Dr. Heather Yeo, SurvivorNet Medical Advisor & Associate Professor of Surgery and Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College joins Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers to break down the latest coronavirus developments.

Video Transcript

- I want to turn now to Dr. Heather Yeo, SurvivorNet medical advisor and associate professor of surgery and population Health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Yeo, thanks so much for joining us today. So if the FDA authorizes this vaccine possibly tomorrow, as Julie was mentioning, we could see this start getting rolling out next week.

So I'm wondering, now what? All right, is your hospital ready to start distributing this vaccine next week? Are your friends and co-workers at other hospitals are they ready for this distribution?

HEATHER YEO: Yeah. They-- everyone's actually ready. We've been prepared. We have plans. Our administrative teams have met and talked about how we're going to roll it out, exactly where it's going to go. And I think that we're looking forward to and hoping to get the vaccine out next week.

- So this vaccine is really coming it seems when it's needed the most. We had a record number of deaths earlier this week. That was more than 3,000. As I mentioned at the top of the show, we had the second worst day in this pandemic, when it least comes to that positive case counts in just one day, over 200,000 yesterday. Is this the worst that we're going to be seeing now?

HEATHER YEO: You know, it's, it's hard to say. I will tell you in New York we really-- the worst hit us in March. This actually-- our hospital is not nearly as full as we were in March. I do think that we're going to continue to have post-Thanksgiving increase. And a lot of it will depend how people act over the next couple of weeks and holidays.

- I'm wondering if now that we have this vaccine if businesses can really start to think about reopening anytime soon?

HEATHER YEO: I mean, it's, it's really hopeful. The problem, as you know, is what amount of vaccine we're going to get. We expect probably the first wave, as you mentioned earlier, is going to be health care workers and people that are dealing with patients on a frequent basis, for example, emergency health responders, our firefighters that are-- and our ambulances that are going to patients' homes to pick them up. They certainly need to have access.

And then it's going to go to the nursing homes, because we know disproportionately while less nursing home patients have gotten sick, a large amount of them make up a high number of deaths. And so going to those higher risk groups is going to be important. But as you know, vaccine production, we don't exactly know. Both companies have told us they'll probably get a total of 50 million vaccines, but we are trying to kind of figure out how that's going to roll out.

The vaccine is difficult to distribute. It's hard to store, but our institution, I know we've had calls on it over the past week, is prepared, has the proper storage. We have distribution set up. And they've kind of told us what order we can expect to be getting our vaccines in.

- Are you signed up to get your vaccine, Doctor?

HEATHER YEO: I have-- we haven't actually signed up, but they have told us what order we're getting them. And I am certainly-- as soon as I'm on the list, I'm signing up.

- I want to ask you about restrictions that need to be in place while this vaccine starts rolling out, because I think a lot of people believe that once this vaccine starts getting rolling out, it's like a light switch in the United States. Everyone can start going back to the bars, to the restaurants. They can start seeing their friends and their families, even if they have not yet received the vaccine. And we do have the news from Governor Cuomo that indoor dining in New York City is now going to be shut down. So I want to ask you what that plan needs to be going forward in terms of restrictions if more cities should consider following this move, shutting down indoor dining, and placing more restrictions at least on some of these businesses, even as the vaccine is being distributed to folks?

HEATHER YEO: Yeah. I mean, first off, the vaccine takes a little bit of time to work. We know that after the first dose, there is some efficacy. But it really takes until that second dose. And for the Pfizer vaccine, that's three weeks later.

For the Moderna vaccine, that's four weeks later. But it's going to take until the second dose and sometime after your body builds up its immune response until it's actually safe. There is also some questions about whether or not-- well, you wouldn't get sick necessarily after an exposure, even if you're vaccinated, there's a potential that you still might be a partial carrier to the virus.

So a lot of it's going to depend on how quickly we can ramp up speed, how quickly we can get people vaccinated. I mean, it's great that this vaccine is as efficacious as it is. They're estimating, as mentioned from the Pfizer data, 94%, but part of the question is going to be, what of the population gets vaccinated?

As you mentioned, there are some restrictions. We, as a standard for vaccines and most clinical trials, we usually don't test them on children. We usually don't test them on pregnant women. And so some of these have been restrictions.

In addition, a lot of people, because they're afraid, are afraid of, of the vaccine, and I think that encouraging people-- and I mean, I've talked to a number of vaccine specialists. I've talked to a number of epidemiologists. This is one of the safest vaccines we've seen.

I mean, the trials have really shown a very low profile, but as you mentioned, this is a preliminary approval. It's not final approval. It's an emergency use authorization. You can't actually get full approval until we have a full six months of data. And Pfizer's expecting to apply for that in April at some point.

- You know, we've had a lot of doctors and public health officials come on this program and say that they're deeply worried about the potential missteps-- excuse me-- that will happen with the Trump administration handling this distribution. I'm wondering if you share some of those concerns.

HEATHER YEO: I mean, I'm a physician. I'm not a supply chain management person, but I will say that most of what's happened has been left to the states. And our state has a plan. I'm in New York.

We've had an independent advisory council that's actually made sure that the data has been checked. I know members of our faculty have been involved with kind of looking and overseeing some of the safety data. And I believe that as these organizations are getting ready to distribute, we're hoping to do it in a safe and sound manner.

- How long do you think it'll take before everyone in this country is vaccinated or at least until we have some level of herd immunity?

HEATHER YEO: I mean, I think that a lot of it depends on both the Pfizer vaccine, the medicine, Moderna vaccine, the AstraZeneca vaccine, which as you know, probably has the most potential for reproducibility. I think that the estimates of April, May are probably what we think are most likely for the majority of people who want a vaccine to have one.

- Right. All right, Dr. Heather Yeo, Weill Cornell Medical College, thanks so much for joining us today.