April 30, 2021 • 19 mins
Good news, bad news when it comes to vaccines. Good news is that 92% of Americans who got the Covid vaccine returned for their second shot. The bad news, millions of people have not gone back for their second dose, citing fear of side effects and thinking they are sufficiently protected after one shot. Public health experts applaud that high number but also urge everyone to finish their two-shot regimen. Elizabeth Weise, national correspondent at USA Today, joins us for more.
Next, the FDA is moving forward with a nationwide ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The ban will not extend to menthol flavored e-cigarettes. Right now more than a third of cigarette purchases in the U.S. are for menthols and are mostly consumed by young people and smokers in communities of color. Marisa Fernandez, health care reporter at Axios, joins us for upcoming ban.
Finally, the CDC updated guidance this week for those that are fully vaccinated saying you no longer need to wear a mask outdoors, except if you are in crowded areas such as concerts or sporting events. There has been ongoing pushback over continued mask wearing with some states rolling back their mandates and others keeping them intact. Lena Sun, health reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for why you can toss that mask when outdoors.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday at him Oscar and Mirrors in Los Angeles,
and this is the daily dive. Good news, bad news
when it comes to vaccines. Good news is that Americans
who got the COVID vaccine returned for their second shot.
The bad news, millions of people have not gone back
(00:21):
for their second dose, citing fears of side effects and
thinking they're sufficiently protected after one shot. Public health experts
applaud that high number, but also urge everyone to finish
their two shot regiment. Elizabeth Weis, national correspondent at USA
Today joins US for more. Next, the FDA is moving
forward with a nationwide band on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.
(00:43):
Right now, more than a third of cigarette purchases in
the US are for menthols and are mostly consumed by
young people and smokers, and communities of color. Marissa Fernandez,
healthcare reporter at Axios, joins US for the upcoming band. Finally,
the CDC updated guidance this week for those that are
full be vaccinated, saying you no longer need to wear
a mask outdoors, except if you're in crowded areas such
(01:05):
as concerts are sporting events. There has been ongoing pushback
over continued mask wearing, with some states rolling back their
mandates and others keeping them intact. Lena's son, health reporter
at the Washington Post joins us for why you can
toss that mask when outdoors. It's news without the noise.
Let's dive in. It's everybody's turn, every adult in America,
(01:27):
it's your turn now. So it's the time to sign up,
as the time to get vaccinated. And if we do
all those things, we do have a really good chance
of having more normal experiences this summer than certainly what
we had last year. Joining us now is Elizabeth Lee's
national correspondent at USA Today. Thanks for joining us, Elizabeth,
You're welcome. I wanted to talk about some good news
(01:47):
bad news. The really good news is that we're getting
numbers from the CDC. They're saying that about of Americans
who got their COVID vaccine did come back for their
second shot and they're on their way to being fully vaccinated.
The flip side of that, about eight percent did not
come back for their shot, and those numbers could have
changed since the CDC gave us those numbers blacked. There's
(02:09):
cause for concern there because you're not getting as much
protection as you would be with two shots. So Elizabeth,
what are we seeing in these numbers. It was a
fascinating story to report because when you first look at it,
you think, oh, that's bad. Eight percent of people are
not coming back to get their second shot. And mind
your CDC was only looking at Maderna Andervisor because they
(02:30):
were first out and they didn't have data on Johnson
and Johnson, which is of course only one shot. So
eight percent sounds like, oh, that's not good. It's not
People should definitely get the second shot because the way
these shots work is the first one climbs your immune system.
It kind of tells you, hey, beyond the lookout for
this coronavirus out there and start making ways to protect
(02:56):
yourself against it. The second shot is the booster, and
it kind of revs up your immune system and gets
you fully able to fight it off. And so without
that second shot, you don't have the same degree of protection. Now,
all of that said, the thing that surprised me when
I started calling around to public health people and anybody
(03:17):
who works in the vaccine world was oh, yeah, eight percent,
that's astoundingly great, And said, what do you mean, and
they're like, no, really, you don't understand. Adults are so
hard to get to come back for the second shot
for anything. I mean, I talked to people who work
with shingles and shields. Is a horrible, nasty, unpleasant saying
(03:39):
where you get this awful, painful, itchy rash, and as
you get older, more and more people that you know
will have gotten it, so you know firsthand just how
bad it is. And even at that, they only see
of people come back for their second shot. Ever. Have
the titeis b which can you kill you? It's as
low as forty, So it's funny. It's kind of blessed up,
(04:00):
full glass half empty, right. They were surprised it was
as high as it was. And yet they all said,
and still you really need to come back for your
second shot. And not just that, but maybe you put
it off, maybe you missed your appointment, maybe you were sick,
maybe you were away. Done better go back now, you'll
nobody's gonna try to nobody's going to get you in trouble.
