I invited Jessica Malaty Rivera (@jessicamalatyrivera on Instagram), who is an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist,  Science Communication Lead at The COVID Tracking Project, and mother.

We discuss the pandemic as it stands and what it means for our children and some of the following:

• What does Jessica do as an infectious disease epidemiologist?
• When do we foresee kids receiving the vaccines?
• Is there a chance kids won’t need the vaccine?
• Why is it important to test the vaccine in children?
• Why is a vaccine important for kids even if they are not as affected by severe disease?
• What has been the hardest part of being on social media and spreading evidence-based information during this pandemic?
• How to most recent CDC guidelines (From March 8th) regarding vaccinated adults impacts those with children.

00;00;08;18 – 00;00;29;22

Dr. Mona

Welcome to this week’s episode. I am so excited because I have a guest who I’ve been trying to get on the podcast for so long. She is an amazing infectious disease epidemiologist and science communication lead at the Covid Tracking Project. She’s on Instagram as Jessica Malaty Rivera. Many of my followers, many of my listeners, might already be following her.

 

00;00;29;24 – 00;00;32;04

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much, Jessica, for joining us today.

 

00;00;32;07 – 00;00;34;03

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

 

00;00;34;05 – 00;00;57;01

Dr. Mona

I’m so excited. I discovered your account, obviously in the middle of this pandemic, and I was talking to other people. How I’m just so excited that scientists and nerds, and everyone of us in the medical field and science field is really taking social media by storm, by, you know, crushing all of this misinformation, spreading accurate information. It’s just so great to see you thrive on social media and share your knowledge with the world.

 

00;00;57;01 – 00;00;57;22

Dr. Mona

So thank you.

 

00;00;57;26 – 00;01;06;29

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Thank you. It’s it’s a very surreal experience and not at all what I expected when I started posting some stories almost a year ago to the day last year. Yeah.

 

00;01;07;02 – 00;01;30;26

Dr. Mona

Yeah, we’re we’re recording this on March 10th. And then the pandemic was officially declared on the 11th. So yeah, a year anniversary. And as many of you expected we’re going to be talking about Covid. I had Jessica come on, because I wanted to hear the conversation more towards pediatrics and children, just because I am a pediatric podcast. And we also feel and I personally feel too, that there’s just not as much guidance for children.

 

00;01;31;04 – 00;01;51;17

Dr. Mona

Obviously the vaccine is right now for adults, which makes sense older adults, but children are on the docket to get the vaccine hopefully eventually. And so we’re going to be talking a little bit more about children and just watch what Jessica does as an epidemiologist. So tell me more about what you do in your profession and the Covid tracking Project and how you got involved in it.

 

00;01;51;21 – 00;02;21;05

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah, so I got my master’s degree over ten years ago in emerging infectious diseases. And while I was at Georgetown studying, I was also working at Georgetown, working at the Division for Integrated Biodefense. And we were essentially tracking emerging trends in epidemics that were potential pandemics. So our team actually identified the emergence of the 2009 H1n1 pandemic. And we were looking for indicators and warnings in everything from infrastructure to kind of news headlines about what could potentially be a disruptive health event.

 

00;02;21;06 – 00;02;39;11

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Everybody who kind of is in this kind of niche space in infectious disease research knew that a pandemic was kind of a matter of time. It was never a matter of, if it was always going to be when. So when I first got the notifications from this infectious disease society in a part of in December of 2019, I remember thinking, oh, that’s interesting.

 

00;02;39;11 – 00;03;02;27

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I wonder if it’ll be kind of like SaaS one. And so I kind of watched it kind of continued with my normal life, but peaking every now and then on Twitter and my old professors and whatnot, and realized very soon in March that think this is going to be quite destabilizing. And so in the time between graduate school and when the pandemic hit, I’d been doing all kinds of research on tracking infectious disease outbreaks, mostly on vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine education.

 

00;03;02;27 – 00;03;22;14

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And shortly after the pandemic was declared, I actually just directly reached out to the Covid tracking project because of that experience, because I’d been working on bio surveillance and tracking epidemics and pandemics and quickly got thrown into literally the best work of my entire career the most meaningful, the most profound, with some of the best humans I could possibly imagine.

 

00;03;22;14 – 00;03;45;02

Jessica Malaty Rivera

So it’s been a very, kind of bittersweet week as we wrapped up data collection. We have a lot of analysis to do, but since pretty early on in the pandemic, I’ve worked with a lot of the people there who are incredible, mostly volunteers. And it’s this amalgamation of such Renaissance backgrounds, right? There’s epidemiologists, there’s data scientists, there’s journalists, there’s people who are just interested in numbers and trends.

