Louisiana’s Assistant State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter joined Newell for his recurring weekly segment Thursday morning to discuss the latest developments in the battle against COVID-19, preventative measures, and the search for effective treatments or even a vaccine.
“You talk to a lot of hospital administrators in your role,” Newell began. “What are they telling you? What are they feeling, is there a sense of excitement within the hospitals, like there is a light at the end of the tunnel? I know that the critical care services have been stretched and folks are tired. What are you hearing?”
“It’s a mix, there’s a lot of hope now with the vaccine but with the recognition that this is still really hard, operationally,” Kanter said. “This vaccine is not easy. It’s very fragile, has these storage requirements even beyond the ultra cold. As soon as you take it out, the clock starts ticking. We’re very cognizant of not having any waste. Hospitals are pretty stressed. They’re excited to be vaccinating their staff, but they really have their work cut out for them. It’s much harder than giving out a flu vaccine. But they are also happy about vaccinating people. I got my shot on Tuesday because I still work in the ER, and in the room were two people who had lost relatives to COVID and they were getting a vaccine. It was really emotional, really powerful. Just to think twelve months ago we didn’t even know the virus existed, and now we’re giving out shots? It’s really incredible.”
“Have we really experienced that Thanksgiving bump?” Newell continued. “I know there have been some areas that say they have, others have not… here we are in December with more reliable data. What does the data say?”
“It’s hard to say - if we haven’t gotten that bump yet, it only means it’s yet to come,” Kanter replied. “We were increasing at a really fast clip before Thanksgiving, were already on a big upswing that then continued, so who is to say whether or not that was the trajectory all along, or if Thanksgiving contributed. A couple weeks out, that’s when you’d start seeing those cases. The concern is that we’re going to see that increase run us right up into Christmas and New Year’s, which will do the same thing again. I don’t know if we will be able to pick out which holiday did what. We’re in it either way”
“I was reading some surveys and was shocked by how many healthcare providers say they’re not going to take the vaccine,” Newell said. “Has that surprised you?”
“It did, although I think it’s getting better,” came the answer. “A lot of these polls were done before the products were even authorized, before there was any data out there. One of the good things the FDA is doing is bending over backwards to make public many more documents than they usually would. Every document the committee is reviewing right now was public a few days ago. The doctors I have been talking to who have reviewed that material have come away with the impression that this is a very safe and very efficacious vaccine. That was my conclusion too, that’s why I took it. My belief is that as more and more people get vaccinated, people see that, confidence builds. These vaccines really do appear to be really good vaccines.
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
