a blood clot, use a particular type of medication called Heparin. In this case, because these patients have low platelets, you wouldn't use that medication. That medication would be harmful. So it gives us, the clinicians, a chance to catch up as well and make sure that we're up to date on the latest recommendations.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, the Buffalo Bill saying today that they are going to allow up to 100% capacity this fall, but fans need to be vaccinated. And we've talked about this speculation, I guess, as to whether or not we were going to see venues or restaurants-- the list goes on-- implement these types of mandates. I'm curious from your perspective, from the conversations that you've been having with your colleagues, do you expect more of these types of announcements to come out?

OWAIS DURRANI: You know, I personally do. I think as citizens, we want to be in a safe space. And so whether that's going out to a sporting event, a concert, or dinner with friends, we all want to feel safe and be safe. And so, I think those of us that choose to take the vaccine-- and hopefully that will be all of us in a few months-- we all deserve to be safe. And it's an expectation. So I anticipate more and more venues and sporting leagues and events are going to be putting into place that requirement.

ADAM SHAPIRO: But how do you enforce it? We have states like Florida where you're not allowed to require a, quote, COVID-19 or a coronavirus passport. So what good is saying 100% if you can't enforce it?

OWAIS DURRANI: Yeah, that's unfortunately where the politics comes into it. Again, I don't think this is a political issue. But it's been made into one. And vaccine passports or proving that you've been vaccinated is something else that is kind of headed down that road. I think we think of it as us having ownership of us having a vaccine.

So for example, we have vaccine cards. But those you can honestly go to Amazon or eBay and buy them. And so, you can't really prove you've been vaccinated. But having some type of proof in the form of a QR code or something that's on the blockchain, something like that, could give us ownership of that information that could then give us access to doing things with family members and the things that we love.

SEANA SMITH: Hey, doctor, a new CDC study cited that middle seats on airplanes, that that's actually a COVID risk. Do you think airlines should block the middle seat, continue to do so throughout this pandemic?

OWAIS DURRANI: I think, at least for the next couple of months, right, we're in this massive surge. Almost half the states are seeing an increase in cases. The other half aren't testing as much. So I anticipate cases are going up in those areas as well. And so I think all public health guidances, wearing masks, capacity restrictions at indoor venues, and then middle seats in planes need to continue to be in place until at least the beginning of the summer, so we can get ahead of these variants in terms of vaccinations. And then we can think about loosening some of these public health measures that have been the only thing that has worked over the past year.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Well, I believe Delta is the only airline blocking the middle seat. But that stops at the end of this month. So maybe the airline CEOs will listen to you. Dr. Owais Durrani is emergency and medicine resident physician at UT Health Systems in San Antonio. Thank you for joining us.