Sloan Kettering's Dr. Kent Sepkowitz Discusses Trump Asking FDA To Reduce Red Tape To Speed Tests, Consequences Of Americans Not Isolating Even If Not At Risk, What We Can Learn From South Korea
KEILAR: President Trump has asked the Food and Drug Administration to cut through the red tape and reduce regulatory barriers in order to speed up the process for self-swab coronavirus tests. And he added that a second press conference will be held today or tomorrow about what he called exciting FDA developments, but he declined to elaborate on the specifics of that. We have Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious disease specialist from Memorial Sloan-Kettering joining us now. Doctor, I wonder, what do you think about the president encouraging the FDA to reduce regulatory measures? On its face doing something that might be quick or sounds good, but are there risks here?</s>DR. KENT SEPKOWITZ, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, MEMORIAL SLOAN- KETTERING: There's always risk. It's a push and pull any time you play with a regulation. Regulation is there for safety. Sometimes they get in the way of safety. These are very tough calls, but this is a tough time. So I think as long as it isn't snake oil that we're approving, I think that we can assume that the process is thorough enough that whatever comes out at the other end will be safe.</s>KEILAR: Yes --</s>SEPKOWITZ: Home testing has a good tradition to it. Pregnancy testing --</s>KEILAR: OK. I wanted to ask you about something else that we learned and that was stressed during this press conference with all of these top coronavirus officials, and that was that young people are actually more at risk than previously known. They're seeing this in other countries. What's the takeaway there?</s>SEPKOWITZ: The takeaway is that we need more information. We don't know the denominator. We don't know how many youngish Millennials are actually infected. A small subset are probably quite ill. We knew that there was detectable, though small, fatality rate in the 20 to 29-year-old range, and certainly the 30 to 39-year-old range. So, this might be not news at all. It may be substantial news. We just don't know with this first moment of information, how to contextualize it.</s>KEILAR: But would you say young people should be careful as we do wait to get more information?</s>SEPKOWITZ: Oh, yes. That doesn't change the message at all.</s>KEILAR: OK.</s>SEPKOWITZ: They need to be incredibly careful. And I think messaging to protect mom and dad or protect grandma and grandpa is very effective. It will be more effective now when the danger is not for grandma and grandpa, but when it's me, the 26-year- old. So, I think that bad news like this actually has a very powerful effect in motivating people.</s>KEILAR: OK. It's just so important to hammer that home here. I also want to ask you about this expanding of the production of protective gear and masks. He's invoking the Defense Production Act. Where is the country right now when it comes to just this basic protective gear that is supposed to help protect health care workers?</s>SEPKOWITZ: Yes, health care workers and other types of workers. We aren't where we need to be. We are struggling as a health care industry. We are making do. We are making decisions across the nation about using masks in a very carefully, deliberately determined way. It ain't easy, but it is not, to me, right now, today's crisis at all. It might be tomorrow's crisis, but it's not today's crisis. And it's hard to look past, you know, an hour from now, much less tomorrow and the next day. That said --</s>KEILAR: It is.</s>SEPKOWITZ: -- if the stuff that President Trump is talking about will actually be acceptable quality, it would be a great benefit.</s>KEILAR: Certainly. Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, thank you so much for joining us.</s>SEPKOWITZ: Sure.</s>KEILAR: Just in, disturbing, new numbers from Italy, reporting its biggest one-day jump in cases and in deaths. We will take you there. Plus, there may be financial help on the way from Washington for many Americans. And in just moments, the Senate will vote on a $1 trillion stimulus plan from the White House. We're watching for details.