[Jack Cofer]: Good morning and
welcome to our first Facebook Live of the spring 2020 semester. My name is Jack Cofer,
and I'm an undergraduate student studying Integrated Strategic Communication
here at the university. Today, we are going to be talking about taking control of your own health.
With me, I have Becky Dutch and Vince Venditto, two experts who are extremely well equipped to
answer some questions that we have for the health and safety of our community.
Becky Dutch, Vice Dean of Research for the UK College of Medicine, is a virologist studying
the diverse nature of viruses and a professor of molecular and cellular biochemistry.
Vince Venditto is an assistant professor in the UK College of Pharmacy with
expertise in cardiovascular diseases, immunology, pharmaceutics, and liposomal and vaccine delivery,
including COVID-19 vaccines. Thank you both for joining me today, and let us jump right in.
First, can each of you give us some more background on what you do here at the university?
[Becky Dutch]: So, I do a variety of
things in my role as Vice Dean. I help oversee the research of the College of Medicine,
which is a very large amount of research because it is an extremely active group.
We have 13 hundred faculty in the college. We have a lot of both clinical and basic science research.
I also run a lab, an NIH-funded lab that looks at RNA virus infection,
particularly RNA viruses in the respiratory tract.
And then, I do also teach. I teach virology in the fall. I'm a co-teacher
of that class and get to enjoy all sorts of other interactions with faculty, students, and staff.
[Jack Cofer]: And Vince?
[Vince Venditto]: Yes, I'm an assistant
professor in the College of Pharmacy, and I have a research lab
where we focus on cardiovascular inflammation trying to modulate immune responses after heart
attacks, for example. When the pandemic hit, we kind of pivoted a little bit to start to study
COVID-19 in the community and working with our pharmacists to try and figure out what COVID-19
looks like out in the community and what infection rates with SARS-CoV-2 are like out there.
So. So that all that is ongoing. I also teach in the College of Pharmacy,
so I teach our PharmD students rheumatology in their second year. So, all the future pharmacists
will see me in the second year of pharmacy school.
[Jack Cofer]: So, you're talking about
infection rates? A question that I have, Becky, would you help us understand the Omicron variant?
What do we know about the transmissibility, severity, illness and hospitalization rate?
[Becky Dutch]:
Sure. And I think it's really important to point out when I start answering the question
that everything we're learning is continually evolving.
This is quite a new variant. It was really not identified till November.
So, each week we are learning new things. So, what I'll tell you is what we seem to know now.
So, Omicron appears to spread much more rapidly.
We're seeing that in a lot of communities. The suggestion has been that it is more transmissible.
The challenge being we don't really have the data yet to say why. Is it actually more stable?
Is there something about the virus itself that makes it more transmissible?
There's been suggestions it may replicate better. You may have more of it up here
in your upper respiratory tract, which makes it easier to spread it.
It also appears that there are enough mutations that you have an increased likelihood that
you'll catch it even if you previously had a COVID-19 infection or if you've been vaccinated.
So, we see more cases of people who've had that. Now, in many cases, those
are quite mild infections, but those people could still spread. So that might
also be contributing to the enhanced spread that we're seeing with Omicron.
So that's the first thing. We certainly see it moving through the community very quickly.
What about severe illness? Well, the very good news
is that people who have been vaccinated and boosted or vaccinated,
just even the first set of vaccines, we're seeing real reductions in the severity of illness.
Really, if I look at the data that's coming out of UK hospital, we had a lot of people
in the hospital still who have been identified as having COVID, including vaccinated people,
and apparently in many of those cases, for vaccinated people, they're in for something else.
So, when they test them, they realize they have COVID. But the ICU rates are actually a lot
lower than what we saw, at least so far in, say, the way we dealt with in September with Delta.
And that's good news because the thing that vaccines were meant to do is to keep you
from getting really sick or dying. And I'm sure we would all agree that if we need to,
we can have some we can go through. You know, for many people, it's mild sniffles and stuff. But
what we don't want is people ending up in the hospital or dying.
So, I do want to point out that doesn't mean that everybody who
gets the Omicron infection is really mild. Some people feel pretty crappy.
And if you've not been vaccinated and you've not had it before, it can still be really serious.
[Jack Cofer]:
Thank you. And then you touched on this. But some have suggested the possibility that those
who are double vaccinated and boosted are more likely to contract COVID 19,
especially the Omicron variant. Is there any validity that would support this claim?
[Vince Venditto]: No, there's not. So,
one thing I want to point out is when the vaccines were developed, they were really developed to
prevent hospitalization and death. They weren't really developed or
tested to prevent transmission. So even if you're vaccinated, it is possible to still get infected.
It's possible that you can still transmit.
We hope that the vaccine helps lower some of that, but it's not guaranteed. What it's
really designed to do is to keep you out of the hospital and to keep you off the ventilators.
And so that's really what they're doing. And even with Omicron,
it's doing that. Just like Becky just said, there's not as many people in the ICUs and
the hospitalization rate is down relative to what it was for Delta.
So, by all accounts, the vaccines are doing exactly what they're supposed to do,
and that is to prevent hospitalization and death.
[Becky Dutch]: But there's certainly
absolutely no evidence that being vaccinated makes you more likely to catch this. None at all.
[Jack Cofer]: That’s good to hear. And then
another point is, are there any risks to getting vaccinated to members of our community at all?
[Vince Venditto]: No. You know, they,
in the United States, they've given 250,000 or two, I'm sorry, 250 million vaccines so far.
And I think there's 80 million doses, booster doses that have been administered. So,
with those numbers, we really don't see very many adverse events. You're supposed to have.
You may have chills and fatigue and achy joints. Things I experienced, all of those things.
That means the vaccine is working. That means your immune system is turned on and it's doing
what it's supposed to do. In some subjects, some people, you will have an allergic response or
and if you know that you are allergic to things, then it's important to talk to your primary care
provider, your doctor, your pharmacist to actually make sure that you're getting the
vaccine and your monitoring to make sure that you're not having any of those, those adverse
events that we that we are worried about. But it happens in such a small number of people.
It's really not a significant concern. Certainly, something to be aware of, though.
[Becky Dutch]: So probably the one other
one I'll bring up because I know this, people talk about this a lot. There is a very, very,
very tiny number of people, particularly it looks like young men in their late teens,
early twenties who look like they have a heart issue after vaccination. The thing with that is
that over and over again, what happens is if they end up going in to be checked, they put
them on basic things like Tylenol and stuff like that, and within 24 hours, they go home.
So, I would not. I have three sons who are in the age range that would have been affected,
and I was absolutely comfortable telling them to get vaccinated and boosted.
[Vince Venditto]:
And the real issue with that if you're infected, your risk of complications of
heart, heart abnormalities and all of those other side effects that you can get when you're infected
are so much more significant with infection than with vaccination.
So, while there is potentially something, you know, something that you need to be aware of
with vaccination. If you're infected, the chances are significantly higher
and it's important to be vaccinated so that you don't have that issue.
[Becky Dutch]: And that's a fantastic point,
Vince. And one of the things I think it's important to stress is as we keep moving
forward is as Omicron is rolling through is we're going to see more and more.
This is not a choice for people to be vaccinated or just not get it. It is really going to end up,
you're going to get vaccinated or you're going to get infected without the vaccine,
but you're going to get this virus in some way, or you're and it's how do you protect yourself?
[Jack Cofer]: And so, you guys
talk about the benefits of getting the vaccine.
What are the benefits of students and parents to receive the booster for COVID-19?
[Becky Dutch]: So,
the booster, I'll be honest, when we first started talking boosters back in August
and I looked at the data, I thought, oh, I don't know if we need to be boosted.
The, you know, because there are also concerns for me in particular
about making sure there's enough vaccine for the rest of the world,
particularly Africa has a very low vaccination rates and we need to really be working on that.
I saw two in the end. I was boosted in early December,
and there were two main reasons that I did it. The biggest reason, I was actually not worried
for myself about hospitalization or death. The data really suggests that those first two, I had
the Moderna vaccine, that the first two shots was sufficient to keep me very well protected.
But it was clear that over time, your chance of getting
infected and spreading, it seemed to go up some which was actually surprising
you were protected at all. Most vaccines don't do that in terms of any infection.
Vaccines protect you from getting really, really sick.
But because we are trying to reduce spread in the communities because, for instance,
at Christmas, I was going to be spending time with my parents, who were in their late eighties.
I wanted to do whatever I could to minimize the risk that I would get a case. I wasn't worried
for myself that I didn't want to spread it on. And those were really the biggest reasons is
the same reasons I encouraged my family and my children to go ahead and get the booster.
Just in fact, they all express the same thing. Before they spent time with their grandparents,
they all made sure they were boosted. They were all especially careful,
because we really still want to protect people as much as we can.
[Jack Cofer]: And then, Vince, you touched
on this earlier, but how safe is the vaccine and booster for young adults and their parents?
[Vince Venditto]: It's safe. Like I said,
they've given so many doses now. We really haven't seen any major adverse events or
side effects that we wouldn't expect, that we did not see in clinical trials.
So, by all accounts, they are safe and effective. It really, you know,
there are some of those things that we brought up, like the heart complications, allergy, those
types of things. They're important to be aware of, but they happen so rarely that most people who get
the vaccine are not really going to have any of those side effects. So, it's there. They, I can
say that they're safe and effective, and I would certainly have any of my children or any of my
nieces, nephews, or anybody in my family. I recommend that they all get them.
So, and that's what I've done.
[Jack Cofer]: That's great to hear. And
another question is, when you talk about safety, Becky, you touched on it earlier
with young men. There's a lot of concerns about young and young men around the age that I am.
And so how safe is it for us and should we be concerned with our health?
[Becky Dutch]: I actually think it's extremely safe. I mean,
when you give the kinds of doses, you know, the 250 million doses Vince brought up.