 

00;03;45;02 – 00;03;52;04

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And through that amazing combination, we’ve been able to kind of function as the most reliable source for Covid 19 data in the US.

 

00;03;52;04 – 00;04;07;03

Dr. Mona

And that’s what’s so great. I’m going to be attaching the link to the Covid Tracking Project website, as well as your Instagram handle, because between the two, there’s just so much information that you’re able to give. And some people like just someone to tell them what to do, but other people like to see data and how things are decided on.

 

00;04;07;09 – 00;04;24;09

Dr. Mona

By data, I mean, I recently uploaded something that the CDC, it was a really great article, but it wasn’t what’s on the mainstream media, right? The mainstream media says, oh, here’s the updates. And people are like, well, where do they get this from? And I went on the CDC website and I saw like the backing, the scientific backing on why they came up with these recommendations.

 

00;04;24;09 – 00;04;44;09

Dr. Mona

And I shared it because websites like yours and accounts like yours are so important to have people understand that there is a method usually to this madness. It’s not like we’re throwing it out of midair. Obviously, we still don’t know so much about, you know, everything I at the beginning. But there is a reason. And your job obviously is so useful and so great in this past year.

 

00;04;44;09 – 00;04;52;16

Dr. Mona

And I’m so glad that you are that resource. So what has been the most rewarding part? You mentioned that you get to work with such great people. Is there anything else that’s been so rewarding about this project?

 

00;04;52;20 – 00;05;19;05

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah, I think it’s, you know, knowing the fact that our information is just so trusted. Right. And it’s, been the backbone for even the Biden-Harris administration and in their development of a lot of kind of Covid 19 policies moving forward as they try to kind of help us end this pandemic. I think personally, I’ve just loved seeing this insatiable desire to kind of emerge with people in things like epidemiology and things like data.

 

00;05;19;05 – 00;05;42;19

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And, I’ve kind of always I mean, I’ve been a science communicator for so long, and I’ve always felt strongly that increasing science literacy and data literacy doesn’t require a lot of things that people often use, like sarcasm and name-calling and even dumbing things down. I actually don’t think that that’s really fair. I think that we can elevate people, elevate people’s literacy and comprehension of these things by just explaining it through a really meaningful way.

 

00;05;42;19 – 00;06;01;27

Jessica Malaty Rivera

There’s definitely a science to science communication, and when I’ve seen these like moments of light bulb turning on and people realizing that, oh, this makes sense now and then feeling like fear turns into empowerment to make informed choices about things like vaccines, for instance. I will never get all get over the DMs that I get literally daily of.

 

00;06;01;27 – 00;06;21;05

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I was so fearful of this vaccine and now I feel very confident in its safety and efficacy. Everything from the flu vaccine to the Covid 19 vaccine, to even understanding kind of the nuance behind herd immunity and what it means and what it means to be kind of like altruistic in our decisions to achieve herd immunity. And, you know, getting past this pandemic.

 

00;06;21;05 – 00;06;32;25

Jessica Malaty Rivera

So, there’s just so many wonderful moments that I’ve had with people who I’ve never met, mostly through social media who are looking at this data. And instead of feeling overwhelmed, they feel informed.

 

00;06;32;27 – 00;06;58;20

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And that, you know, that movement from fear to empowerment, that’s exactly what I think most of us on social media, especially whether you’re a doctor or science educator, I mean, it’s just so important that we share all this accurate information. And like I said earlier, a lot of this information we’re still learning about, too, right? Like, I mean, you spend every day learning about all the things that we’re learning about this virus and transmission, and what if we open this and do this, but it’s just so nice to give it in such a way that people can digest it.

 

00;06;58;20 – 00;07;15;00

Dr. Mona

And I agree with you. We don’t need to dumbed down. Yeah, like I actually feel that same way when I’m a pediatrician and talking to moms and dads and caregivers in my office. I just need to explain it to you. I don’t need to put it in some weird language you don’t understand. But if I say you have x, y, and Z, let me explain to you why we say that what it means.

 

00;07;15;00 – 00;07;35;20

Dr. Mona

And oh, that’s amazing, I love that. And you know, I had you come on because I wanted to gear this conversation towards children because I’m the Pizza Scott Talk podcast. And I know we may not know all the answers, and I a lot of it may be assumptions and just educated guessing, but when do you foresee kids starting to receive the vaccination given the current rate of vaccinations?

