MADISON, Wis. — UW Health’s chief quality officer Dr. Jeff Pothof joined Live at Four to talk about the BA.2 Omicron variant that was recently announced to have been found in Dane County and the push to vaccinate children under the age of 5 for COVID-19.
A transcript of that interview is below; watch the full interview above.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Mark Koehn: How concerned are we with this “evil twin,” this BA.2 Omicron variant?
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “I think evil twin’s a good way to put it, so something to pay attention to but I think it’s important for folks to know that this is not a variant that is like Delta to Omicron, this is like Omicron and then Omicron’s little sister. It might be a little bit more contagious than Omicron, but as far as vaccine effectiveness against it, it’s the same. Its ability to cause severe disease (is) about the same, and with folks vaccinated recently having Omicron infections, I think at best this can maybe slow down our decrease in cases but I don’t think it’s going to result in another spike.”
Susan Siman: The vaccines should work for this, so that’s encouraging to hear, but how will that affect the overall peak of the Omicron variant locally?
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “I think where we are right now is we’re clearly off-peak, we’re coming down on our curve, and if it’s like the rest of the world and the rest of the United States, that comedown can be fairly quick. If we see more of this BA.2 variant, it may spread that downward curve out a little bit, it might take a little bit longer to get to low case levels, but that would likely be the most likely impact that it would have; I don’t think it’s going to turn our downward curve into an upward curve.”
Mark Koehn: This isn’t really surprising as this is how viruses work.
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “Yeah, absolutely. We haven’t talked a lot about subvariants during the course of the pandemic, and most of them are irrelevant. This one being maybe a little more contagious gets some attention, but these viruses, they really don’t have proofreading when they replicate so they make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes make these subvariants.”
READ MORE: Pfizer asks FDA to allow COVID-19 vaccine for kids under 5
Susan Siman: Just this afternoon, Pfizer announced it submitted for emergency use authorization approval for a two-dose vaccine for children ages six months up to five years. That’s something a lot of parents have been waiting for. Is that something you expect to see soon?
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “I do think you’ll see this approved relatively quickly. The safety profile of this vaccine is very, very good; there’s really not much concern about the safety profile. If you remember, the efficacy of this initial two-dose Pfizer regimen was called into question; they reduced the dose by tenfold and they weren’t seeing the robust antibody response that they thought they would see, so what I think you’ll see is this two-dose series approved, it’ll be good for kids to get that, they won’t have the same protection as if they had been, say, a 15-year-old and gotten that two-dose series, but then I think a month later or so you’re going to see this turn into a three-dose series initially for those six month to five-year-old kids that will give them the same protection as other kids and adults have seen with the Pfizer vaccine.”
Mark Koehn: And there seems to be some hesitancy for the five- to 12-year-olds, we’re only at like 28% (vaccinated), something like that?
(Editor’s note: Data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services as of Tuesday shows 25.1% of Wisconsinites between the ages of 5 and 11 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine; 20.1% are fully vaccinated.)
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “Yeah, the uptake across the state has been a little bit lower. I think there’s this misconception amongst parents that COVID-19’s just not a big deal for their kid, and back in 2020 with the original COVID-19 virus (there was) maybe an argument for that although not strong. With Delta and now Omicron, we have seen much more COVID-19 in kids in this age group, and although they don’t die at a significant rate, they do still suffer from those complications — long-haul COVID, brain fog, loss of smell, things that are really disruptive to those kids getting back to a normal life — so there is a strong recommendation to get those kids vaccinated at this point if they’re eligible.”
Susan Siman: What is the situation right now at UW Hospital?
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “I think we’re seeing a bit of a change. Across the state, we’ve seen lower hospitalizations of COVID patients; that hasn’t necessarily been the case here at UW Health. We still have a fairly high number of COVID-19 patients, but we’re starting to see a change with a lot of those patients now being admitted with COVID, they have mild symptoms but they’re here in the hospital for a different reason. It’s challenging for us because they still need isolation, but we’re seeing a less percent of our COVID patients being admitted with those severe respiratory symptoms that often land them in the hospital for days if not weeks at a time that consume a bit more of our resources, so we’re not in the clear yet but we are starting to see that shift.”
Mark Koehn: Not to be overly optimistic, but (are) things going down just a little bit?
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “I feel optimistic about the direction that we’re heading. I’m really hopeful that we can get to an endemic state where this becomes more like an annual booster shot, low-level COVID cases — some people will still get sick but not so many that we have this rush on the health care system and people, whether they have COVID or not, can’t get the healthcare that they need. I’m hopeful that we don’t have another variant that surprises us sometime in the near future.”
Susan Siman: If you’re exposed to someone who tests positive and you quarantine as a precaution for five days and you show no symptoms, are you good to go after that, to back out as normal?
Dr. Jeff Pothof: “So the most likely scenario is if you’re exposed to someone who has COVID-19, if you’re going to get the disease, you’re likely to have symptoms anywhere from that 3-5 days (the majority of the time). There’s a small group of people — 10% to 20% of those — who are going to be positive that will convert at that later date, so I won’t necessarily say at day five you can throw caution to the wind; certainly at day five, if you start having symptoms at day six or seven, it could very well be COVID, but if you’re at day five and you’re feeling pretty good, most of the risk is already behind you.”
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