Dr. Cameron Webb

White House Covid Response Team Doctor Dr. Cameron Webb chats with Courtney about Covid Vaccines.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
With Mario Lopez. Hey, you're on with Mario and Courtney Lopez.
And it's no secret that health is a top priority
at Costa Lopez and it should be a top priority
for everyone, especially as we are trying to get through
the pandemic. The vaccines are helping us do just that.
And now joining us right now, someone who can talk
all about that is Dr Cameron Webb, who is on

(00:22):
the White House COVID nineteen response team. How are you doing,
Dr Webb? I'm doing very well. Thanks so much for
having me. Thank you for being here with us. So
let's talk about this delta variant. What do we need
to know because I'm getting scared all over again. Yeah. Well,
you know, there are a couple of things about the
delta variants I think are really important. First is that

(00:42):
you know, this variant was first identified in India, and
we saw that it was able to spread really fast
and do a lot of damage in India, but even
more recently in the United Kingdom it pretty quickly rose
to becoming the dominant training of the cases there in
the UK are the delta variants. So once it got
here in the United States, it's we've been tracking it
really closely, and so with the end of May is

(01:03):
about just under three percent of our cases. By the
first week in June it was about ten percent of
our cases, and last week it was about twenty percent
of our cases. So you're seeing it quickly. It's spreading
and so we know that it spreads fast. It's very transmissible.
But the other thing is that we have early indications
that it could cause more hospitalization, so some folks getting
a little bit sicker too. So the good news is

(01:25):
that our vaccines still seem to be effective against it.
So the messenger RNA vaccines still very effective if you
get both shots and are fully vaccine, so two weeks
after your second shot, and so we still have that
tool in our tool belt. But it's just really important
for everybody to know the threat is still there from
this pandemic and we can't let up our guard quite yet.
I know a lot of people think that it's over

(01:47):
and they just which we just want to go back
to a normal life. I think that's what everybody wants.
But what shall we be doing to prepare for more
possible variants. Well, you know, the what I always tell
people is the way that this virus works is any
time we can get into a human body and to
a host, it starts replicating itself. And when it's replicating itself,
when it's making more of itself more virus, it sometimes

(02:10):
makes copying mistakes. And those copying mistakes can lead to
a version that doesn't work at all, or can lead
to a version that's more effective at making people sick
or spreading around the community. And that's what variants are.
They're copying mistakes that the virus makes while it's replicating
in a human body that then create an advantage for
that virus to spread faster or do more damage. And

(02:31):
so the best thing we can do is not give
the virus anywhere to replicate. And the way we do
that is by getting vaccinated or if you're not vaccinated,
always wearing a mask, maintaining that physical distance. All those
mitigation measures that we learned over the last sixteen months,
you really have to put those into good breakfasts because
we can stop this variant from spreading, this virus from

(02:51):
spreading those tools. We've got a hundred eighty million people
who've had at least one shot of a vaccine at
this point, so we just need everybody to choose one
of those two paths to help stop the spread. What
is the government doing to increase the access to the vaccines. Well,
you know, we've been really focused on access since at
the beginning of this administration at least. And so, you know,
we had the mass vaccination sites and got a lot

(03:13):
of people vaccine through those. We've got over forty one
thousand pharmacies offering vaccines and in fact, on Friday's uh,
you know, through through July four, they're open twenty four
hours on you know, to give people extended hours. And
those are just some of the examples are generally called
by health centers community health centers making sure they have
vaccines to administer. We've been working with primary care providers

(03:35):
and other health providers to make sure folks can access
vaccines there, but then acknowledging that there are barriers to
access even if you've got a place in your community
where you can go, uh. And so some of those
barriers are things like you can pay time off from
work to get vaccines, so we made sure that that
policy is in place, even having a place to drop
your kids. So we have offerings in terms of childcare

(03:56):
providers who are creating spaces where people can drop off
their kids uh and and go get vaccinated, or if
they're feeling under the weather the next day or two,
and so those are really important options. And then also
things like transportation, because even though we have a vaccine
site within five miles, over five miles is a long
way if you don't have a car, and so we're
in lift or offering rides. We have public transit and

(04:18):
a lot of communities offering three rides to vaccination sites.
And the last thing I'll say is we're working to
meet people where they are, and that's our mobile units
bringing vaccines into clinics, working with the community based and
faith based organizations. We're even working with barbershops and beauty
salons to to offer vaccination. Yeah, exactly. I think the

(04:39):
goal here is that we're trying to reach folks everywhere
that they are and make sure that vaccines are everywhere
that you look, so you come to that conclusion that
you're ready to be vaccinated. It's right in front of it.
It's always there, and you can always go to vaccines
dot com to find out where vaccines are available, or
you can text your zip code to four three eight
eight to nine which is get backs and it'll just

(05:02):
send back all the vaccine locations in your ZI, so
we're making it as easy as we can. You just
answered all my next questions where people should go to
get all this information? Well, Dr Dr Cameron Webb from
the White House COVID nineteen Response Team, thank you so
much for joining us. You stay safe and keep doing
what you're doing. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

(05:22):
It's great, great to be here with Mario. A little
pett