They'll just be thrilled to give you your second shot. Now,
(04:22):
a lot of people were reporting that the reasons why
they didn't go back were they feared some of the
side effects. Sometimes people got put on their butts pretty
hard with the first one. Maybe we're scared of what
the second one would do. Others said they thought they
were sufficiently protected with just a single shot. But you know,
despite what those reasons, you know you're supposed to come
back either twenty one days twenty eight days, depending on
(04:43):
which shot you get. If you extend that time, if
you go a longer period of time, then within that
time frame, does the overall protectiveness become less effective. We
don't know how long out because we're only it were
in months four of a national the nation campaign. So
I mean you're you're still fine. It's four months out
(05:05):
is fine. You will still get that next boost. And
in fact, in places like the United Kingdom, where they
were facing a real shortage of vaccine for a while,
they were extending the time period between the two shots
just so they could get more people to have their
first shot, just because they were trying to get it
into as many arms as possible. We know that the
first shot only gives you, it gets you up to protection,
(05:29):
and then that second shot brings you up to ninety seven.
And what we don't know is after six months or
eight months or a year, does that first shots protection
start to wane. But even so, if you only have
the first shot, you're only up to about you really want.
Seven is a really nice high number. That's what we're
(05:52):
shooting for. So is there going to be a drive
to maybe try to target some of these people some
public information drive saying hey, come back, makes your you
get your full set of doses so that you can
be fully vaccinated. My guess is we will get to that.
I think right now all the public health communication money
and time is being spent on just getting people in
(06:13):
for their first doses. And then when we're we've got
a big chunk of the population covered, I think Dan,
you'll start seeing, you know, another round of ads that hey,
if you missed your first shot, it's not too late.
But that's not going to happen for a while because
they have other fish to fry. Well. Like I said,
this is a good news bad news thing, and that's
why I wanted to talk to you. Some of the
other headlines and things that I had been reading out there.
(06:36):
We're focused on those eight percent, and they should because
those people need to go back. But there is cause
for celebration when such a high number are going back
to get fully vaccinated. So that's why I love the
take that you had on it, Elizabeth, because because that's
another area to focus on, is that positive number of
are going back to getting their full shots. Well, and
(06:56):
I gotta tell you that was a real surprise to
me because yeah, I saw the eight A set number
two and I point, well, okay, well let me go
report this out. And then when I started calling experts, yeah,
I was expecting them to be really depressed and ah, yeah,
this isn't great. But instead they were like, oh, just happy.
(07:16):
They were very surprised that it was that good, and
they probably didn't think, yeah, they probably didn't think it's
going to be that good. So all right, well goodness, yeah,
good news, bad news on that. If you haven't gotten
your second one, go out and do it. Elizabeth We's
national correspondent at USA Today. Thank you very much for
joining us. You're so welcome. Take care and you're right too.
(07:45):
In terms of what this proposed DAN will apply to,
it will apply two cigarettes and cigars and little mini
flavored cigars that are really popular with young people. And
then this doesn't really apply to eas cigarette now. Is
Marissa Fernandez, healthcare reporter at Axios. Thanks for joining us, Marissa, Hi,
thank you. The Food and Drug Administration has announced that
(08:08):
it's going to move forward with a plan to ban
mental cigarettes nationwide. I think they're also going to ban
flavored cigars in this roll out as well. Um, this
could take a couple of years to be enacted, but
you know a lot of people are saying this is
the right move to help, you know, communities, you know,
young people that get started with mental cigarettes, people in
(08:29):
the African American community who are smoke these a lot more. So, Marissa,
tell us a little bit about what we're seeing. You're
very correct in terms of there are few main takeaways
I think in this announcement that happened, which is that
this is not something that's going to happen in the
next couple of months, let alone this year is going
to take a very long time in kickstarting the rolemaking process.
