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Dr. David Katz, Preventive Medicine Specialist & True Health Initiative President, joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the surging number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and how the Thanksgiving holiday may impact case numbers.

- We're also breaking records, but not in a good way, when it comes to COVID-19 and the pandemic. Let's invite into the stream, Dr. David Katz, preventative medicine specialist and True Health Initiative president. Good to have you here. We keep hearing the warnings from the Centers for Disease Control-- stay at home, don't travel for Thanksgiving. We see one million people going through TSA checkpoints at airports every day. It seems as if we're building up two weeks from now for something that could really, I'm going to use the word horrific-- something that could be horrific, especially for people who work in the medical profession.

DAVID KATZ: Well, good to be with you, Adam. Happy holiday in spite of it all. And I hope not. You know, in some sense, it's pretty horrific already. We have cases rising all around the country. And in those parts of the country that were not very hard hit already-- and I happen to be in one-- you are, as well, New York City, Connecticut, the Northeast-- we were pretty hard hit over the summer and in the spring. And we're not seeing quite a steeper rise in hospitalization here as many other parts of the country. But much of the country is. So it's pretty bad, already.

I think the question about the holiday is, how careful are people being? Are they getting tested? There's much more testing available than there was before. I think many people are testing before they get together with family. That's not as good as staying home, but it's certainly better than not taking any precautions. I've spoken to my extended social network to find out what are the different plants. I imagine you've done the same, right? Not everybody's doing the same thing.

Some people are staying home. Some are gathering, but in much smaller groups. Many modifications, right? Variations on the theme. So I think if people are suitably careful, then it may be there is no post-holiday surge in the surge that we already have. We're kind of already there. We're not going to know, though, until those couple of weeks roll by. And, you know, there's been so much unpredictability in the pandemic. It's a new pathogen. We're learning by going where we have to go.

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The best advice, of course, is to be very careful. The most carefully you can be is to stay put. The next most careful would be don't expose yourself to anybody who might transmit the virus to you. Don't expose yourself to anybody who might get the virus from you.

- Dr. Katz, how would you compare what we're seeing now to what we saw last spring? Are the numbers that we're seeing now and the extent of it more alarming?

DAVID KATZ: It's a very similar phenomenon, Seana. It's just more widespread around the country. It was highly concentrated in the Northeast, initially-- in Detroit, in and around Seattle. There are few parts of the country where the virus got a foothold, and it spread. And importantly, it spread across risk tiers. So what we're seeing now is a fairly massive level of transmission, much of it among people who are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic.

This slight departure, perhaps, from some of my colleagues in public health-- that doesn't bother me all that much. What bothers me is when that group so young healthy people get together with people in higher risk tiers. People with diabetes, people with obesity, heart disease, people over 70, people over 80. Because when they get this virus. They're prone to get very sick. And when we see cases go up without hospitalization going up, that may be circulation among young healthy people-- that's not so dire.

When we see hospitalization go up, ICU populations go up, and death counts go up-- and we're seeing that in much of the country now-- that means we're transmitting the virus to a more vulnerable group. And that's very concerning. So it's not more concentrated than it was in New York, but it's now more widespread around the country. And frankly, similar phenomena in other parts of the world, too. Yeah, Adam, sorry.

- Dr. Katz, we have to wrap up, but really, this is a serious question, because you talked about prevention. Do you have advice here, Doctor? You wear masks all the time, we're all now wearing masks. Those of us who wear glasses, the dreaded fogging up of the glasses-- is there a trick for the mask? Because I know nobody who's been able to solve this.

DAVID KATZ: I wish I had one. It is so annoying, isn't it? Yeah, so listen, I think the best I can say is that you know given the consequences of transmitting this virus to people who are frail or elderly, the minor inconvenience of foggy glasses is something we just need to put up with. But no, actually, we'll have to talk later If either of us finds a solution, we'll share it with the other one. But I'd love to know one, too.

- I actually Scotch taped the top of the-- that worked until you start sweating if you're running or walking. And then--

DAVID KATZ: You know, I'm a skier. You know, we have goggles and anti fog wise. So maybe we should just wear-- we just go all in and wear goggles with our masks. Maybe that would work. I don't know, I haven't tried it.

- Well, you've helped clear the fog here for all of us today. Thank you very much. Dr. David Katz, preventative medicine specialist and True Health Initiative president. Thank you for joining us on Yahoo Finance Live.

Link:
Getting a COVID-19 test ahead of Thanksgiving travel is 'not as good as staying home: Doctor - Yahoo News

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