COVID-19 variants are back in the news as a fresh variant of the virus is on the rise in the eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and western Pacific regions of the world.
Arizona Public Health Association Executive Director Will Humble joined The Show to tell us what to keep an eye on.
Full conversation
SAM DINGMAN: Good morning, Will.
WILL HUMBLE: Morning, thanks for the invitation.
DINGMAN: Thank you for being here. Let's start out very high level. Some people may have heard this very terrifying nickname for the variant "razor blade throat." How does this version of COVID compare to previous strains?
HUMBLE: I knew this term was gonna take off when my 28-year-old daughter asked me, What, Dad, what's this "razor blade" virus? And I'm like, OK, they use that word, I know that’s going to go viral. But the bottom line is, as it were, yeah, you talked about the big picture here, which is the COVID virus started off as a lower respiratory virus. That was what was so dangerous about it is that it caused a lot of pneumonia and that's what killed people for the most part.
As it evolved and especially as omicron came on the scene as the omicron variant, it became an upper respiratory system and up in the neck and throat. And so this newest version of an omicron virus is still omicron. It presents itself clinically often as a really bad sore throat or, let me just say, a sore throat.
So that's essentially like what's going on here is that the virus keeps trying to stay ahead of human immune systems so that it can continue to survive as a virus by infecting people and spreading.
DINGMAN: But if I'm clocking that correctly, obviously razor blade throat sounds very uncomfortable but the lethality level is decreasing.
HUMBLE: Right? Give me a choice between a sore throat and pneumonia. I'll take sore throat every day of the week.
DINGMAN: OK, so let's say people are hearing about this and they've already gotten a COVID vaccine. Is there any concern there if their vaccines are up to date? Should they be worried about this strain of the virus?
HUMBLE: Not in the way you're talking about it. They should be concerned about being able to have access to the vaccines in the future and maybe we'll have time to get into that. But in terms of clinical, this isn't any worse. There's no worse clinical presentation in terms of lethality or bad outcomes. It's encouraging that it continues to migrate towards the upper respiratory rather than lower respiratory virus.
DINGMAN: OK, well, let's, let's talk about what you're alluding to there. This is, of course, happening in the wake of the news that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has replaced previous members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on immunization practices. You wrote a blog post about this recently, concerning these changes, and you're concerned, right?
HUMBLE: Oh yeah, big time.
DINGMAN: Yeah, perhaps not a strong enough word.
HUMBLE: Yeah, I mean, the new members of the, so there were 17 members of the former committee that were vetted based on their expertise, their depth of knowledge with vaccine practice, the ability to critique studies and look at, clinical trials to sort of discern the details, and they've been replaced by and large with eight people, well six of the eight people on the new committee.
So Kennedy got rid of all 17 of the former committee. There's, he put eight people on and six of those eight are just well-known anti-vaccine people.
DINGMAN: And what implications does that have as you were talking about for the availability of the vaccines going forward?
HUMBLE: So just sticking with COVID for a second, Secretary Kennedy's already said that for the upcoming influenza season, people over 65 will be able to continue to get the vaccine and have either Medicare or their health plan pay for that. But kids and pregnant women no longer would be able to get the vaccine. They could still get the vaccine if they can find someone to give it to them, but it will cost them $220.
And then this week is probably what we're gonna see from that new committee I just described is a decision to move the vaccine to a different category, meaning that for people under 6, everyone under 65, that basically are most likely by this time next week, you'd be expected to pay full freight, and your health plan probably won't cover it.
Now, your health plan still can decide to cover it, but they're no longer required to cover it after ACIP and the CDC dropped their recommendation, which hasn't happened yet for everyone under 65, but I think by Friday it will be.
DINGMAN: So you're saying that's, that seems to be the likely outcome of those conversations this week.
HUMBLE: Yeah, I mean, a lot of us in public health have been worried about what Mr. Kennedy's going to do for vaccinations. And initially my reaction was I thought, oh, maybe he's gonna just try get the FDA to pull the licenses of these vaccines. And no, that's not his MO. That's not his strategy.
What he's doing is taking vaccines off the recommended list. Therefore, health plans not covering that vaccine, thereby lowering immunization rates, but he still, then he can't get sued by the vaccine manufacturers because he didn't pull their license, right?
DINGMAN: He just made them much harder to get unless you're able to pay out of pocket.
HUMBLE: Bingo.
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