Epidemiologist: COVID-19 resurgence likely 'would be in the Fall'

Clinical Professor of Epidemiology at NYU School of Global Public Health Dr. Robyn Gershon joins Yahoo Finance’s Heidi Chung to discuss New York City entering phase one of its reopening plan amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Video Transcript

HEIDI CHUNG: New York City officially entering phase one of its reopening process today. So far, about 205,000 people have been infected, and 22,000 have died in New York City as a result of the virus. Clinical Professor of Epidemiology at NYU School of Global Public Health Dr. Robyn Gershon joins us now.

Doctor, I want to get your thoughts on the idea that we are due a second wave in viruses across the country. And, Doctor, you're muted right now, so if you could do us a favor and unmute, that would be great. Thank you.

ROBYN GERSHON: Sorry. Well, we are, of course, closely watching this potential development. We are a little concerned about the protesters. There have been some modelers that are predicting as much as 3,000 new cases per day because of the protesting.

Now, that started on May 26. The incubation is 2 to 14 days. We would have already started to see some of those peaks, and we haven't yet, and that's very reassuring.

We are seeing all kinds of spikes in different parts of the country for various reasons. I'm sure you know about Southern California and what's going on there. But in so far as a second peak, it if it does happen, it would be in the fall. That's how all other pandemics have rolled out, and that's where we are most concerned about, especially when we are the peak season for seasonal influenza. And so this year, more than ever, it will be critical that everyone get their seasonal influenza vaccine.

HEIDI CHUNG: And I want to get your thoughts on just the overall infection rate that we're seeing. Do you think it's encouraging at the levels that we are at right now in terms of seeing all these states that reopened their economies?

ROBYN GERSHON: Well, the states that are seeing these spikes either had a problem with an early reopening and they were reopening some of the high-risk spots such as barbershops and gyms, places where people can congregate and be very close spaces-- so those are the places out in the South and some of the Midwest. Some other places out in the Midwest are seeing spikes because of the meatpacking plants, and others are seeing spikes because of the nursing homes.

But in Southern California, they're seeing spikes, of course, because people are coming in-- Americans coming back from Mexico. In New York City, we are not seeing those kind of spikes. And, in fact, the whole Northeast is on this wonderful downward trajectory. So we know that it is possible through social distancing to really get these numbers down, and that is our hopeful message. People in the public-health sector are optimistic.

HEIDI CHUNG: Doctor, but when we talk about New York City, of course, it is summertime. People love to go outside, go on those rooftops, and hang out. But looking at the situation right now in terms of number of cases, new hospitalizations, and death numbers, do you think it was good timing on New York City's part? Do you think they're ready, I guess, for this reopening, the phase one?

ROBYN GERSHON: Well, yes. I mean, the governor has really drawn out a beautiful set of metrics for us to meet throughout the state, in our city. We was the last ones, of course, to come into phase one, but we are meeting those metrics. We do have enough capacity in the hospitals. We do have enough massive testing. And, in fact, now we have almost 2,500 contact tracers. That was critical. Early on in our epidemic, of course, we had thousands of cases, and these contact tracers could never have done their jobs. But now we can easily go in, find every new case and every single person they've been in contact to. And not only that, we can get them into treatment and put them into isolation and help them do that.

HEIDI CHUNG: And, Doctor, just being an expert, I want to get your thoughts on what a potential second wave could even look like. Is it too early to assess that kind of thinking?

ROBYN GERSHON: It's concerning, especially when we start to see students come back into college campuses. This is an area that is very difficult for us to get our hands around. Here in an urban setting, we have a lot of wonderful universities and colleges, and they have dorms, and these dorms are going to be very difficult to keep social isolation. Every region, every school, every country, every place in the world is now wrestling with this, how to do this safely. I know here in New York City we're certainly thinking about it.

There are probably some ways-- the ways that we're going to open offices, for instance, that may be similar. But these congregate settings are a potential hot spot. We'll have to watch it closely.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and, Doctor, this is Zack Guzman here. I just wanted to follow up on that point when we think about schools reopening in the fall because we've heard Dr. Anthony Fauci saying that it would be likely that that should be happening. When you think about the risks-- I mean, Dr. Oz got completely blasted for pointing out that the death risks had not necessarily played out. We've seen study after study now highlighting that maybe it's not as dangerous as maybe opening some other businesses out there to get students back in schools. But how do you weigh the pro/con there as we see the calendar kind of get shifted up, schools doing away with their fall breaks to kind of reduce the risks of having students go home, maybe infecting their parents? What's the right way to think about it?

ROBYN GERSHON: We're flying so blind, Zack. It's really unfortunate because we simply don't have a playbook for this.

I do think that some schools are thinking about putting all the students on campus and not allowing them to leave. Everyone will be tested at the outset. They'll be tested again maybe a week later. They'll be checked very carefully, the temperature checks, daily symptom checks, and everyone will just stay put. That will be like a little bubble.

Here in New York City, that's really impossible to do. We have to really watch it super closely. Lots of testing-- the ramping up of testing is amazing, including 15 sites just for the protesters.

So where are we going to be in the fall? Everyone is trying to work out. And, of course, they're all working through their national associations of colleges. The best minds are on it. I hope that we will see some kind of combination where it can work for the most people possible.

HEIDI CHUNG: And finally, Doctor, New Zealand with some good news saying that it had no active coronavirus cases and no positive cases reported in the past 17 days. I want to get your thoughts and what you make of what New Zealand has been doing. What have they been doing right, and can the US follow suit here?

ROBYN GERSHON: Well, we cannot follow suit because, you know, it's already too late for that, and we are such a different country, of course, than New Zealand. They got it early. They put people in lockdown early. They had isolation early. They're very compliant, I guess, just an amazingly compliant country. They had great leadership, great tracing and contact tracing. They never overwhelmed their health-care sector.

Look, we are where we are today. We can aspire to that maybe in the future, but now we're way past that point at this point. We have to just get healthy at this point.

HEIDI CHUNG: Dr. Robyn Gershon, clinical professor of epidemiology at NYU School of Global Public Health, thank you so much for your insights today.

ROBYN GERSHON: My pleasure.