 

00;07;35;20 – 00;07;43;08

Dr. Mona

I mean, three companies are now on the market. I believe there’s one more coming in the United States, hopefully soon. But when do you foresee kids starting to get this?

 

00;07;43;10 – 00;08;09;03

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah, I mean, I’ll start by saying that I too am very interested in this topic because I’m a parent. I have two kids, four and two and a half and, you know, as there’s no kind of omission of this information, it’s just that we’re based on a limited data. Right? But based on the data that we have right now and following kind of the de-escalation process they’re doing for the vaccine trials, it seems likely that kids that are younger than 12 will not have access to the vaccine in 2021.

 

00;08;09;03 – 00;08;26;03

Jessica Malaty Rivera

It seems much more likely that it’ll be like late spring of 2022, just based on the data and how fast the trials are going. I know that they are working very hard on the age group of 12 to 17 currently. Right now, I feel pretty confident that that age group might be covered come the fall, maybe even prior to the school season.

 

00;08;26;03 – 00;08;48;04

Jessica Malaty Rivera

But I guess the comfort in that is knowing that because kids are not at the highest risk, we can kind of afford that time for lack of better terms. And I think that as we continue to vaccinate in mass, the adults and those the younger or older pediatric population, we can effectively protect younger kids by kind of creating more dead ends for the virus and kind of holding them over until next year.

 

00;08;48;04 – 00;09;07;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah, and that’s what I think a lot of my followers were having difficulty understanding because they are so focused on, well, what my child’s not being protected. I’m like, but if you can protect more people, so if more adults get the vaccine that they’re eligible to get it, if the older children get it, we’re going to, like you said, squash that virus and create a dead end so that we hopefully don’t bring it home to our younger children who are not able to get it.

 

00;09;07;22 – 00;09;25;12

Dr. Mona

I mean, that’s the purpose of vaccination, right? I mean, that’s why precisely I think people forget that, that that’s why we vaccinate the Tdap and all the other vaccines. We give our little infants in that we are trying to protect that child who may be too young or ineligible to get it because they have a medical condition. This is the purpose of vaccination.

 

00;09;25;12 – 00;09;40;12

Dr. Mona

So I know we both agree that if you can get the vaccine and are eligible to get it, you should try to get it because it’s going to really help everyone. Absolutely. I, I think it’s the same point. And, you know, I yeah, I didn’t mention that. Obviously you’re a mother and are your children at home right now or are they in.

 

00;09;40;12 – 00;09;41;17

Dr. Mona

Yeah. They’re home with you. Right.

 

00;09;41;17 – 00;09;42;06

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Not yeah.

 

00;09;42;06 – 00;09;43;15

Dr. Mona

They’re home full time.

 

00;09;43;15 – 00;10;03;02

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And they’ve been home full time since March. You know, our school in San Francisco, where we were before we kind of relocated for the pandemic, stayed open and they were successful and have not having any outbreaks. But I was just kind of like, yeah, I was choosing to on the side of caution and just knowing that, we had the ability to keep them at home.

 

00;10;03;02 – 00;10;21;03

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And this was just such a unique time for all of us to be at home. It has come with many challenges, believe me. I mean, I’m working way more than full time. My husband has a very demanding job, but, we feel like this has just been the right move, at least for this last year. We are eager to get them back into school, knowing that people are getting vaccinated and teachers especially being prioritized.

 

00;10;21;03 – 00;10;24;04

Jessica Malaty Rivera

But yeah, they’ve they’ve been home for a year and counting.

 

00;10;24;04 – 00;10;38;13

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And I know you were on the cover of parents magazine, right. Talking about that. That was so awesome. I’m actually going to try to see if I can link that because I again, I feel like I’m talking to celebrity, and I know you don’t feel that way. I know you don’t. We talked about that and I get it and I appreciate you.

 

00;10;38;13 – 00;10;54;21

Dr. Mona

And that’s why I love you even more, because you’re totally not a celebrity like mine, but you are a celebrity to me. So that adds to so many of my followers. And it’s not. And when I say celebrity, as you know, it means that we just value your opinion so much and it’s just so nice to see you thrive in an area that you’re so knowledgeable.

 

00;10;54;21 – 00;11;13;18

Dr. Mona

And that’s what I love as a fellow person and health care. You know, I love seeing people who are educated, spreading their education with the world. So again, thank you so much for that personal, you know, experience with your children. And then also, your professional expertise. Now, the other question I I’ve been a getting asked was the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, for example.

