KANSAS CITY, Mo. — During the University of Kansas Health System's morning medical update, Dr. Kevin Ault and Dr. Dana Hawkinson discussed the latest COVID-19 surge as well as vaccination for pregnant women.
Both doctors agreed that the COVID-19 vaccine has been successful at keeping people out of the hospital despite the emergence of the delta variant.
"Similar to the flu, you may still get the flu if you get the flu vaccine, but you're not going to end up on ECMO or have Dr. Hawkinson take care of you for any of those kind of problem in our ICU," Ault said.
Ault, an OBGYN and member of the federal advisory panel for COVID-19, said that the vaccine is working and the surges in hospitalizations are due to unvaccinated populations in the area.
"The vaccine is working for those that are vaccinated and that community where those are highly vaccinated," Ault said. "Unfortunately we still have a large number of people who are not getting the vaccine, who are not previously vaccinating, and that is where we are seeing those surges in those communities all across United States right now."
Both doctors answered journalist's questions about the emergence of a so-called delta plus variant and the possibility of the emergence of more variants like the delta variant.
"The main point to understand is we are going to continue to see variants arise," Hawkinson said. "Right now, all the vaccinations we have looked to provide continued good immunity toward that whole spectrum of COVID-19, but especially for hospitalization, severe disease and death, the vaccines continue to lower your risk."
Doctors cannot predict the future and will continue to worry about worsening variants, but according to Ault, the news is good about vaccine efficacy.
Two medical publications, one published and one close to publication, have found there aren't any risks associated with the vaccine for pregnant women, and that news is reassuring to Ault.
"There's no increased stillbirth rate, there's no increased miscarriage rate, there's no congenital anomalies associated with the vaccine," Ault said. "The press release from the CDC shows a miscarriage rate of about 14%. We usually say it's somewhere between 10 and 25%, so it's right in the middle and similar to what was in the previous publication and no congenital anomalies."
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This data comes from tens of thousands pregnant women who received the COVID-19 vaccine and recorded their side effects with the CDC's V-safe After Vaccination Health Checker.
On Friday, the KU Health System reported 45 active patients with 17 in the ICU, 12 on ventilation and one on ECMO with an age range of 20-59. Six of those patients were vaccinated.
Watch the full morning medical update here:
