Double-masking? Variants? Pregnancy? Prisma experts answer new COVID-19 questions

As a new coronavirus variant arrives in South Carolina and more vaccines are distributed, experts from Prisma Health held a town hall on Thursday to explain some of the pandemic’s latest developments.

The questions, some of which were provided by Facebook users, ranged from the efficacy of double-masking to the safety of vaccines to the threat posed by the latest COVID-19 strain from South Africa.

Statewide, a quarter-million people have already been vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to a previous article from The State. However, hospitals such as Prisma have the capacity to distribute 10,000 vaccines per day, but the hospital is not receiving enough doses to get close to that number, said Saria Carter Saccocio, a family medicine doctor with Prisma in Greenville.

The Prisma system includes three Midlands hospitals: Prisma Health Richland, Prisma Health Baptist and Prisma Health Baptist Parkridge.

New strain

While the coronavirus vaccines appear to work on the variant found in the United Kingdom, it’s unclear if it is effective against the South African strain,” said Divya Ahuja, an infectious diseases doctor with Prisma in Columbia.

Ahuja notes the virus has mutated several times since originating in Wuhan China in 2019. For example, there is a separate mutation spreading in Brazil.

“It mutates all the time. It’s much smarter than us,” Ahuja said.

“It’s just not clear how deadly they are, but they are more infectious,” Ahuja said of the virus variants.

Ahuja advised people to avoid panic and to continue getting vaccines as soon as they are able.

Drug companies are responding to the variants by tweaking their vaccines — similar to how the flu shot often includes different strains from one year to the next — to be effective against coronavirus mutations.

“Don’t panic, get your vaccine,” Ahuja said. “Keep doing your mask-wearing, social distancing” and avoiding large gatherings.

Disproportionate effect

Since COVID-19 first began infecting Americans, experts have known the disease has disproportionately hurt minority and low-income communities. And now that the vaccine is beginning to make rounds, it is harder to vaccinate communities of color, said Jacqui Jones, a family medicine specialist with Prisma.

Because of historical atrocities like the Tuskeegee Study, there is a distrust of the medical establishment in communities of color, Jones said. The Tuskeegee Study was a 40-year human experiment on hundreds of Black men with syphilis in which doctors allowed the disease to progress untreated, even though a a cure, penicillin, was available, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We want to acknowledge things that have happened, but this is not the same thing,” Jones said. “I’m encouraging people of color to get the vaccine...we know minorities are dying (from COVID-19) at a higher rate.”

That’s because communities of color — lacking the same access to health care, healthy food and other health benefits like quality gyms — are more likely to have pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, obesity and emphysema, Jones said.

“We come through those doors at kind of a deficit,” Jones said.

Anthony Fauci, the top federal official in charge of responding to COVID-19, said the most vulnerable communities, such as people of color, should receive the vaccine first because they are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, according to an article from Harvard University.

Earlier this week, when the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) approved a vaccine distribution plan, it approved a model that did not use social factors like race, income, etc., according to a previous article from The State.

SC House lawmakers called on DHEC to change that as representatives approved spending $208 million to hurry vaccine distribution, The State reported.

Double-masking

Fauci and other top health experts have advocated for people to wear two masks instead of just one, sometimes called “double-masking.”

It’s “common sense” that adding a second layer of mask would add extra filtration, Fauci said on the TODAY show.

While Ahuja advocates the use of masks to decrease COVID-19 spread, he is not convinced adding a second mask on top of that would be effective, he said.

“I think let’s start with one mask,” Ahuja said. “Even when we go out people aren’t wearing masks.”

Pregnancy

Since the coronavirus vaccine was not designed to be tested on pregnant women, there is some conflicting information on whether they should receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

For example, the World Health Organization recently said pregnant women should not get the Moderna vaccine unless they have a pre-existing health condition or are at a high risk of being exposed, according to The Hill.

Kacey Eichelberger, who is Prisma’s chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said while there has been minimal data on the vaccine on pregnant women, there are also long-term risks with getting coronavirus.

“Sometimes the choice to not get a vaccine feels like avoiding a risk, but there’s no non-risk option on the table,” Eichelberger said.

For example, pregnant women who get COVID-19 are more likely to develop severe complications and need intubation, Eichelberger said. And while the vaccine was not meant to be tested on pregnant women, 18 women in vaccine trials either were pregnant when the vaccine was given or became pregnant during the trial and they did not report adverse effects, Eichelberger said.

“I would not blink if I were pregnant about getting this vaccine,” Eichelberger said.