 

00;11;13;18 – 00;11;36;13

Dr. Mona

They did not initially have, studies in pregnant women, but it was open to pregnant women and lactating people, to talk to their provider and see if they would like to get it. Do you envision that maybe happening for the children who are under 12, like just say they approve it for 12 to 17, do you think it’s going to be like an optional thing that, hey, if you’re under 12 and you talk to your pediatrician, it’s a possibility or just depends.

 

00;11;36;13 – 00;11;51;10

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I think it would be too speculative to say anything. Confirming right now. I think if anything, we’re going to have to see the data, right? I mean, we’ve been saying that forever. Beginning, you know, pregnant people were excluded from the trials from the beginning, but there were pregnancies reported in every single one of the trials because pregnancies happen.

 

00;11;51;10 – 00;12;03;09

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Now. We’re seeing pregnant people enrolled in trials as well as, studies involving lactating women to see kind of the effect of the vaccine post and its effect on breast milk. Sorry, that’s my kid yelling in the background. Oh.

 

00;12;03;12 – 00;12;05;02

Dr. Mona

Don’t we get it?

 

00;12;05;05 – 00;12;27;01

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Okay. But, you know, I think that if the data is compelling, it’ll be interesting to see what the kind of recommendations they make for younger populations, because they are actually going to be enrolling for 6 to 9 and then potentially under six. I even saw mentioned that they’re doing infant enrollment in some places. I haven’t seen any confirmation of that yet, but, they may just wait for that data.

 

00;12;27;13 – 00;12;31;27

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Again, because they are not the most acutely at risk for those severe outcomes.

 

00;12;31;27 – 00;12;52;17

Dr. Mona

So knowing that children are not acutely at risk. And we can kind of clarify that because I think there is a miscommunication sometimes happen about like what risk means and what we mean by that, but knowing that they’re not at risk for severe disease compared to like, obviously our 65 year old, grandparents, people with maybe medical conditions, do you think it’s important that we get these kids vaccinated?

 

00;12;52;17 – 00;12;59;18

Dr. Mona

Like, do you think there we need to vaccinate children to get to herd immunity? Or is that something that if we vaccinate enough adults, we may not need to?

 

00;12;59;20 – 00;13;23;05

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Absolutely. I mean, when we when we talk about population, coverage, we’re talking north of 70%, right? There are we have to include the pediatric population to to have that there. I think that’s about 25% of the population is there are minors. And so they are included in that percentage. And I think that because of that percentage, they need to be part of the equation.

 

00;13;23;05 – 00;13;44;04

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I do think that when it comes to vaccinating kids, I want people to understand, too. When we say acutely at risk, it’s not that they are at zero risk. It’s not that there haven’t been cases of severe Covid or mIS-C with pediatric cases or even deaths. There have been deaths in every age group. But we’re talking about the overwhelming kind of morbidity and mortality in each age group.

 

00;13;44;04 – 00;14;00;14

Jessica Malaty Rivera

It doesn’t present the same way in younger kids, but like we were mentioning earlier, we can effectively protect them by having everybody around them vaccinated until they’re eligible based on the data to get that vaccine themselves. So I do think it’s going to be important to vaccinate younger kids. There’s also this larger conversation of will this virus become endemic?

 

00;14;00;14 – 00;14;12;29

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Kind of like how H1n1 did. It’s also possible. It’s also possible that we kind of through herd immunity, as our bodies become stronger and more immune, it becomes less of a nuisance. It becomes less disruptive to our public health.

 

00;14;12;29 – 00;14;16;07

Dr. Mona

Would you get the vaccine for your children if it gets approved for them?

 

00;14;16;07 – 00;14;28;05

Jessica Malaty Rivera

If the vaccine is approved, then I trust that that means the vaccine is safe and effective for that age group in which it was tested. And so therefore, yes, if that is available to the kids, to my kids, based on their age, I will get them vaccinated for sure.

 

00;14;28;07 – 00;14;49;25

Dr. Mona

Yeah, same with me. And I think that’s another thing that people are getting confused about when I ask on polls, you know, would you get your child vaccinated? It’s the understanding that it would be approved, whether it’s yep, emergency use authorization or whatever it is, I, I agree with that. I mean, and we’re so lucky right now that so many people have gotten vaccinated in the adult world to see the benefits of the vaccine.

 

00;14;49;25 – 00;15;07;17

Dr. Mona

And also people are reporting side effects to be safe. We are seeing that it is a safe vaccine overall, and that is so great to hear you agree that it is important that we test differently in children, correct. In terms of we need these vaccine trials. Why do you think it’s important that we need to test differently? You know, that we need to test in children also.

