Stanford University professor of medicine Dr. Jay Bhattacharya explains on ‘Fox and Friends Weekend.’
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Will, despite enacting some of
will, despite enacting some of
the toughest lockdown rules in
the country, Governor Gavin
Newsom is facing a surge in new
covid cases across California.
Our next guest calling strict
lockdowns a failure of
imagination on behalf of
lawmakers
here to explain is Dr Jay Batac
Heria, professor of
medicine, at Stanford University.
Thanks, so much for being with us,
it does seem like lockdown
lockdown, lockdown, its the cure
all and the almost
reflexive response from policy
makers.
Tell me why thats a fail youre
of imagination,
I mean the key thing: is it
doesnt respect the facts about
this epidemic and the virus
the virus spreads in households?
It spreads basically in ways
that we kind of know where the
lockdown sort of suppresses
society in places where the
virus doesnt necessarily
spread a lot
it also, I mean it reduces our
ability to react to the virus.
So, for instance, we closed our
schools.
Well, that means a lot of people
who work in frontline settings.
They have kids and they cant
go to work because they have to
take care of their kids,
the lockdown itself, all it ever.
Even theoretically, all it
does is it delays. When the
infections occur
in a sense, whats happened in
California. We have bunched them
up all right now and our
hospitals are starting to get
stressed. As a result,
I mean our hospitals are empty
for large parts of the spring
and the summer weirdly
will right the idea behind
lockdowns wasnt to kill the
virus. It was to bend the
curve
thats what we were told in
early spring. So what would
have been a better policy
response doctor?
Well, we know that older
people, people over seventy, have a
ninety five percent survival rate from the virus.
Five percent mortality is pretty high,
whereas under seventy, the survival
rate is. Ninety nine point. Ninety five percent, so those zero point, zero. Five percent
mortality.
Older people are the ones who
are at risk.
We should have done everything
we could possibly do to protect
older population.
Let me give you one failure
where I think it just is so
obvious. Once you say it,
there are people who are say sixty four
sixty five. They have diabetes. They are
actually at my risk of mortality
and maybe a clerk in a grocery
store or a janitor, so we call
them essential and expose them
to the virus.
We should have been protecting
them.
Our policy should have been
designed to give them leave,
will more tailored less blunt.
That seems pretty obvious.
I have to get to two big
important stories really quickly.
You brought up elderly people in
our society who are most
vulnerable.
There is this emerging debate
among health experts who should
be prioritized when it comes to
the vaccine,
should it be older Americans, or
should it be used as a chance
for racial equity?
Should we prioritize essential
workers who have more minority
populations
more represented by minority
populations?
Should we be taking race into
account doctor?
I think that the key thing
is if we want to minimize
mortality from this virus, what
we need to do is prioritize
older people and especially
people with chronic conditions.
Minority populations with
chronic conditions should be
prioritized absolutely
especially older people. I mean,
I think, thats the key question.
What do you want if you want to
reduce death from this virus?
Prioritize older populations
will seems obvious
really quickly because youre
from Stanford, I have to ask you
about the story controversy
about Stanford, prioritizing
professors at the higher level,
not the frontline workers
whats your response to what
happened in Stanford in the
vaccine distribution there
yeah. I think they made a
mistake with people like me. I
guess I havent had the vaccine
as yet, but they should have
been prioritizing people who
really were he frontline,
especially those who take care
of older people,
will really good information a
lot in a little amount of time.
Transcript generated on 2020-12-20.