‘Fertility is not going to be affected in any way’ by COVID-19 vaccine: Doctor

Dr. Steven Corwin, NewYork Presbyterian Hospital CEO, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

Video transcript

- Welcome back, let's turn now to the latest in the coronavirus pandemic, as the United States tries to get more adults vaccinated. We're joined now by Dr. Stephen Corwin, New York Presbyterian Hospital's CEO. So doctor, we were all talking this morning about vaccine hesitancy. So I wanted to start with some myth busting about the coronavirus vaccine.

STEPHEN CORWIN: Sure.

- Two questions here. One, because I think this is the one I've heard quite a bit, can these vaccines at all cause infertility? Are there any concerns that they could potentially cause infertility? And two, if you had the coronavirus, do you still need to get vaccinated? Or does that immunity, or the antibodies that you've got after fighting of the virus, last essentially forever?

STEPHEN CORWIN: Great questions. The first answer is clearly no. Your fertility is not going to be affected in any way, shape, or form. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that. So for those couples and people that are thinking about having children, I would not worry about that one bit. The second question is an interesting one, which is that, yes, you may have some immunity, depending on the severity of the illness and how much antibody response you generated.

But it is not as effective in terms of immunity as the vaccine. So the recommendation that we have, that CDC has is you should get vaccinated anyway. It's more protective of you and for you for the long haul. Those are two important questions, thanks.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Dr. Corwin, I don't know if you saw news that a hospital in Houston has actually suspended about 200 of its employees without pay for two weeks because they refused to get the vaccine. We're seeing some people in the medical community not wanting to get the vaccine. And I'm wondering what you are seeing within your own hospital network and from your own staff.

STEPHEN CORWIN: Same thing. And we're seriously considering mandating the vaccine. We're a health care institution. Our first responsibility is to protect our patients and then to protect our staff. And so we've spent a huge amount of time educating our staff, making sure that they understand all the issues with the vaccine, that people don't feel that they're being experimented upon, that the vaccine is safe, that there are reasons to get the vaccine and protection of the vaccine.

But ultimately, we want any patient coming into our institution to feel that they're going to be safe, and that means that our employees have to be vaccinated.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You know, I, for one, when I hear folks in the medical community say that they are hesitant to get the vaccine, it sort of makes me wonder. And I take pause, although I have gotten both of my doses of Pfizer. And I am fully vaccinated. Are you concerned that laypeople will hear that the medical professionals don't want the vaccine, and it'll sort of start feeding off itself?

STEPHEN CORWIN: Yeah, I think you have two concerns. The first concern, the most important one is, do you want to go into a hospital where you're not sure your medical care provider, the security guard, the environmental service worker has not been vaccinated? By definition, you're sick if you're in the hospital. And to a certain extent, you're immunocompromised. So I think that you want that assurance.

And then secondly, as you said, well, if my doctor's not getting it, why should I get it? Or if my nurse didn't get it, why should I-- why should I get it? So and it's really important, Alexis, to remember, we're still not over this thing. We're a lot better off. The economy is coming back, as you've noted. People are talking about travel coming back, business travel. There are bookings all around the country.

But we've got to get to more people vaccinated to continue to propel us forward economically and for people to feel safe. And we have to go through another fall and winter. So this is not the time to let the foot off the pedal. We've got to double down on getting everybody vaccinated. I'm sure you felt a great sense of relief when you got your vaccines. I felt the same sense of relief. My family has.

I have convinced many many people who were hesitant to get the vaccine who felt that sense of relief and the feeling of, gee, I can get back to a more normal life now. That's what we want. That's what we want as a country.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So I'm curious to know what our reality truly looks like if we don't reach some of those levels that the Biden administration has put forth. Right now, it is that 70% by July 4th. But if we don't hit some of those target numbers, you know, what does our new normal look like? Is it a constant separation of vaccinated and unvaccinated people? Is it the fact that we're just going to all have to keep wearing our masks into perpetuity?

I mean, what is it really going to look like this time next year, for example?

STEPHEN CORWIN: Well, look, I'm a big sports fan. I'd like to know that if I got into a stadium with 50,000 people or 60,000 people that the vast, vast majority of them were vaccinated. So to your point, yes, we want to get more people vaccinated. It varies state by state. I realize there is some discussion over, you know, this may be incurring on my individual liberty. But the public health of the country, I think, is critically important. And getting back to normal requires people to be vaccinated.

The flu pandemic of 1919 lasted for a period of a few years with bumps, with recurrences. I would be surprised if we didn't have some recurrence of this in the fall. And it'll be mitigated substantially if we're all vaccinated. The more we get out, the more we go to restaurants, the more we go to indoor entertainment venues, whether it's the theater or the movies, et cetera, you want the people sitting next to you to be vaccinated. Because it just increases the chance of transmission if they're not.

So if America wants to get back to a real normal, you've got to hit that 70% plus threshold to get us back to feeling like, hey, I don't have to wear my mask all the time. I can go to a restaurant and not worry about getting COVID. I can visit my family. I can have a normal Thanksgiving. I can have a normal Christmas. You're 100% right. That's exactly what this is about.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And, you know, just a few minutes ago, the Biden administration made an announcement saying they're going to buy up 500 million Pfizer coronavirus vaccine doses to donate to the world. How far do you think that's going to go? I mean, it sounds like a big number. But how far is it really going to go in getting the world vaccinated? So we can all-- because we are so all interconnected, so we can all get back to normal.

STEPHEN CORWIN: Well, it's a start. And clearly, it's a big start. I think the president said very early on, I want to make sure America's vaccinated. But it's a worldwide pandemic. You see now with the delta variant or the variant in India that is now in the UK, the world has to get over this pandemic. Otherwise, we're going to have these recurrences, Alexis.

So I think it's a-- I think it's a very good gesture. But I think we're going to be talking getting vaccine doses in the billions. I'm not quite sure how effective the Sinopharm vaccine has been. We're not sure how effective the Sputnik vaccine has been. But we sure as shooting know that the Moderna, the Pfizer, the J&J vaccines are effective. And I think that we should be clearly in the process of giving them to the world.

I don't agree on the waiving of the intellectual property protections. I think there's a better way to do that. I think it would be counterproductive to waive the intellectual property protections in terms of the development of the vaccine. And I know that that's been talked about as well.

- All right. Dr. Steven Corwin, CEO of New York Presbyterian Hospital, thanks so much.

STEPHEN CORWIN: And I love seeing you without your mask on. So thank you so much.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We love not having to wear our masks anymore.

STEPHEN CORWIN: Exactly, thank you guys.