 

00;15;07;19 – 00;15;27;21

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah. I mean, because our bodies are different, right? Kids, we need to understand kind of what effect it has on different populations. And, you know, we include different ages in clinical trials so that we can understand kind of on average, of a healthy person in this age group. They have these types of immune responses. They have these types of adverse events.

 

00;15;27;21 – 00;15;46;26

Jessica Malaty Rivera

They have this kind of proclivity to long lasting immunity. That’s that’s how you get that rich data. So that we know that it’s, you know, safe in this population. There’s never a kind of a single anecdote that can solve all the problems for all the people. Right? The more specific we can get in our trial designs, the better data, the more reliable data there is.

 

00;15;46;26 – 00;16;07;11

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And I know you also mentioned something about whether it’s a EUA or approval. I feel like there’s also this kind of and this is partially due to the way that this has been communicated publicly. And EOA is not a supporter approval. Right. And EIA still requires, very rigorous submission, very rigorous data and a very rigorous analysis of that data.

 

00;16;07;11 – 00;16;24;18

Jessica Malaty Rivera

In fact, you know, none of the companies were even allowed to submit for an application until they had eight weeks post-vaccination data, because that’s typically the window in which an adverse event would be reported. And I and I feel like there’s still this misconception that an eü adds to whatever kind of haste or rush that people are perceiving.

 

00;16;24;18 – 00;16;39;16

Jessica Malaty Rivera

But there were just absolutely no shortcuts, and there were no kind of, you know, copper rises made in the quality of this data. I have every bit of confidence that these will have full approval or authorization. Is it precisely that we’re in a public health emergency? We need to get things out.

 

00;16;39;16 – 00;16;58;05

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Thank you. Because I feel like that happened a lot when it got approved, and my husband and I were lucky enough to get it back in January. Soon after the emergency use authorization and people on my social media were like, it’s too soon, you don’t know enough about it. And I’m like, I think people forget the process that goes into even getting getting it to become emergency use.

 

00;16;58;05 – 00;17;13;16

Dr. Mona

And I mean, we both know that a lot of the vaccine, vaccination, this whole pandemic has been politicized in the United States. So many people felt like it was rushed on a political agenda. I mean, there was a lot of naysaying. And I you know, I’m so grateful me and my husband were able to get it. This was very exciting.

 

00;17;13;16 – 00;17;30;13

Dr. Mona

And obviously now our grant, the grandparents and older people are getting it. And eventually, I think in Alaska they’re now allowing 16 plus to get it. I mean, this is also exciting. That people are actually starting to get this. So I agree, I think there’s just so much unknown and just people didn’t know because of how it’s portrayed in the media.

 

00;17;30;13 – 00;17;32;29

Dr. Mona

And also just, you know, they’re not getting it from the right places.

 

00;17;33;04 – 00;17;53;20

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00;17;53;28 – 00;18;22;26

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00;18;22;28 – 00;18;36;16

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00;18;36;22 – 00;18;51;16

Dr. Mona

I want to ask the personal, I guess, a personal professional question. Being on social media, doing what you do, what has been some frustrations or I guess your biggest pet peeve in this whole pandemic being? I mean, how long do you have time for lunch? I’ll tell you what we need to stop, but I would love to hear it’s important.

 

00;18;51;16 – 00;19;03;14

Dr. Mona

I think people notice, like, what are some things that you hear? Or you see that you’re like, oh my gosh, like, if I hear this one more time, I’m just going to, you know, I can’t handle it. Like knowing what you know, you are obviously very educated in spirit. I would love to hear what you think.

 

00;19;03;17 – 00;19;35;14

Jessica Malaty Rivera

You know, social media is a double edged sword. Social media has proven to be such an incredible resource for vaccine education and, you know, science communication. It’s also the breeding ground for so many misinformation campaigns and so much conspiracy. And so it just you kind of feel like you take five steps forward and then 50 steps back based on kind of the constant manipulation of data, the constant misinterpretation of data and they just kind of like gravitas of some people who speak with such authority, who are outside of their domain of expertise.

 

00;19;35;24 – 00;19;58;25

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I will say the thing that has been the hardest has been the vitriol and the like, absolute, lack of care for people who are working in this field. I’ll be more specific and say that I get accused of being a farmer shill every single day. I’ve never received a single dollar, not one from a single pharmaceutical company from any of the manufacturers.

 

00;19;58;25 – 00;20;19;05

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I have every single hour that I’ve put on social media has been out of my own free time, and I, feel very strongly about it. And that’s why I do it. And people get really ugly when it comes to things related to pediatrics, especially when you are encouraging things like vaccination based on data. I’m literally not telling anybody to do anything.