We often see very if you have a very, very, very rare side effect, if you give at something 250
million times, you will see some reports of that and that's what we're seeing with this. It's an
extremely rare side effect, but all accounts that I have read suggest that it's a side effect that
goes away within a day or two and doesn't have any long-term effects.
Certainly, if you're a young man and you have a vaccine and you start to feel like you feel heart,
chest pain and stuff like that, call your doctor or go to the E.R., make sure everything's OK.
But I would be sorry with the frequency we see that I would, it's incredibly unlikely
that you would experience it. On the other hand, as Vince properly brought up the risks
of those kinds of things happening. If you're not vaccinated and you get COVID, we see a lot
of people who have long term issues with heart, with lung, with other things.
So, it's choosing, do I want the incredibly small risk of a few days of having to get
some treatment from this vaccine? Or do I want the much larger risk when I get COVID?
[Jack Cofer]: I would get vaccinated.
Yeah. And then concerns have been brought up surrounding infections among
vaccinated people. So, some individuals wonder why they should get vaccinated if it does not
necessarily prevent them from contracting COVID-19. What would you say on this matter?
[Vince Venditto]: Well, you know,
like I said before, the vaccines weren't designed to prevent infection. They're
really designed to prevent hospitalization and death, and that's what they're doing. So,
getting the vaccine, you can still potentially get infected. You can still potentially transmit.
But really, it's keeping you out of the hospital and keeping you, you know,
the side effects of the virus are so much more significant than any side
effects that we see with the virus, and they're much more widespread.
So, you know, being in fact, everybody is going to have
probably be infected at some time, I suspect I don't know that this is not going away.
And when we think about boosters, we get flu boosters every year, right?
We get the flu shot every year. It's really you can think about that as an annual booster,
and we should be thinking about this. I think in a very similar way that it that it really is.
We're going to be living with this.
You're going to be exposed to it. The vaccine is the
easiest and safest way to avoid those complications.
[Becky Dutch]: And maybe it would help for
people who are worried about this to think about what these vaccines do. So, a vaccine essentially
primes your own natural immune system to be ready to face something that enters the body.
So, it shields from the outside, it primes your immune system, so when that virus gets in,
instead of you having to wait for the system to recognize that to start building all these tools,
the tools are there.
So, the initial infection starts up here,
you know, you get some particles and there the virus is starting to grow.
But instead of it taking days and days and days for your immune system, to be able to fight back.
It's starting to fight back almost immediately.
So, sometimes you will see an infection in a person. Sometimes it will progress more. But it's
much, much, much, much less likely to progress to a period where you're really, really sick.
And that's the thing I think is really important to look at. It's doing its job.
It's just a question of what the job is supposed to be. It's not a barrier on the
outside. It's telling your immune system how to respond when the virus gets there.
Sometimes it'll respond so fast you'll never know that the virus was even there.
That's what will happen sometimes, and we see a little more of this with Omicron,
the virus is it a little teeny bit different, so it takes the immune system a little longer to
really kick in and do all the protection it needs to.
But it's still, if you're immunized, you're kicking in much, much faster
than if you're not. And that's the thing to remember. What you're
doing is providing your body's own natural defenses as a tool to fight.
[Jack Cofer]: And so, for those
who may be hesitant to get vaccinated, what piece of advice would you give them?
[Becky Dutch]:
I think obviously the first thing I say is just do it. I think the thing to do is to be really,
really careful about who you listen to and why. I think it's very telling that if you ask
experts who are infectious disease experts, vaccination experts, doctors, etcetera.
You ask the people who work in the wards and in pulmonary who were intubating people.
Not only are they all vaccinated, but they push their families from the beginning.
I know my brother said to someone who is hesitant.
Well, why should I trust your advice in vaccination? And my brother said, because the
very first thing I told my 89-year-old father was the second, you can get that vaccine, you get it.
If we trust it in our families, if we trust it in ourselves, it's because we trust it.
[Vince Venditto]: And I would say, you know,
there's a lot of reasons why people don't get vaccinated, or they're concerned, and I think
I would love to respond to every single question about, you know, here's your concern and here's
what my response to that is. But I, you know, as one person, I can't actually respond to everybody
even listening to this, to this Facebook and the questions that you've asked today are excellent,
but they're not always necessarily addressing one person's individual concern, right?
And so. But there's, you know, physicians, there's health care centers all over
the Commonwealth and certainly all over the United States in the world right now. So,
and there's pharmacies in every county in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
So, if you have concerns, go to your pharmacist, go to your physicians,
talk to them about your specific concerns and let them answer your questions.
They're very well informed about the importance of the vaccines and
what they're doing and how they're keeping people out of the hospital.
So, I think it's really important to reach out to those people that you trust
and who have the medical information to be able to inform your decision.
[Jack Cofer]: Well, thank you
both for answering all the questions that we have regarding the health and safety of our community.
So, thank you for joining me and providing the information
to keep our community safe. And then thank you also to our viewers
for joining us today. We hope you have a wonderful semester and stay warm, Wildcats!