(08:51):
And we've seen how slow these processes are before, when
the industry had but the government, you know, like the
tobacco industry to block regulations like these all the time.
If you remember in two thousand nine, you know, twelve
years ago. Warning labels with graphic pictures of how smoking
affects the body we're supposed to be put on tobacco products,
(09:12):
and they are still not in effect today, and it
keeps getting delayed through lawsuits in different ways to kind
of push back that deadline of enforcement, you know, and
you're right to in terms of what this proposed band
will apply to. It will apply to cigarettes and cigars
and little mini flavored cigars that are really popular with
young people. And then this doesn't really apply to e cigarettes,
(09:35):
which is interesting since that's the most recent tobacco regulation
that we've seen back during the Trump administration when I'm
flavored e cigarettes were all the huge debate when it
came to ten youth and daping, right, so that the
mental flavor will only be available on that front. And
you know, just going back to what you're saying, I'm
not a regular smoker, So I just remember hearing about
(09:58):
those pictures that they were supposed to put on the package.
I thought that was already implemented. So I guess to
your point, right, this stuff takes so long to roll out,
so you know it'll be some time before this all
does take place. What is happening right now that the
decision came down to actually begin this process of banning.
So I think there was like this weird convergence I
(10:18):
think with what's been going on um in current events,
which is that a lot of people feel like the
health disparities that were exacerbated by the pandemic and systemic
racism in public health really shined a light on how
disaffects different types of communities, and there's predatory market marketing,
and public health officials have been in this spite for years, right,
(10:39):
Like a petition to ban mentals cigarettes has been on
the FDA's desk since probably the birth of its tobacco unit.
And so what really put the fire underneath them is
a lawsuits that really brought the deadline, which the deadline
was today to bring a decision down because but the
petition did it didn't really necessarily have a deadline. So
(11:00):
there was a lot of back and forth, There was
a lot of fish and shoves just went through multiple administrations,
and so I think the conversions of the deadline and
then also I think this hyper awareness from Congress and
I think from the Biden administration and others in public
hopp officials who are seeing health disparities up close, and
how people who have pre existing conditions from smoking or
(11:21):
heart issues are really affected in the past year, and
I think it just all of this kind of was
brought together and not necessarily I wouldn't say a perfect storm,
but it definitely is at the top of people's minds.
Let's talk a little bit about the numbers, because mental
tobacco products are a huge part of the industry sales.
More than a third of cigarette purchases were for mentals,
(11:43):
so non mental smoking or even just smoking general, has
continued to decline in the past decade. Mental smoking has
you know, pretty much been steady or has been on
an increased so there's like they're um within the past
like ten to twenty years, mental smoking has actually in
on the forefront of what you know, nicotine and tobacco
addiction really is. And public health officials have been you know,
(12:07):
have told me that they're pretty concerned with those numbers,
especially when it comes to you smoking to mental has
you know, if you've never smoked before, mental you know
to have a cooling effect on the throat. It kind
of masks the typical effects for first time user like
the coughing and the burning sensations that we hear about,
and so public health officials were particularly concerned by that
(12:28):
when it comes to young people and children, because nicotine
addiction sets in at such a young age, and pediatricians
have told me that this has been such a huge
issue in terms of getting them off of different products,
and you know, you're creating intervention. It's like such a
young adult when the brain is developing and they've just
(12:50):
been crying about the you know, basically expressing concerned about
this for years. Well, we're on our way. It seems
like it will still take some time, but uh, it
seems for now the FDA bann moving to ban these
mental cigarettes. Marissa Fernandez, healthcare reporter at Axios, thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks so much. You're fully
(13:20):
vaccinated and you're outside, whether it's a farmer's market, that
that parking a lot. If you're gonna be out there
for a long period of time around people, maybe a
little bit safer to wear them out, but otherwise I
think it's fine to go without joining us. Now is
Lena's Son, health reporter at the Washington Post. Thanks for
joining us. Lena happy to be with you got some
good news from the CDC this week about wearing masks outdoors.
(13:41):
We can finally put that aside. We don't have to
do it except for, you know, certain cases of being
in a big crowded areas, concerts, things like that. But
for the most part, fully vaccinated people can go without
wearing their masks outdoors now, something that a lot of
people were kind of already doing. A mask restriction were
being ease across the country anyway, but now we have
(14:03):
that full guidance and the administration in the CDC, we're
selling it as Hey, this is even more reason why
you should go get vaccinated, because you can do away
with the mass now, at least on that front. So
Lena tell us a little bit more about what we
heard from the CDC. I think that they had been
listening to the calls out there, but because it's a CDC,
they wanted to make sure that they had the science
(14:23):
that they could point to and all of the you know,
increasing number of studies show that transmission outdoors is way way,
way way lower than indoors, and you know, they know
more about how this virus spreads. It spreads in the
air when you're outside using basic common sense, there's a
lot more air to disperse the virus particles. So I
(14:43):
think this is a way for them to say to folks, look,
if you're fully vaccinated, here are some of the things
that you have been longing to do that you can
do now, and you went and enjoy and we understand
that the lockdown and the social isolation has been really tough.
So yes, please do this. And they hope that this
will encourage other people to get vaccinated as well, because
(15:05):
you know, if you don't and the variants continue to spread,
we could be looking at a fourth surge this fall.
Maybe not as bad as the previous ones, but I
think there might be some calculation here is if we
tell you now to take off the mass that you
can do these things, maybe you will listen to us
when we tell you you need to put them back
on later on. Yeah, And you know that's a difficulty
(15:26):
for a government agency like this. They have to move slow.
You know, they can't just say hey, okay, we're all done,
no more mask ring at all, because, as you mentioned,
they might have to roll things back and it's a
tougher situation for them. We also saw some changes with
regards to the workplace quarantines and testing. What did we
see there? This is their effort to update all of
(15:48):
the guidance for fully vaccinated people. And as they do this,
they want to make sure that people know that when
you're fully vaccinated, there are a bunch of things you
can do if you're fully vaccinated. Did you are exempt
from routine testing if you're asymptomatic? Right? And when we
talk about people who are fully vaccinated, we're talking about
(16:08):
not just like oh, to hey, I got my second
shot today. It's two weeks after you get your second
shot or two weeks after the single dose J and J.
So you don't need to get tested before leaving the
United States. If you're going abroad, unless the going abroad
place requires it, you do not need to self quarantine
after you arrive back in the United States. And in
(16:30):
many situations, because you're fully vaccinated, there are a lot
of things you don't have to do. Part of this
is it's not like very strict boxes. It uses common
sense and also the kinds of things people need to
keep in mind are the various risk factors for if
your indoors or outdoors, if you're in a place that's
crowded versus not crowded, if you're in a place where
(16:51):
there's poor ventilation or not, and also in a place
where you don't know what the vaccination status is of
the other folks. Like if I have everybody over from
my team here at the Washington Post, and if we're
all vaccinated indoors, we don't need to wear masks because
we've all been fully vaccinated. But I would not feel
very comfortable going to a movie theater, even though I'm
(17:13):
fully vaccinated, sit there in a movie theater with people
I don't know for two hours indoors. Right, you got
to protect yourself against that uncertainty. I do want to
talk a little bit about the vaccine numbers so far.
So we have more than of eligible people that have
gotten at least one shot. We've been talking about fully
vaccinated people. On Tuesday, I think they said that that
(17:35):
number was about thirty seven of adults are fully vaccinated
right now. You know, we've kind of reached this point
where vaccine hesitancy might be playing a part in there.
But we are starting to see cases and hospitalizations go down.
I know there's pockets in the country where they're going
up still and the pandemic is not over, but this
increase in vaccinations is helping to stem the flow of
(17:59):
this thing. And I think what's most important is that,
you know, the people who are at highest risk for
this disease are people sixty five and older. So that
was the group that was always prioritized to get the vaccination.
And if you look at those numbers, the percent of
the population over sixty five that's fully vaccinated is almost okay,
(18:21):
there's thirty seven million people, that's sixty eight point three
as of three today. That means there's still about you know,
people in that age group that have not been fully vaccinated,
and there is an effort underway to protect those people.