 

00;20;19;05 – 00;20;41;19

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I am providing the information so people can make informed choices. And yet I have been attacked a number of times, in very kind of gruesome ways. Done. Like scrolling down to pictures of my children, calling them vaccine injured, telling me I’m a terrible mom, that I should get investigated for poisoning my kid. And you know, they even, like, went so far as to, you know, report me as misinformation, which didn’t go anywhere.

 

00;20;41;19 – 00;20;57;17

Jessica Malaty Rivera

But it just gets so ugly really fast. And I think people don’t see the humanity of people in health care and people who are in science who are legitimately trying to do this because they care. And it’s not for profit. And I feel like if you actually look at it, you know, that was the claim to like, oh yeah, follow the money.

 

00;20;57;17 – 00;21;25;22

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Well, really, if you actually follow the money on the other side, they’re usually selling something and it’s usually something that is a little snake oil like. Right. I don’t ever feel like I have thick skin and I feel like people think that I do. I’m actually extremely sensitive. I get my feelings hurt and social media requires thicker skin than I have, and I think that that is something I’ve kind of forced myself to kind of developing in order to kind of maintain the kind of cadence that I have developed for posting online.

 

00;21;25;22 – 00;21;27;29

Jessica Malaty Rivera

But it’s painful sometimes.

 

00;21;28;01 – 00;21;44;27

Dr. Mona

It is. No, I mean, the reality is, yes, people on the outside. And I’ll be honest, even before I got on social media, I would look at some influencers not in the medical space, but just other influencers, and they would lament about like some things that were happening. And I was like, oh man, like that sucks. Like I would watch them like be upset about the negative messages they get.

 

00;21;44;27 – 00;22;05;29

Dr. Mona

And I’m like a sucker, but like, how much can they get? Like, there can’t be that much like people are. Not that mean? I got on social media and I realized how mean people are and just really take it personally to your child. And that’s just to me at worst. I mean, you can say something about me, but when you start to talk about my son or you’re obviously you’re the worst, you feel so much that mama Bear like, excuse me, you don’t even know me.

 

00;22;06;00 – 00;22;26;13

Dr. Mona

It really, really hurts. And, you know, like you said about that thick skin, I mean, they’re givers, right? We are going on this platform, you included, obviously, you just mentioned without any financial agenda, right? There’s no we’re spending our free time. I mean, you probably spend upwards of maybe 15 hours on social media, like it’s a lot of time that you’re not getting paid for, and you’re doing it because you love it.

 

00;22;26;16 – 00;22;41;12

Dr. Mona

And people don’t get that, like people don’t get that. When you’re doing that, you’re a giver in nature. And when you’re a giver, there is some people pleasing that can come with that. And with that comes, it’s really hard to keep a thick skin. I agree with you. My husband tries. We always talk about it when I get that hate messages and all that.

 

00;22;41;12 – 00;22;58;19

Dr. Mona

I’m like, yeah, oh my gosh. And it’s really hard to to be a giver in a public space and not to put that wall up because you are a loving human being and you want to share all the things you want to do to keep your your kids safe, keep other people’s kids safe. And when they’re saying you’re enjoying your child or you’re doing this and how could you?

 

00;22;58;19 – 00;23;07;05

Dr. Mona

And really trying to drag you into the ground even though you know they’re not right? Because I feel the same, even though you know it hurts. Oh, for sure, it hurts a lot.

 

00;23;07;08 – 00;23;26;16

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it could be like, objectively laughable what they’re actually saying or accusing me of to feel so misunderstood and misrepresented. I know it hurts. And I think that, you know, I’m very eager to see these social media platforms put their money where their mouth is when it comes to being committed to kind of cleaning up the misinformation.

 

00;23;26;16 – 00;23;50;08

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I’ve seen some good steps, but I feel like you take one down and ten more come up and so I feel like the work is endless. I’m not quitting anytime soon. I’ll be doing this for the foreseeable future because people want it and I enjoy giving it. But you know, this is going to be a, a very, very long process of kind of building trust in science, rebuilding trust in, scientists.

 

00;23;50;18 – 00;24;08;07

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I think some of that distrust is legitimate in cases of, you know, communities of color who have had some trauma in the background. But I think that, you know, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in order to kind of prevent the next pandemic. And also infodemic, because those two things just come hand in hand.

 

00;24;08;08 – 00;24;35;06

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And unfortunately, we’ve seen that with literally every single infectious disease outbreak. And now that it’s common knowledge, people understand that this happens. It’s not just, you know, people in my space who study the trends of these kinds of outbreaks. I’m hoping that more people are on guard to know that, you know, there are a lot of people out there trying to hijack the messaging, trying to cause more fear, distract you from, the actual science and try to, like, you know, tell you there are other solutions when there aren’t.

