If everyone wears a mask ‘we have a fighting chance’: Expert

University of Alabama at Birmingham Associate Dean for Global Health, Dr. Michael Saag joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman and Kristin Myers to discuss the latest developments in the race for a coronavirus vaccine as states slowly reopen their economies.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: But for now, digging into the optimism that got us kicked off this week-- of course, Novavax, the latest a biotech company here to move into clinical one-- first phase trials here on a novel coronavirus vaccine. That brings the total candidates that we have, by my count, up to about 10 right now. Of course, we saw this last week-- optimism on the vaccine front, always fueling moves to the upside.

And for more on whether or not we're getting ahead of ourselves in looking at the vaccine optimism there, I want to bring on our next guest-- he's been on before, welcome back to the show Dr. Michael Saag, associate dean for global health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And, Dr. Saag, we'll start with the vaccine developments here, I also want to get your thoughts on the case count as businesses and states reopen their economies. We'll start with vaccines. What's your take on maybe we might be getting ahead of ourselves-- as we mentioned before, phase one trials not necessarily the end all, be all. The expectations are Novavax is going to be delivering their results here by July. But what's your take on the progress we're making on the vaccine front and whether or not we're still pacing to get one by the end of the year?

MICHAEL SAAG: I'll start with the positive. I think it is quite impressive that we're 3 and 1/2, 4 months into this epidemic, and we've already got 10 candidate vaccines at a minimum, and the ones, as you mentioned, last week that showed that not only was the antibody produced, it was actually neutralizing antibody. What that means is that if this is the business end of the virus, this is where the spike is, where it binds, the antibody could bind here. That wouldn't work.

When the antibody binds there, that neutralizes. And that's the type of protection we would need. So proof of concept, great. But we've got a long way to go-- a long, long way to go. There could be safety issues. There could be dosing issues. There could be manufacturing issues. There may be the fact that it doesn't work, right? So great start, but it's like the beginning of the Kentucky Derby, and we haven't even passed the mile-- one mile marker. So we've got a long way to go.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, I mean, when we talk about the long ways to go, I think the reason why-- in case, you know, people tuning in are not sure about why the vaccine's so important-- when we look at those surveys talking to Americans about when they would go back to attending things, whether it be restaurants, sporting events, so much of it is tied to it to actually saying that we have an effective vaccine. We're not necessarily there yet, but as you said, making good progress.

But if you look at this past weekend, maybe that's not entirely true because a lot of people were out and about for the long weekend as businesses moved forward in opening up. Interesting, though-- I mean, a lot of the fears we're talking about-- and I know you have some updates there in the state of Alabama-- but a lot of the states that have been reopening since May 1 have not necessarily shown a massive second wave that a lot of people were fearing in coronavirus cases. So what's your take on the way we're seeing states reopen right now and how that's been handled so far?

MICHAEL SAAG: I'm kind of nervous, to be honest with you. I think New York has done great. And that's why the US numbers are more flat than continuing to go up, because New York was dominating the numbers in April. However, you look around the rest of the country, and I get it-- everyone's tired of being at home. Everyone's tired of, you know, hunkering down. And the problem is that the epidemic in the states where we've released them, like Alabama, the numbers were going up at the time that the release happened. So what does that mean?

It means that the virus is still readily in our community and a lot of people are susceptible. So what I see happening, and that's what worries me, people throwing caution to the wind saying, we're over this. It's done. It's not done. And in Alabama, our numbers since May 1 have more than doubled. It was 187 cases a day back on May 1. We're at 414 cases a day now. Montgomery is running out of ICU beds and shipping cases to other cities.

I just talked and saw people in our hospital, and our numbers are picking up again. That's going to lag 14 days behind what happened this weekend. So wait till June 1, June 8, and we could be in big trouble. I'm not trying to be an alarmist here. I like what Rob said in the last segment-- we've got to be careful, cautious. We don't want to get too far out ahead of our skis. And the thing about the vaccine-- yes, that will be the thing that saves us. But that's at least a year away that it will be mass produced. And we don't have anything to stop this thing, except for social distancing, wearing masks, and that type of thing in the interim.

KRISTIN MYERS: Hey, Dr. Saag, it's Kristin here. So, bluntly put, how likely do you think it is, then, that a second wave of the coronavirus is to come in the next couple of months or by winter? And do you at all think that there's a chance that we could have a vaccine by then that could either stop it or prevent it?

MICHAEL SAAG: I'm very worried. I'm not even sure we're going to see a second surge. What we may see is a rise, a little bit of a plateau, and then a second rise. That's what I think we're going to see in Alabama and a lot of other rural states-- Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee. Those are the states that we're going to start seeing the second increase. Here's the thing-- without a vaccine-- and again, that's at least, in my opinion, a year away from widespread use at the earliest-- and so we're going to be left with surging cases by August.

And based on what Rob said in the last segment, if the economy isn't bolstered by then, we have that Wile E. Coyote going off the cliff on a August 1. He could be carrying an anvil filled with a resurgent epidemic. We've got to be smart about this. And as the states release, it doesn't mean we have to be uninformed and irresponsible. What we can do, what we need to do-- think of ourselves. Protect ourselves and our family. Wear a mask.

What we've learned probably since the last time I was on the show-- aerosol is what spreads this virus 90-plus percent of the time. We were worried about surfaces. We should be worried about breathing, laughing, yelling, coughing, those types-- singing. Those types of things are the things that are spreading the virus in the environment. So think pig pen-- you know, in the "Peanuts," when he got that virus, his whole area around him is contaminated. You walk through that, breathe it in, you've got it.

So if we all imagine that we have the infection, we wear a mask to protect those around us-- if everybody does that, we've got a fighting chance. Else, we could be in deep trouble by July, August.

KRISTIN MYERS: So, then, Doctor, Operation Warspeed, which the president says, right, is going to get the vaccine out and distributed by the end of this year-- by the end of 2020-- that's not happening?

MICHAEL SAAG: No. I don't see any way that happens. Maybe if we're really lucky-- if we're really lucky, we might have efficacy data by the 1st of January-- if we're really lucky. And as Tony Fauci has said over and over again, the fact we have 10, those are just multiple shots on goal. That's great. But we aren't going to have the data till the 1st of January. Then, we've got to scale it up-- scale it up for 300 million, 600 million doses. That doesn't happen by just wishing it so.

When we hear the term, warpspeed, even in "Star Trek," it still took a while to get from one planet to another going at warpspeed, right? So we need to be logical here. We need to be thinking about the realities and not just lured into some magical thinking.

ZACK GUZMAN: I didn't know that we'd be talking about cartoons and movies so much today, but kind of-- I'm not against it. But, Dr. Saag, always appreciate you sharing your insights with us. Appreciate you taking the time, sir.

MICHAEL SAAG: Thanks for having me back.