But already you can see in the epic numbers that
(18:42):
the hospitalizations and deaths have come down. Because if that
group is protected, and that group is at higher risk,
it's going to start reflecting in the trends and in
the cases. And that is happening and they're dropping actually
kind of quickly, those trends and that's really good. And
Rochelle Wilenski, the CDC director, said this week that made
her feel good. You will recall it a couple of
(19:03):
weeks ago, she spoke about the rising trend in cases
and hospitalizations that made her feel like a sense of
impending doom. Lena's son, health reporter at the Washington Post,
thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for
having me. That's it for today. Join us on social
(19:26):
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Leaves the comment, give us a rating and tell us
the stories that you're interested in. Follow us and I
heard radio or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This
episode of The Daily Divers produced by Victor Wright and
engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this is
(19:46):
your Daily Dive
It's Friday at him Oscar and Mirrors in Los Angeles,
and this is the daily dive. Good news, bad news
when it comes to vaccines. Good news is that Americans
who got the COVID vaccine returned for their second shot.
The bad news, millions of people have not gone back
(00:21):
for their second dose, citing fears of side effects and
thinking they're sufficiently protected after one shot. Public health experts
applaud that high number, but also urge everyone to finish
their two shot regiment. Elizabeth Weis, national correspondent at USA
Today joins US for more. Next, the FDA is moving
forward with a nationwide band on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.
(00:43):
Right now, more than a third of cigarette purchases in
the US are for menthols and are mostly consumed by
young people and smokers, and communities of color. Marissa Fernandez,
healthcare reporter at Axios, joins US for the upcoming band. Finally,
the CDC updated guidance this week for those that are
full be vaccinated, saying you no longer need to wear
a mask outdoors, except if you're in crowded areas such
(01:05):
as concerts are sporting events. There has been ongoing pushback
over continued mask wearing, with some states rolling back their
mandates and others keeping them intact. Lena's son, health reporter
at the Washington Post joins us for why you can
toss that mask when outdoors. It's news without the noise.
Let's dive in. It's everybody's turn, every adult in America,
(01:27):
it's your turn now. So it's the time to sign up,
as the time to get vaccinated. And if we do
all those things, we do have a really good chance
of having more normal experiences this summer than certainly what
we had last year. Joining us now is Elizabeth Lee's
national correspondent at USA Today. Thanks for joining us, Elizabeth,
You're welcome. I wanted to talk about some good news
(01:47):
bad news. The really good news is that we're getting
numbers from the CDC. They're saying that about of Americans
who got their COVID vaccine did come back for their
second shot and they're on their way to being fully vaccinated.
The flip side of that, about eight percent did not
come back for their shot, and those numbers could have
changed since the CDC gave us those numbers blacked. There's
(02:09):
cause for concern there because you're not getting as much
protection as you would be with two shots. So Elizabeth,
what are we seeing in these numbers. It was a
fascinating story to report because when you first look at it,
you think, oh, that's bad. Eight percent of people are
not coming back to get their second shot. And mind
your CDC was only looking at Maderna Andervisor because they
(02:30):
were first out and they didn't have data on Johnson
and Johnson, which is of course only one shot. So
eight percent sounds like, oh, that's not good. It's not
People should definitely get the second shot because the way
these shots work is the first one climbs your immune system.
It kind of tells you, hey, beyond the lookout for
this coronavirus out there and start making ways to protect
(02:56):
yourself against it. The second shot is the booster, and
it kind of revs up your immune system and gets
you fully able to fight it off. And so without
that second shot, you don't have the same degree of protection. Now,
all of that said, the thing that surprised me when
I started calling around to public health people and anybody
(03:17):
who works in the vaccine world was oh, yeah, eight percent,
that's astoundingly great, And said, what do you mean, and
they're like, no, really, you don't understand. Adults are so
hard to get to come back for the second shot
for anything. I mean, I talked to people who work
with shingles and shields. Is a horrible, nasty, unpleasant saying
(03:39):
where you get this awful, painful, itchy rash, and as
you get older, more and more people that you know
will have gotten it, so you know firsthand just how
bad it is. And even at that, they only see
of people come back for their second shot. Ever. Have
the titeis b which can you kill you? It's as
low as forty, So it's funny. It's kind of blessed up,
(04:00):
full glass half empty, right. They were surprised it was
as high as it was. And yet they all said,
and still you really need to come back for your
second shot. And not just that, but maybe you put
it off, maybe you missed your appointment, maybe you were sick,
maybe you were away. Done better go back now, you'll
nobody's gonna try to nobody's going to get you in trouble.