 

00;24;35;07 – 00;24;51;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And it’s so frustrating for us. And then I can only imagine all the people who are not science based. Right. They’re trying to figure out, well, who do I believe? Like I have these this person who has 1.5 million followers that are telling me to drink celery juice to avoid Covid, or I have this person who has X amount of followers, like, who do I believe?

 

00;24;51;18 – 00;25;08;09

Dr. Mona

And it’s sad. I mean, it’s sad and it’s scary because we know that, you know, yes, we can put on that thick skin when someone says you injured your child with vaccines because we know that’s not true. But what about my moms or parents who are like, well, did I because someone said this and someone said this and I’m I know you are doing the same.

 

00;25;08;09 – 00;25;31;08

Dr. Mona

Like I literally spent so much of my time trying to reduce that anxiety that social media has created. So it’s like I’m using the same weapon that is also injuring other people in other ways. Like, it’s hard. It’s it’s a tough space. And I, I so appreciate you talking about that because, I think it’s an important thing that people need to understand for people who are trying to educate the world on the science related to, health care topic.

 

00;25;31;10 – 00;25;47;01

Dr. Mona

I appreciate that so much. Jessica. The last question I have is about the recent CDC guidelines. So obviously we’re recording this on March 10th. So a couple days ago, they announced that, vaccinated individuals can now be around other vaccinated individuals. But how would you interpret that for children?

 

00;25;47;01 – 00;26;02;11

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah. So I think that we need to be very clear about what they’re saying and what they’re not saying. So what they’re saying is that vaccinated people fully vaccinated, meaning two weeks after your final dose. So if that’s Jay and Jay, that’s after your in single dose, if it’s after Pfizer or Moderna, it’s two weeks after your second dose.

 

00;26;02;11 – 00;26;25;26

Jessica Malaty Rivera

That’s that’s when you are fully vaccinated. Those people can hang out with other fully vaccinated people in private settings without masks or distancing. And that is a very specific kind of combination of variables. They also said that vaccinated people could potentially hang out in with another single household if they are unvaccinated without a mask, assuming that the people there are of low risk.

 

00;26;25;28 – 00;26;46;04

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I personally on the side of caution. Almost always. I don’t feel comfortable yet as an individual, or even to make a public health recommendation that there should be intermingling of vaccinated unvaccinated without masks. But they’re saying that you kind of have to do a risk assessment based on who there’s at the greatest risk, and that should be the determining factor for people who are in that gathering.

 

00;26;46;15 – 00;27;05;15

Jessica Malaty Rivera

They also said that if you, are vaccinated, you don’t have to worry about the same kind of quarantine and isolation protocols. But what was not included and what was very obvious to parents and to caregivers was that children weren’t included in the conversation. That’s partially because the vaccines right now are only approved for at least Pfizer is for 16 and over, and kids are not eligible for vaccination yet.

 

00;27;05;19 – 00;27;29;08

Jessica Malaty Rivera

So what does that mean for families getting together? This is how I’m looking at it. Because kids, again, are not at the highest risk of these severe outcomes. I think what they’re saying in so many words and not so many words, is that vaccinated households could get together without masks and, distancing while also understanding the fact that what is the risk exposure for your kids?

 

00;27;29;08 – 00;27;46;13

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Are your kids in school? And if they’re not in school and then you kind of make that assessment from there, right? So my kids are at home with us. If we’re going to hang out with other the household with their kids are at home with them, I’m going to feel 100% fine with all of us hanging out privately without masks and distancing, because I’m not worried about that.

 

00;27;46;15 – 00;28;03;24

Jessica Malaty Rivera

If my kids who are at home with me are going to hang out with other kids who are in a school kind of back to business situation at school, then I’m going to say the kids should probably wear masks. And I think that is a very fair thing to say, because those kids have to be considered as being potentially exposed.

 

00;28;03;24 – 00;28;27;20

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I mean, I know that even though the risk of transmission from kids is not high, it’s not zero. And I personally know people who have gotten Covid because their kids brought it home from school. So it is possible. So I think it’s it’s based on your vaccination status and based on your exposure risk, and you have to factor in schooling and other group activities that the kids have to make that assessment of whether or not the kids can hang out unmasked and without distancing beautifully put.

