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New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Dr Dave Chokshi joined Yahoo Finance Live to analyze next step for Americans as hospitalizations rise as delta variant of COVID spreads.
Video transcript
– Dr Dave Chokshi, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. And Dr Chokshi, it’s great to have you on Yahoo Finance. I guess from your perspective, from where you’re in, what big cities have to do, I’m guessing to better grasp this variant of the delta to keep it from spreading, so we make sure we don’t lose the progress we have made in recent months?
DAVE CHOKSHI: Well, thank you very much for inviting me this afternoon. The key is vaccination. One thing we have learned about this virus over the past 18 months is that it is a formidable enemy. It’s tricky. He will find the cracks in our armor. And right now, the greatest vulnerability when it comes to the coronavirus, especially the delta variant, are people who are not vaccinated. We must therefore focus on closing these gaps and ensuring that as many people as possible benefit from the protection offered by immunization.
– Doctor, you have a huge New York fan here. I want to have a t-shirt that says I’ve been around for the last 16, 17 months when a lot of people are gone. One of the things New York has done successfully has been mask warrants and distancing. We’re not at – and I hate that term, herd immunity.
But we don’t have the vaccination rate in New York City for fully vaccinated people to get it. And nationally, we’re not even 50% fully immunized. So, is it time to return to mask mandates in New York as it is across the country?
DAVE CHOKSHI: Well, that’s an important question. Let me try to frame it with some data that we just released earlier today. The first was a Yale and Commonwealth Fund study that showed our vaccination campaign so far has averted a quarter of a million cases, prevented 44,000 hospitalizations and saved 8,000 lives so far. The other data we published is that of all cases, hospitalizations and deaths in 2021, more than 98% of them concerned people who were not fully vaccinated.
So those two things point to this fundamental solution, which is vaccination. When it comes to masks, this is an important consideration, but it is especially important for unvaccinated people to maintain the precautions that have protected us for the past 18 months. It’s masks, physical distancing, getting tested regularly, keeping your hands clean. But these are mainly aimed at protecting unvaccinated people. And the best layer of protection is to get vaccinated.
– Doctor, you mentioned there that the city’s vaccination campaign has saved 8,000 lives so far. I guess for those who are still unvaccinated, I know efforts are underway to reach these people. But I guess, how do we reach these people? What needs to be done that hasn’t been done to be successful here over the next few months, which is so essential to bringing the pandemic under control, especially the delta variant.
DAVE CHOKSHI: This is a really important question. And thank you for asking. I really think about it the same way I discuss the vaccine with one of my own patients. It starts with listening. That’s why we’ve organized over 5,000 events, like town halls over the past few months, to understand what New Yorkers are asking about.
But then it will take one-on-one conversations. We have door to door. We have nurses making phone calls so that we can have these very personalized discussions with people to make them more comfortable with the vaccine. The most important thing for us is to target the areas, the communities with the lowest vaccination rates. And so we have a few other things that we plan to work out in the weeks and months to come.
First, it is about deepening our mobile vaccination efforts. We have delivered over 100,000 doses using our mobile vans. And 17,000 people have been fully immunized through our home immunization service, which is now available to anyone in New York City who is eligible for the vaccine.
The other key element is working with trusted health care providers, nurses, doctors and pharmacists. These are the people we turn to for all health care, whether it’s a COVID vaccine or whatever. We must make sure that at each clinical meeting, they take the opportunity to talk about the COVID vaccination. But then, at the end of the day, make a strong recommendation for it, and deliver it optimally on the same visit.
– Have health departments in other cities asked you or your staff for advice on how we did it in New York and what they should do?
DAVE CHOKSHI: We are constantly in contact with other health services across the country. There has been real camaraderie as we all fight this pandemic together. And I would say that we in New York have learned a lot from our colleagues across the country and around the world.
I’m proud of how we have been at the forefront, and especially how our mayor has pushed us to make sure that we lower, for example, the barriers to immunization, like this home program. which I discussed earlier. We have the largest testing and tracing device in the country, and possibly the world. And we’ve tried to communicate the changes that are happening so quickly, due to the evolution of science at every turn, so that every day New Yorkers can digest them and make important decisions for themselves. and their families.
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