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Omicron: ‘The main climax seems to be over,’ doctor says

Emergency medical physician Dr. Calvin Sun joins Yahoo Finance Live to break down the impact COVID-19 has placed on the health care industry, the importance of vaccinations, and the rise of daily cases in the U.S.

Video transcript

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS: The COVID-19 pandemic is now entering its third year and we are at a critical juncture. We must work together to bring the acute phase of this pandemic to an end. We cannot let it continue to drag on, lurching between panic and neglect. We have all of the tools to end the acute phase of this pandemic, but we have to use them equitably and wisely.

- That was the WHO director general Dr. Tedros at a press briefing earlier describing what he called a critical juncture as the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year. Joining us now is Dr. Calvin Sun, who is the Monsoon Diaries founder and CEO, clinical assistant professor and attending physician in emergency medicine in New York City.

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Dr. Sun, thanks so much for joining us here on the day. First and foremost, you know, as we were just listening to the WHO director general, the world attempts to put the Omicron variant in the past. It's clear new variants pose a future risk perhaps, and so what preparedness do you believe that we can continue to activate to navigate future variants and abate societal disruption?

CALVIN SUN: Hasn't like every month been a critical juncture? The answer is simple. We have the tools. Use the tools. Vaccinate everyone. You vaccinate the underdeveloped, the lesser accessed parts of the world, and you prevent the possibility of creating future variants that could evade the protection of antibodies from whether it's prior infections or vaccine antibodies.

It's once you like clamp down and do your part and vaccinate as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time, you lower the chances of having to go through the speech again and saying that we are at a critical juncture at this part of the pandemic, which has been like literally every minute in the last three years. You have-- we have the ability. Why not just do it right now?

- Doctor, we started to see a pullback in those infections in places like New York City that were at the very beginning of the Omicron wave here in the US. What are you seeing in your ERs?

CALVIN SUN: So I'm in New York City, and it kind of feels like that scene of an action movie or let's say "True Lies" or "Alien," right? The drama-- the main climax seems to be over. It's a big sigh of relief. And then like the alien at the very end comes back one more time like "Die Hard" or "True Lies." The villain-- the aliens just come back one more time, and the protagonist of the story takes care of it pretty quickly. But it is, you know, a quick drama right before the end credits roll.

That is what felt like with Omicron. It came and it went all of a sudden. I told everyone to be concerned but not panic. The end credits are coming. And that's what it feels like. It's very hopeful to know that if you got Delta, you could still get Omicron, but if you got Omicron, you're less likely to get Delta because there's just so many more mutations with Omicron.

Having had Omicron protects you against anything that has fewer mutations, hence Delta, which is a worse and more deadly disease compared to Omicron from what we have seen. Or the fact that most of us are fully vaccinated at this point and it's only going to be more vaccinated from this point on, hopefully, that we just see the end credits and no more sequels.

- For the vaccinations that have gone forward thus far for boosters that have even been rolled out and administered, you know, what does that future look like? Is it something similar to what we've been talking about with the flu and the annual flu shot that people have available to them? And at what frequency or cadence do you believe that might look like in the future too?

CALVIN SUN: So we had the flu that came about three to four months a year once a year. It's a-- one season a year, and usually colder months. And we needed one shot a year to protect ourselves from that. And you know, even then a lot of people died from the flu, especially the older, the younger, the vulnerable, the immunocompromised, the pregnant. So we did once a year.

COVID is year-round, so it makes sense that we may need more than once a year. Three times a year if even at this point when-- you know, what I've experienced. So it depends this critical juncture in time. You can make it endemic like the flu where it just comes once a year-- usually at the colder months when more people are inside. We may just see something like a flu shot once a year.

But if you let it go for a year-round pandemic like we saw for the last two years, then you might see something to come more often, understandably. So one shot a year for the flu that comes three months a year versus more than once a year for COVID that comes year-round. That's why we're in a pandemic.

- Doctor, going back to what you were saying about how things look in ERs in the city, you know, we've learned that these things come in waves. And so in the past while we've kind of let our guard down once the case count started to go down again, we kind of have the advantage of hindsight.

And so now that you're starting to see things calm down just a bit, what do you think needs to be done to prepare for that next wave? Is it about the testing and building on what the White House has done rolling out those at home tests? I mean, what are some other factors that you think can be done in this window we have right now once those cases come down?

CALVIN SUN: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail is what I always love to say. So you have a breathing sigh of relief. I don't procrastinate. I'm not one to be a procrastinator. I try to answer as many emails as I can and, you know, be ahead of the game, so I really love the ability to prevent. If history were to be a rhyme, if Delta came-- you know, Alpha was in the wintertime and Delta came around April, god forbid, we'll see the next bad one around April, May if history were to rhyme. I want to be wrong.

But until then we have a few months to prepare, and I think getting as many tests as possible, being more educational about what tests should be used for what, more robust testing at home, encouraging people to test more at home, reporting the results, and we're finding some way of accountability to have the tests reported instead of coming to the emergency room without symptoms to catch COVID just for a test.

And also getting as many people vaccinated and boosted as quickly as possible so you prevent the possibility of an immunocompromised or someone without a vaccine antibodies to get infected and then create the next variant that makes us go through these waves again. So these are multifaceted approach-- multifactorial ways that we can, you know, make sure that we don't have to go through this again. I mean, we have the tools. It really depends on who wants to use them. Not about what. It's about how.

- You know, Dr. Sun, just lastly while we have you, I'd love to know the pulse among some of your colleagues, those that you work with, especially the broader health care workforce, especially as we continue to navigate this pandemic even now.

CALVIN SUN: We are so exhausted. We were so exhausted before the pandemic too. And you know, the pandemic didn't make new problems. It just reclarified and brought up all the things that we've been complaining about in the past to the forefront more quickly. And that's why you see a massive phenomenon of moral injury and burnout among us that we are now leaving. We're exploring other creative outlets in order to stay alive because if we can't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of other people.

And you know, people are siloed in their experiences during this pandemic. They don't really-- you know, out of sight, out of mind. They don't see what goes on behind the walls of a hospital or in the emergency room. And that's what we do. We want to protect the human population, the rest of our community from the horrors that we see behind these walls. I mean, that's what the military does. That's what we do on the front lines. It's very synonymous.

But we're also human. And I think, for people to understand that we're human just like they are, we run out of gas just like they do, and we also swore an oath to put other people above our own needs, you know? That's just a habit that we've been ingrained into us in school. You know, it's-- we-- it's OK for us to understand that we need to also ask for help.

But sometimes it's hard for people who don't know how to ask for help-- the language to ask for help. So if only society can just understand to reach out to us and check in on us and all the people that you know one at a time individually-- all the people that you know out there-- makes a huge difference. But I can't really predict the future of what health care would look like because it is a critical juncture in time of how we take care of ourselves at this point.

- Yeah. Well, we certainly appreciate all of the work that you and other health care workers have been doing. Hopefully you get some time for yourself soon. Dr. Calvin Sun, the Monsoon Diaries founder and CEO, as well as clinical assistant professor and attending physician in emergency medicine in New York City.