They'll just be thrilled to give you your second shot. Now,
(04:22):
a lot of people were reporting that the reasons why
they didn't go back were they feared some of the
side effects. Sometimes people got put on their butts pretty
hard with the first one. Maybe we're scared of what
the second one would do. Others said they thought they
were sufficiently protected with just a single shot. But you know,
despite what those reasons, you know you're supposed to come
back either twenty one days twenty eight days, depending on
(04:43):
which shot you get. If you extend that time, if
you go a longer period of time, then within that
time frame, does the overall protectiveness become less effective. We
don't know how long out because we're only it were
in months four of a national the nation campaign. So
I mean you're you're still fine. It's four months out
(05:05):
is fine. You will still get that next boost. And
in fact, in places like the United Kingdom, where they
were facing a real shortage of vaccine for a while,
they were extending the time period between the two shots
just so they could get more people to have their
first shot, just because they were trying to get it
into as many arms as possible. We know that the
first shot only gives you, it gets you up to protection,
(05:29):
and then that second shot brings you up to ninety seven.
And what we don't know is after six months or
eight months or a year, does that first shots protection
start to wane. But even so, if you only have
the first shot, you're only up to about you really want.
Seven is a really nice high number. That's what we're
(05:52):
shooting for. So is there going to be a drive
to maybe try to target some of these people some
public information drive saying hey, come back, makes your you
get your full set of doses so that you can
be fully vaccinated. My guess is we will get to that.
I think right now all the public health communication money
and time is being spent on just getting people in
(06:13):
for their first doses. And then when we're we've got
a big chunk of the population covered, I think Dan,
you'll start seeing, you know, another round of ads that hey,
if you missed your first shot, it's not too late.
But that's not going to happen for a while because
they have other fish to fry. Well. Like I said,
this is a good news bad news thing, and that's
why I wanted to talk to you. Some of the
other headlines and things that I had been reading out there.
(06:36):
We're focused on those eight percent, and they should because
those people need to go back. But there is cause
for celebration when such a high number are going back
to get fully vaccinated. So that's why I love the
take that you had on it, Elizabeth, because because that's
another area to focus on, is that positive number of
are going back to getting their full shots. Well, and
(06:56):
I gotta tell you that was a real surprise to
me because yeah, I saw the eight A set number
two and I point, well, okay, well let me go
report this out. And then when I started calling experts, yeah,
I was expecting them to be really depressed and ah, yeah,
this isn't great. But instead they were like, oh, just happy.
(07:16):
They were very surprised that it was that good, and
they probably didn't think, yeah, they probably didn't think it's
going to be that good. So all right, well goodness, yeah,
good news, bad news on that. If you haven't gotten
your second one, go out and do it. Elizabeth We's
national correspondent at USA Today. Thank you very much for
joining us. You're so welcome. Take care and you're right too.
(07:45):
In terms of what this proposed DAN will apply to,
it will apply two cigarettes and cigars and little mini
flavored cigars that are really popular with young people. And
then this doesn't really apply to eas cigarette now. Is
Marissa Fernandez, healthcare reporter at Axios. Thanks for joining us, Marissa, Hi,
thank you. The Food and Drug Administration has announced that
(08:08):
it's going to move forward with a plan to ban
mental cigarettes nationwide. I think they're also going to ban
flavored cigars in this roll out as well. Um, this
could take a couple of years to be enacted, but
you know a lot of people are saying this is
the right move to help, you know, communities, you know,
young people that get started with mental cigarettes, people in
(08:29):
the African American community who are smoke these a lot more. So, Marissa,
tell us a little bit about what we're seeing. You're
very correct in terms of there are few main takeaways
I think in this announcement that happened, which is that
this is not something that's going to happen in the
next couple of months, let alone this year is going
to take a very long time in kickstarting the rolemaking process.
(08:51):
And we've seen how slow these processes are before, when
the industry had but the government, you know, like the
tobacco industry to block regulations like these all the time.
