COVID outlook: ‘U.S. doesn’t get out of this if the world doesn’t get out of this’
Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi and Myles Udland speak with Meghan Fitzgerald, Author of ‘Ascending Davos’ and Columbia University Healthcare Policy Professor, about the COVID-19 pandemic and how the U.S. and other countries are faring.
Video transcript
BRIAN SOZZI: Fed Chief, Jerome Powell, made it quite clear in his "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday that the biggest risk to the economic recovery was a resurgence in the COVID-19 pandemic. Let's bring in Meghan Fitzgerald to get more on where the pandemic stands. She's a private equity investor, a health care policy professor at Columbia University, and sits on the Board of Tenet Health Care. Yahoo Finance, health care reporter Anjalee Khemlani is here as well.
Meghan, always good to see you. Where do you think stands-- things stand right now here in the pandemic?
MEGHAN FITZGERALD: I think they stand pretty good in the US, not so much in Europe. If you look at the world, who has been vaccinated with at least one shot, Europe hovers around 14%, 15%. Here in the US, we're north of 35. Britain's at 46%.
And so Europe is really the worry. The only exception or asterisk I put on this is that it's concerning what we're seeing in Michigan with an influx of cases in the last two weeks in hospitalizations. And half of those cases appear to be the B117 variant.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Meghan, Anjalee here. So I know that when we're looking at both the US and globally, there's sort of two stories happening, right? On one hand, the US currently has three vaccines authorized. And we're able to use those. Meanwhile, globally, they're-- they're still working on that.
Some of these vaccines are available, but not as many, not at the volume that we're receiving here. So what-- what is happening right now with the various vaccines that are available? There's been some concern over AstraZeneca. How is that affecting what's going on?
MEGHAN FITZGERALD: Yeah. It's affecting it immensely. It's a great question. What I look at as an equity between developed and nondeveloped nations. And right now, the wealthiest 27 countries have 40% of the vaccine supply despite the fact that they only have 11% of the population. So if you are wealthy and you ordered early and you weren't at risk, which many nations could not do-- Europe chose not to do that, even though they could afford to do that-- it's really-- we're now seeing this as catching up with these countries.
MYLES UDLAND: And Meghan, I want to talk a little bit more about the situation in Michigan and how that relates to the vaccine rollout. I mean, when you see cases like that, it's-- I guess is, the way to read, wow, there's a lot of people who were not vaccinated at all because this kind of spread can only really be seen in an unvaccinated population? And even though we're making huge progress, this is yet another reminder that about 65% of the country doesn't even yet have the first shot, let alone the highest level of immunity.
MEGHAN FITZGERALD: Yes. Two thoughts. When we look at where countries-- and there's about three now that have hit about 40% of their population being fully vaccinated-- suddenly hospitalizations and deaths come down. So we've got to get that way in every state.
I think in Michigan, a few things are happening. They're actually middle of the pack in terms of vaccinations. So they're not that far off some of the other states. I think they've really lessened and loosened up on some of the basic public health measures. And there's a big debate as to whether we should surge vaccines into Michigan.
One side of the debate says they're literally in the middle of a surge. And you're not going to address that by sending vaccinations in right now because of the incubation period. So the most immediate thing they can do is uphold public health measures, which will help them today and tomorrow. Vaccines will help them in a two-week period.
But I also think, if they're short on vaccines, it's a fire. You would send the fire department there right now to put out the fire. So we should do everything we can to help Michigan.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: On that note, I'm glad you brought that up because I look at the idea that there are going to be more cases, so people who are going to have that natural immunity after getting through and recovering from the cases of those that will-- what does that do for, you know, the idea that we're pursuing this herd immunity, that we need more people vaccinated, but simultaneously we still have so many people getting infected? So in the long run, will we ever reach a point? You know, there's some people saying we might get-- we might be clear of this pandemic by summer.
MEGHAN FITZGERALD: Yeah. Well, I think the US doesn't get out of this if the world doesn't get out of this. So we're-- we're gunning to try and get to this herd immunity within three months to get 75% of the population. But you have countries that have less than 5% of the population.
As long as the virus has a host and is able to mutate and have variants which are far more deadly, this really, to me, is a US problem. So I think we need to try and get our population, whether it's natural or by vaccination, up around the 75% range, probably including younger people and children, which now we see the variants are affecting them. And then we really need to see this problem as a global problem and help many of the countries that are way, way far behind us. I read some data last night that, in some parts of the world, it could take five to seven years to reach herd immunity.
BRIAN SOZZI: Meghan, pretty buzzy deal this morning, Microsoft paying-- what-- nearly $20 billion for Nuance. Real health care play there. Where are you see some of the biggest health care investment opportunities coming out the other side of the pandemic?
MEGHAN FITZGERALD: I think everything in data and AI, telehealth care in the home, addressing chronic disease-- that's where I really see things going. So I was not surprised to see the Microsoft deal. I think a lot of these companies are looking at, how can they start managing the continuum of care for patients? There's no way to do that unless you have data and technology and you're as close to that patient as possible, managing their drugs, their care, where they see doctors. And a lot of people are showing now they do want to see physicians and their care provider online.
And so I think it's an exciting time. I think the pandemic literally advanced the field of telehealth and data by 5 to 10 years in ways we could not have predicted.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Easily, absolutely. That's definitely been one of the conversations, but also there's been a lot of money generally being poured into biotech right now. And all of this put together, there are some who would say that there is too much being put in and it's all really incremental because for things like telehealth, you still have the digital divide to bridge. So what do you see as sort of the long term for this sector?
MEGHAN FITZGERALD: Yeah. I'm bullish on biotech. I think this year-- if you read the story of Pfizer and how quickly they mobilized to go after this COVID vaccine at risk shows the power of US innovation. And that's just for this area where, for many people now, cancer is a chronic disease, and I never thought in my lifetime we would use words like cure. So I remain really bullish on biotech because I think the innovation, the ability to trial drugs in smaller populations to get phase two approval and have targeted therapy makes me pretty optimistic on the space.
It's true, though. There is two stories going on. There's a lot of money-- billions of dollars-- being thrown at COVID right now. We just had Regeneron's product this morning. A lot of news around that that it's able to be preventative for COVID. But I think as the story gets past the pandemic and we start looking at specialty drugs, I still think it's an exciting space to be in, certainly on the service side. Expect CROs, CDMOs, companies that make the drugs and also distribute the drugs-- I think is a very very exciting space on the health care service side.
