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Fauci: JNJ vaccine may return Friday with new limits

Assistant Professor of Medicine & Infectious Diseases at University of Nebraska Medical Center, Dr. Jasmine Marcelin, joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down how the JNJ vaccine may return Friday with new limits and what this means for the U.S.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Thank you so much for joining us. There was news just within the last two hours that the EU regulator has found that there is a possibility of that blood clot link with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. But they say the benefits outweigh the risk. Therefore, they're going to recommend proceeding with use of the vaccine. Any thoughts on what that really means?

JASMINE MARCELIN: Yes, thanks Adam. You know, it's really important for us to think about the large scope of where we're at today in this pandemic. And we are looking at rare, very serious potential complications from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And so, it's really important for these regulatory bodies to look at all of the evidence that is in front of them regarding which patients may be at higher risk for developing these blood clots and potentially assess whether or not there may be certain groups that may be more likely to benefit from using this vaccine versus others.

But I think in the large scheme of things, we have a number of other vaccines that are available as well. And so while they are sorting these things out, it's really important for the message to still be that folks need to continue getting vaccinated with vaccines that are widely available and continue to press on and trying to protect ourselves and get through this pandemic.

SEANA SMITH: Hey doctor, from what Andra was just telling us, the US State Department says that there's Do Not Travel advisories for 80% of the world. And then we also have India, for example, where they're seeing the worst that they have of the outbreak, over 200,000 cases a day.

I bring this up because we talked about this last week. And we have a chart here to show just comparing the US to the UK, and it shows the number of deaths. And it shows that the UK is actually below the US. And they attribute some of that to the fact that the UK prioritized getting everybody one shot rather than getting people fully vaccinated. When we take a look at what's happening worldwide outside of the US with these high case counts, should other countries be prioritizing the one shot here, instead of getting people fully vaccinated?

JASMINE MARCELIN: There are a number of ways to look at this. And I think there can be both camps about how can we get as many people with one shot in the arm as possible. That will give you some protection. But it's not going to be the full protection that we expect when we're thinking about what the clinical trials have told us. And in those situations, I think it's really important for these countries, including the United States and others around the world that are still struggling with COVID-19 like this, to emphasize and reemphasize the importance of public health measures, like wearing masks, like maintaining physical distancing from others, like avoiding crowds.

I think we may have shifted into this mindset where we're excited about vaccines and perhaps throwing away some of these really important public health measures too soon. And so any approach to vaccination really has to be hand-in-hand with ongoing public health measures.

ADAM SHAPIRO: What do you think of the calls for-- some people call them vaccine passports. Others call them, you know, documentation, digital documentation. What do you think of whether it be a requirement or just have it on your phone, using those kinds of things once we get past vaccination?

JASMINE MARCELIN: So I think if individuals would like to have this as sort of a feeling of, I know that I'm vaccinated, and I feel a little bit better about moving through my community, through my world with this information on hand, I think that's fine. We start to get into a little bit of encroaching on personal freedoms, I think, when we think about restricting access to certain areas without the vaccine passport. However, I do think it's important for us to consider the importance of people truly being fully vaccinated and protected as they are moving through the country and between countries. And what that means is the folks who are making policy decisions have to really think about whether or not it is too soon to start relaxing those policies that allow for that movement so freely in between areas so that we can try to take advantage of getting things under control where we are at.