If you remember in two thousand nine, you know, twelve
years ago. Warning labels with graphic pictures of how smoking
affects the body we're supposed to be put on tobacco products,
(09:12):
and they are still not in effect today, and it
keeps getting delayed through lawsuits in different ways to kind
of push back that deadline of enforcement, you know, and
you're right to in terms of what this proposed band
will apply to. It will apply to cigarettes and cigars
and little mini flavored cigars that are really popular with
young people. And then this doesn't really apply to e cigarettes,
(09:35):
which is interesting since that's the most recent tobacco regulation
that we've seen back during the Trump administration when I'm
flavored e cigarettes were all the huge debate when it
came to ten youth and daping, right, so that the
mental flavor will only be available on that front. And
you know, just going back to what you're saying, I'm
not a regular smoker, So I just remember hearing about
(09:58):
those pictures that they were supposed to put on the package.
I thought that was already implemented. So I guess to
your point, right, this stuff takes so long to roll out,
so you know it'll be some time before this all
does take place. What is happening right now that the
decision came down to actually begin this process of banning.
So I think there was like this weird convergence I
(10:18):
think with what's been going on um in current events,
which is that a lot of people feel like the
health disparities that were exacerbated by the pandemic and systemic
racism in public health really shined a light on how
disaffects different types of communities, and there's predatory market marketing,
and public health officials have been in this spite for years, right,
(10:39):
Like a petition to ban mentals cigarettes has been on
the FDA's desk since probably the birth of its tobacco unit.
And so what really put the fire underneath them is
a lawsuits that really brought the deadline, which the deadline
was today to bring a decision down because but the
petition did it didn't really necessarily have a deadline. So
(11:00):
there was a lot of back and forth, There was
a lot of fish and shoves just went through multiple administrations,
and so I think the conversions of the deadline and
then also I think this hyper awareness from Congress and
I think from the Biden administration and others in public
hopp officials who are seeing health disparities up close, and
how people who have pre existing conditions from smoking or
(11:21):
heart issues are really affected in the past year, and
I think it just all of this kind of was
brought together and not necessarily I wouldn't say a perfect storm,
but it definitely is at the top of people's minds.
Let's talk a little bit about the numbers, because mental
tobacco products are a huge part of the industry sales.
More than a third of cigarette purchases were for mentals,
(11:43):
so non mental smoking or even just smoking general, has
continued to decline in the past decade. Mental smoking has
you know, pretty much been steady or has been on
an increased so there's like they're um within the past
like ten to twenty years, mental smoking has actually in
on the forefront of what you know, nicotine and tobacco
addiction really is. And public health officials have been you know,
(12:07):
have told me that they're pretty concerned with those numbers,
especially when it comes to you smoking to mental has
you know, if you've never smoked before, mental you know
to have a cooling effect on the throat. It kind
of masks the typical effects for first time user like
the coughing and the burning sensations that we hear about,
and so public health officials were particularly concerned by that
(12:28):
when it comes to young people and children, because nicotine
addiction sets in at such a young age, and pediatricians
have told me that this has been such a huge
issue in terms of getting them off of different products,
and you know, you're creating intervention. It's like such a
young adult when the brain is developing and they've just
(12:50):
been crying about the you know, basically expressing concerned about
this for years. Well, we're on our way. It seems
like it will still take some time, but uh, it
seems for now the FDA bann moving to ban these
mental cigarettes. Marissa Fernandez, healthcare reporter at Axios, thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks so much. You're fully
(13:20):
vaccinated and you're outside, whether it's a farmer's market, that
that parking a lot. If you're gonna be out there
for a long period of time around people, maybe a
little bit safer to wear them out, but otherwise I
think it's fine to go without joining us. Now is
Lena's Son, health reporter at the Washington Post. Thanks for
joining us. Lena happy to be with you got some
good news from the CDC this week about wearing masks outdoors.
(13:41):
We can finally put that aside. We don't have to
do it except for, you know, certain cases of being
in a big crowded areas, concerts, things like that. But
for the most part, fully vaccinated people can go without
wearing their masks outdoors now, something that a lot of
people were kind of already doing. A mask restriction were
being ease across the country anyway, but now we have
(14:03):
that full guidance and the administration in the CDC, we're
selling it as Hey, this is even more reason why
you should go get vaccinated, because you can do away
with the mass now, at least on that front. So
Lena tell us a little bit more about what we
heard from the CDC. I think that they had been
listening to the calls out there, but because it's a CDC,
they wanted to make sure that they had the science
(14:23):
that they could point to and all of the you know,
increasing number of studies show that transmission outdoors is way way,
way way lower than indoors, and you know, they know
more about how this virus spreads. It spreads in the
air when you're outside using basic common sense, there's a
lot more air to disperse the virus particles. So I
(14:43):
think this is a way for them to say to folks, look,
if you're fully vaccinated, here are some of the things
that you have been longing to do that you can
do now, and you went and enjoy and we understand
that the lockdown and the social isolation has been really tough.
