Reopening schools 'would be hazardous for kids and families': Doctor

Massachusetts State Representative and Emergency Medicine Physician Dr. Jon Santiago joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss the latest coronavirus outlook as cases surge in California, Florida and Texas.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Shifting into a more pressing look at how the US is dealing with the current pandemic, I want to highlight a couple of things. Obviously, as we open the show, the update from Philadelphia is kind of serving as the latest example here as basically the direction this country is moving in, as Philadelphia announced a ban to all major public events through February 2021, after really, a lot of people had been thinking this was moving in the right direction. We continue to see case counts in California, Florida, and Texas moving in the opposite direction.

And for more on how we're expected to handle all this, I want to welcome our next guest, Dr. Jon Santiago, Massachusetts State Representative and emergency medicine physician as well.

Representative Santiago, when we look at it, some interesting new updates here. Obviously, out of California, shutting down indoor restaurants and bars. That not what the state and businesses want to see. They're already struggling through this. But what's your take on how this might be the norm, even as we get into the fall and winter and how states might have to grapple with on/off closures?

JON SANTIAGO: Look, what we're beginning to learn and what we've known for a while, particularly some of us in the health care sector, is that this is a virus of epic proportion. It is-- it is wreaking havoc across this entire country. And what we've known is that as states have begun to reopen, those more closely associated with a quicker reopening are now seeing what the virus has done.

You know, we here in Massachusetts and in New York, we've been able to beat back a surge effectively. You know, I worked every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday every week during the surge here for the past four months. And we're at a place now where we feel comfortable moving forward.

Now, I would still argue that we're moving a bit too fast in Massachusetts, and I don't want to be what-- what's happening across the country to happen here. But what we have going on in California, Florida, and Texas, it's very concerning. And my guess in the next weeks or so, you will see the associated hospitalizations and the deaths begin to rise with the level of new infections that we're already seeing.

ZACK GUZMAN: And that's really the fear. We were talking with a doctor yesterday. He was stressing that-- that lag time between a rise in case counts and a rise in deaths as well. But he also stressed the important of masks, really kind of even coming out and saying that it might be more important than whatever vaccine updates we get here, just because it could be so preventative in terms of really strengthening the case here to flatten the curve.

And we got some interesting new data from CDC just about 10 minutes ago here really giving a new update in terms of the use of cloth face masks. Most interestingly, it shows what happened in one salon in Springfield, Missouri, in showing how everyone following the protocols that are put in there to protect people when it comes to wearing a mask and reducing the amount of people in the salon actually went according to plan and prevented people from catching the disease. What does that update from the CDC mean to you in terms of how much of this has become a political debate rather than one grounded in the science? Is it-- is it potentially a sign that the CDC is moving back from maybe playing a political game here? What's your take on that?

JON SANTIAGO: Well, I sure do hope so. I mean, what's it telling us? Something that we already knew. You know, unless we get-- we can't get to herd immunity without a vaccine or without a whole host of people getting infected with the virus. And in lieu of that, we need to be practicing good strict public health preventative care. And first and foremost, that starts off with masks.

You know, just a couple days ago, I filed a legislation to mandate mask wearing or face coverings when you enter outdoor places in Massachusetts, and we're going to need that across this whole country. And the fact that it's been politicized from our most important leaders up on down, it's concerning to me. And we need to get to a place where we're practicing social distancing, good hygiene, and mask wearing, because in lieu of a vaccine, that's all what we have right now.

ZACK GUZMAN: The other interesting thing, too, here when we think about how this politicization of the problem has kind of shifted around is looking at school reopenings in the fall. You have some-- some doctors coming out and saying that you need to do it, just because of the other aspects here when we think about parents and working from home and what could come from that. And then you have other doctors stressing that we don't really know what could happen with kids going back to school and the transmission risks of bringing it back into the house. So what's your take on the timeline there and how, I guess, local leaders should be thinking about this? Rather than maybe it being a blanket national order from the White House to get schools back open, what's the right way to kind of frame schools coming back safely?

JON SANTIAGO: This is one of the toughest questions right now that we're debating across every city, town, and state across the country is how do we bring back the schools? Now, there's no doubt that schools play an important role in terms of the social, academic, and emotional response to kids as they-- as they-- as they grow. But what we need to know is that these kids potentially could serve as vectors to infecting their families and to their-- the elderly family and people they come in contact with.

