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We’re a good 18 months away before there’s enough vaccine to stop COVID-19’s worldwide spread: Epidemiologist

Suzanne Judd, Ph.D., Epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

Video transcript

- We will soon have another vaccine in the fight against COVID-19. Novavax today said a late-stage trial of its coronavirus vaccine found was over 90% overall effective and 100% effective in protecting against moderate and severe diseases. That is close to the efficacy we have seen in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are in use here in the US. The Novavax vaccine could go a long way in reaching global immunity. Meantime, the Associated Press reports that, while more than half of the US population has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines, less than 1% of people in the developing world have.

Joining us now to talk about it is Dr. Suzanne Judd, epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. Dr. Judd, good to have you here. Let's start with this Novavax news. What is different about that vaccine versus the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and how much will this help us gain an edge on global immunity?

SUZANNE JUDD: It's a great question. Both the Novavax-- or the Novavax vaccine is very different in that it comes ready to go. It's got the spike protein that people have heard about already formed, and then it adds a little booster to make sure that your immune system responds.

With the other vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, they utilize what's called mRNA technology, and your body makes the spike protein. Same thing is true of the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. They use a viral delivery mechanism. Not the coronavirus, an adenovirus. And it allows your body to make the spike protein. So this Novavax is a new technology where the protein comes in already formed.

- So Dr. Judd, I'm curious to know about some of the southern states. They have lower vaccination rates than what we are seeing up here in the North, for example. And I'm curious to know how much those lower vaccination rates are really putting the entire United States really at a risk, as the White House and the Biden administration has said they want a 70% vaccination rate from every single state by July 4th.

SUZANNE JUDD: Yeah, absolutely. That's what I want to see, too. This is not unheard of, where we see certain states respond to public health measures-- smoking's a great example. Smoking rates are higher in the South than they are in other parts of the country, and now we're seeing the same thing with the vaccine. It definitely makes a risk in terms of the virus spreading, but for people vaccinated, it does not pose additional risk to the folks that are vaccinated.

It's really the unvaccinated folks that it poses the risk to, because those are the folks where the virus can spread. So the 30% that winds up in another state-- say that a state makes it to 70, and there are 30 unvaccinated. It poses a risk to that 30%. And we really want to get to the 70% target in all states. That's what will make this virus go away and not stay with us. If we don't, we're going to wind up battling outbreaks, basically, of the virus for the next few years.

- I want to get your thoughts on this Delta variant coming from India. Dr. Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, during an interview this weekend said that it really could endanger us come the fall if we get another spike. So far, 10% of COVID-19 cases in the US can be attributed to that Delta variant. How about those vaccines already on the market? How effective are they against that variant, and are you in agreement with Dr. Gottlieb that this variant really could cause some trouble in the coming months?

SUZANNE JUDD: It could, but only if we're not vaccinated. It does seem to work-- the vaccines seem to work. Not as well as they work on the initial variants. So the initial variants, we were looking at 90% effective, and maybe it's more like 70% with the Delta variant. But that's great. Honestly, that's a public health win. 70% is not something to throw away and say, oh, that's not good enough. That's so much better than 10%, 15%, 20%. So again, if we can get people vaccinated, we don't have to worry about the Delta variant.

- So it's not just the United States that is in this fight. It's really a global fight, a global struggle, a global effort. And I want to point out some news that we recently got, which is prime minister of the UK, Boris Johnson, essentially delaying an end to the lockdown in England to July 19th, extending it by another month as we've been seeing the cases rise there. And the UK is not alone. We've been seeing these outbreaks in India and in Brazil and in other countries. When as a globe, as a world are we going to be able to put this pandemic behind us, and what is needed in order to do that?

SUZANNE JUDD: We have a long way to go as a globe. The United States, we don't even realize how lucky we are here because we've had access to vaccine early on. And we have people basically turning the vaccine away. So we think that the whole world behaves that way, but that's not the case. There are whole countries where only 1% of the population has had access to a vaccine.

That means that coronavirus will continue to spread in those countries and will be problematic in those countries. It means travel restrictions could happen. It means that it may impact Americans in terms of how they act with people-- or not act, but interact through work with people from those countries. So it definitely will continue to impact us. And so we have to be aware that it's a good 18 months away before there's enough vaccine to really stop the spread of the virus worldwide.

- I guess, you know, you're absolutely right, I think perhaps we take it for granted in this country the kind of access and the ease of access we now all have to the vaccines. You know, Memorial Day weekend came and went. Lots of gatherings amongst vaccinated and unvaccinated folks. And we didn't really see that next spike in the virus. Is that encouraging to you, as we still have a whole summer to go through where I bet there's going to be lots more gatherings and a lot of more travel, as well?

SUZANNE JUDD: Absolutely. It's very encouraging to me that we made it through the first hurdle. We obviously have many more holidays this summer to make it through to see what happens, and then we have the big push when the children go back to school full-time in the fall across the United States. But to me, it's very encouraging.

I think that people were getting together. If you look at pictures that are circulating, and just looking around my own community, it does look like people are getting together again. And when the virus did not spread even with those get-togethers, that's a sign that we may have enough immunity to really keep it in check. Not to make it go away, but at least to keep it in check so that we don't wind up with a pandemic.

- All right, Dr. Suzanne Judd, epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, thanks so much for being with us.