So yes, please do this. And they hope that this
will encourage other people to get vaccinated as well, because
(15:05):
you know, if you don't and the variants continue to spread,
we could be looking at a fourth surge this fall.
Maybe not as bad as the previous ones, but I
think there might be some calculation here is if we
tell you now to take off the mass that you
can do these things, maybe you will listen to us
when we tell you you need to put them back
on later on. Yeah, And you know that's a difficulty
(15:26):
for a government agency like this. They have to move slow.
You know, they can't just say hey, okay, we're all done,
no more mask ring at all, because, as you mentioned,
they might have to roll things back and it's a
tougher situation for them. We also saw some changes with
regards to the workplace quarantines and testing. What did we
see there? This is their effort to update all of
(15:48):
the guidance for fully vaccinated people. And as they do this,
they want to make sure that people know that when
you're fully vaccinated, there are a bunch of things you
can do if you're fully vaccinated. Did you are exempt
from routine testing if you're asymptomatic? Right? And when we
talk about people who are fully vaccinated, we're talking about
(16:08):
not just like oh, to hey, I got my second
shot today. It's two weeks after you get your second
shot or two weeks after the single dose J and J.
So you don't need to get tested before leaving the
United States. If you're going abroad, unless the going abroad
place requires it, you do not need to self quarantine
after you arrive back in the United States. And in
(16:30):
many situations, because you're fully vaccinated, there are a lot
of things you don't have to do. Part of this
is it's not like very strict boxes. It uses common
sense and also the kinds of things people need to
keep in mind are the various risk factors for if
your indoors or outdoors, if you're in a place that's
crowded versus not crowded, if you're in a place where
(16:51):
there's poor ventilation or not, and also in a place
where you don't know what the vaccination status is of
the other folks. Like if I have everybody over from
my team here at the Washington Post, and if we're
all vaccinated indoors, we don't need to wear masks because
we've all been fully vaccinated. But I would not feel
very comfortable going to a movie theater, even though I'm
(17:13):
fully vaccinated, sit there in a movie theater with people
I don't know for two hours indoors. Right, you got
to protect yourself against that uncertainty. I do want to
talk a little bit about the vaccine numbers so far.
So we have more than of eligible people that have
gotten at least one shot. We've been talking about fully
vaccinated people. On Tuesday, I think they said that that
(17:35):
number was about thirty seven of adults are fully vaccinated
right now. You know, we've kind of reached this point
where vaccine hesitancy might be playing a part in there.
But we are starting to see cases and hospitalizations go down.
I know there's pockets in the country where they're going
up still and the pandemic is not over, but this
increase in vaccinations is helping to stem the flow of
(17:59):
this thing. And I think what's most important is that,
you know, the people who are at highest risk for
this disease are people sixty five and older. So that
was the group that was always prioritized to get the vaccination.
And if you look at those numbers, the percent of
the population over sixty five that's fully vaccinated is almost okay,
(18:21):
there's thirty seven million people, that's sixty eight point three
as of three today. That means there's still about you know,
people in that age group that have not been fully vaccinated,
and there is an effort underway to protect those people.
But already you can see in the epic numbers that
(18:42):
the hospitalizations and deaths have come down. Because if that
group is protected, and that group is at higher risk,
it's going to start reflecting in the trends and in
the cases. And that is happening and they're dropping actually
kind of quickly, those trends and that's really good. And
Rochelle Wilenski, the CDC director, said this week that made
her feel good. You will recall it a couple of
(19:03):
weeks ago, she spoke about the rising trend in cases
and hospitalizations that made her feel like a sense of
impending doom. Lena's son, health reporter at the Washington Post,
thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for
having me. That's it for today. Join us on social
(19:26):
media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leaves the comment, give us a rating and tell us
the stories that you're interested in. Follow us and I
heard radio or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This
episode of The Daily Divers produced by Victor Wright and
engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this is
(19:46):
your Daily Dive
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