So here in the state of Massachusetts, we're taking that very slowly. Really, right now the government has come out with-- or tasking each school district to come out with a plan to what's-- what's going to be remote learning, a hybrid system, and one that would revolve-- involve people coming back to the school system. But we have to really make sure that equity is at the center of all this. And so what I would suggest to people is that we take this slowly, that we listen to union leaders, teachers, and folks in the school district, on the ground, on the front workers to best come up with a plan. But look, right now we have an infection that is blooming all across this country, and it would be very hazardous just to open up school haphazardly and send folks back into that system.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and when you talk about the picture on the ground, I think a lot of people attribute the successes you opened with here in Massachusetts and New York to kind of an understanding of how important testing would be here, contact tracing as well when we think about getting a handle on all of this. We've still seen, though, pretty strong struggles in terms of getting tests and getting the results of those in a quick and orderly manner when we think about how important that is in really trying to control it. If you don't know whether or not you're positive or negative for days, it doesn't really help that much. So what's your take on how our testing progress has lagged or not lagged, depending on what you've seen play out, in some of these worrisome states where we're seeing case counts now rise?

JON SANTIAGO: Well, what we've been able to in Massachusetts is really include the private sector and the academic centers as well. And as a result, we had some of the highest per capita testing across the whole country, not across the whole state. But what we've seen over the past couple weeks in Massachusetts is that testing has essentially stabilized.

Now, some of us, policymakers and folks in the health care system, are really pushing for more testing in order to act as a surveillance mechanism to have a better understanding of the disease. But again, we're operating weeks, months after the fact. You know, these states down south and in the west, we should have been more proactive, putting the resources in place, and treating this as a public health crisis, and not so much as a political one.

So those folks in California, and Florida, and Texas now they're starting to see what can happen when this virus gets out of control, what can happen when there's not enough testing. And so we need to move forward. Again, without a vaccine, without all the care and treatment that we have out there, we need to move forward with testing and proper surveillance.

And contact tracing's something that we started in Massachusetts. We were one of the first states to really create a comprehensive contact tracing system, and that has helped and paid some incredible dividends. It's been cut down over the past couple days, but it's something that we-- should we have to amp that up and-- and raise the-- raise those efforts again, we're stand ready to do so.

ZACK GUZMAN: Well, raising those efforts is something that I think, you know, is going to be closely watched. As a policy maker yourself, not just a doctor, but a state representative, when you think about the strain being placed on a lot of these localities in terms of really trying to get a handle on this, on top of all the revenue falls that we've already seen come through as businesses shut down, as a policy maker, how hard is that to really grapple with this when you do have business owners who are on the brink, do not want to go bankrupt, and understand the problems here as well, how do you kind of get people on board again in the like-- in the likes of California when you already went through this once, thought you were on the other side, and it becomes so much harder to really get people to buy back in?

JON SANTIAGO: Well, that's why I think it's so important to be vigilant and do the work upfront. I mean, right now even in the state of Massachusetts, it's really hard for me to fathom that there is the political will right now to really go back to a complete shutdown. And so as we open up-- we just went to phase three, that's kind of our-- you know, the gyms, and the museums, and some of the-- some indoor dining here in Massachusetts.

And while we begin to open up the community and the economy, we really need to double down on behavior change, on mask wearing, on self-quarantining, even from folks who are visiting the state. I mean, just this past weekend, I was working an emergency room shift, and I saw two patients come in from out of-- from states down south who were visiting families and loved ones, and they've come back to Massachusetts, and they were known to be positive.

And so there are no borders between states. And so we have to be incredibly vigilant and careful and need to be-- double down on these preventative care, such as mask wearing, and self-quarantining, and what have you, if we're going to get through this. But the battle is, you know, is going to be very long, and we in Massachusetts are preparing for a second surge. Many of us think that we will get one sometime in the fall. It's unclear how big that will be, but we need to be prepared for it.

ZACK GUZMAN: All right, Dr. Jon Santiago, again, not just a doctor, but also a Massachusetts State Representative. Appreciate you taking the time to chat with us.

JON SANTIAGO: Great. Thank you.