Cases are climbing, hospitals are
short staffed and overcrowded.
We've got talk of boosters
and vaccine mandates,
swirling lot of new information. Day by day.
I want to get to our medical expert,
Doctor David, winner from Baylor,
Scott and White Health doctor winner.
Do we have him? Oh yes we do.
OK I was gonna say good to see
you and I looked at my monitor.
Didn't see you but good to see you now.
So First off COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Are they continuing to climb in
your hospitals for instance or have
they peaked already by this time?
Unfortunately, the continuing to go up,
there's been several weeks now,
a steady increase throughout Dallas County.
A little bit of a decrease
in our hospital this morning,
but we think that's an aberration.
We think they're still going to go up.
Very unfortunate right now.
This is a big deal.
A lot of cases out there.
Now I'm seeing a lot of folks
in my practice have been
vaccinated with mild cases,
but it's a different story.
If you haven't been vaccinated.
I've got a chart here that shows the
fact that almost all of our cases in
the hospital or unvaccinated folks.
In fact, we have so many.
We are full right now we're having
to cut off some elective surgeries
were having to jockey around since
some people to another hospital
where there's a couple beds were
about to run out of room from all
these sick people and most all
of them Sonya are unvaccinated
and what is your advice when it
comes to these booster shots?
Do we all need them?
Can antibody levels help us decide this?
Clear this up for us because I
think there was a lot of confusion.
I mean look the way that
the messaging rolled out.
It was highly complicated depending
on whether or not you're.
Immuno compromised
yeah it makes sense we will
need a booster shot sometime.
I'm not sure we know when that is right
now but I've seen some folks with low
antibody levels that get sick with COVID.
They've been vaccinated
and have a very mild case.
So even the antibody levels don't
tell us what to do quite yet.
The current recommendation is
8 months after your second
vaccine of Moderna or Pfizer.
Or if you're immunocompromised,
get one right away.
This 28 days past the second shot.
That's the current advice.
It could change next week
could change next month,
so stay tuned
so. I know I've asked you
this question previously,
but louder for the people in the back right?
So those of us who are vaccinated we're
hearing about breakthrough cases.
We're hearing about. Well,
they've got mild symptoms in these cases.
So what do we do right now?
Do we stay away from crowds?
Do we wear masks?
Could we go to outdoor concerts?
Or how contagious is this
when it comes to being around
someone who might be infected?
If you are vaccinated?
So this new delta variant,
which is the predominant variant
throughout America right now,
has changed the whole situation before this.
If you were, if you've been vaccinated,
had some mild symptoms,
you probably weren't in,
and going to spread that.
But this virus spread so rapidly in your
own throat if you've been vaccinated,
you may not get sick,
but for the first two or three days
you have so many viral particles there
you can spread those unknowingly.
So yeah, it's highly contagious.
I've gone back to wearing a
mask wherever I go. Outdoors.
Right now I'm worried about this.
Not worried about getting sick.
I've had a vaccine, but.
I don't want to have to
quarantine for two weeks,
and I don't want to spread it.
So yeah,
this new delta virus has
changed the rules of how we
want to react to this pandemic.
Yeah, it certainly has.
I've been eating outdoors only and
in 100 degrees it's not comfortable,
but I'd rather eat out
than not OK doctor winner.
So we've been talking about
the Pfizer vaccine lately.
It's received full FDA
approval at this point.
So how does this really change things?
Well, I hope it makes people
more comfortable with it early
on because this pandemic crisis.
They took a little bit of data
the FDA did from Pfizer and
said it looks like it's good.
It's safe, but we need more
data so we're going to give you
emergency authorization only.
So fires continue to look and
study and they had sent a lot of
data in and they study this very
carefully like to do with all new
drugs and they found that yes,
it is the right dose.
It does work and it is safe.
So now it's approved like.
Any other prescription drugs?
We think Modernos right behind them.
They should be approved also so this
gives more credence to the fact
this is a very good vaccine that
is safe for all of us to receive
and doctor winner. Finally,
I've got one viewer question for you.
I don't have a name from this person,
but they say I received the Moderna vaccine.
In December, January,
I'm interested in a booster.
I asked my pharmacist about availability.
They only offer Pfizer.
Pharmacist told me it's OK to use
the Pfizer as a booster despite
receiving maderna in my first rounds.
This is a great question.
What are the latest updates that
you can tell us for the public?
Yeah, the common advice now is if
you can get the same one for your
second shot or for your booster shot,
but if you can't get the other one they
see they're made by the same technique
talking about Pfizer and Moderna.
So it makes sense you would
get one or the other,
so ideally you'd get the same one.
But if you can't do that get the other
one is safe to get that booster shot.
Whatever you can find it.
What about the folks who
took Johnson and Johnson?
'cause I know I'm going to
get a question about that
now that you said that.
Yeah, that's a very good question,
so I don't know the answer to that.
We think you should probably
get another Johnson and Johnson,
although they are in short supply now,
so my advice is if you need another shot,
I'd go ahead and get whatever you can.
Even there. The common advice right
now is get whatever you can get.
The signs hadn't quite caught up,
but it didn't make any sense that
you couldn't get Madonna or Pfizer
if you had Johnson and Johnson for
the for one shot sometime ago.
David winner, thank you
as always, appreciate it.