 

00;28;27;20 – 00;28;44;15

Dr. Mona

I am so excited that you mentioned that, because when I put a post up, I talked about, yes, the vaccination, and then I had to do a whole clarification because I wanted to make sure people understood and I didn’t have time because it was like 11 at night and I was like, I need to get on my stories and make sure people understand that you are your children.

 

00;28;44;15 – 00;29;04;02

Dr. Mona

If there’s multiple children getting together, that there is risk there. And I agree with that completely. As a pediatrician, obviously I would, because you’re more of an expert at this, but that makes total sense. I mean, you have to assess the risk here. You got to understand that there are germs and again, when I say that children are not low risk for severe disease, I still don’t want them to get sick.

 

00;29;04;02 – 00;29;23;15

Dr. Mona

I mean, we’re trying to reduce them getting sick in the first place. But we understand that if there is an exposure, if they were to get Covid, data shows that, yes, there is a higher chance of positive outcomes in children. But like Jessica said, we don’t want to expose everyone. And you know, they have a whole party together with like 30 people should not be happening at all.

 

00;29;23;15 – 00;29;38;24

Dr. Mona

That’s obviously something we have to be very clear about. It’s one other household and just say there’s two kids in each household. Both all parents are vaccinated, they mingle, there’s germs mingling. Those germs can go somewhere else. So we’re just trying to be cautious until we know way more and until more kids can start to get vaccinated, too.

 

00;29;38;24 – 00;29;59;20

Dr. Mona

And I, I appreciate that, too. I completely agree with that. And I think that’s really reasonable. But they left that out. And, you know, pediatricians everywhere and parents everywhere. You right. Were like, well excuse me. Like what’s what about what about all these kids that might be getting together then, you know. But I agree with that. And I appreciate you saying that because, just the timing of this call is so great because I was curious what your thoughts were on that.

 

00;29;59;20 – 00;30;14;17

Dr. Mona

You know, the fact that you said it beautifully, that you’re assessing the risk of your children, the fact that they’re not around other children, and also your friends family that would do the same. That is low risk. Now, if you had a friend, a child who’s in school and does classes and does all this other stuff, risk creeps up.

 

00;30;14;17 – 00;30;27;13

Dr. Mona

So any human contact increases risk. So if your child is in contact with a lot of other humans, you need to have a conversation with that parent of that other family saying, what are you comfortable with? And there is a risk here, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that’s important.

 

00;30;27;15 – 00;30;42;20

Jessica Malaty Rivera

When I think to a lot of people might say, well, my kid is wearing masks at school and they practice all these things. Why yes. But it’s not zero risk, right? The lower people you are around, the lower your risk is. And so you want to think about this, especially when you’re talking about these mixed households of unvaccinated and vaccinated.

 

00;30;42;20 – 00;30;58;11

Jessica Malaty Rivera

That’s why I think everybody should still kind of on the side of caution there. And I think, you know, kids to kids are another population. We need to consider if, you know, people are very concerned about what this means for kids. Well, let’s think about what the risk is for kids and their exposure levels for kids and make that choice for them based on their environments.

 

00;30;58;11 – 00;31;19;24

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And I think it’s not going to be long for, you know, most educators and administrators in school settings to be vaccinated. I think that when that happens, it’s going to also dramatically reduce the risk of being in school. Once all the adults kind of around them are vaccinated. I think that the these policies, these guidelines are going to change based on the data.

 

00;31;19;24 – 00;31;33;00

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And it’s probably going to be maybe this summer or fall, when we can start to see before these kids can get vaccinated that, you know, you can start having even more combinations of households without masks and without distancing because most of the adults are vaccinated.

 

00;31;33;15 – 00;31;47;18

Dr. Mona

It feels very hopeful. Are you feeling hopeful for the first time this year? I feel like 2021 hit. And I’m like this. I feel I feel much better with just the way the vaccines being rolled out. I mean, just in many different things. I do feel a light. Obviously, we still have so much work to do. Everyone.

 

00;31;47;18 – 00;31;54;00

Dr. Mona

Right? We still have to do all the stuff that we were doing. But it does feel optimist, like the most optimism I had in this whole pandemic.

 

00;31;54;00 – 00;32;19;07

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah, I do, I mean, I’ve always on the side of cautious optimism, and I definitely feel like the end is in sight. I do think we are at this really critical point in the pandemic, though, where it is a race between the variants and the vaccines, and it’s very disheartening to see some jurisdictions kind of like see the finish line and then just like start walking and not finishing well in this race when we really, cannot lose our stamina here, wearing masks is the bare minimum.

 

00;32;19;08 – 00;32;39;29

Jessica Malaty Rivera

It should not be something that we should make any policies about removing these mandates. I understand if you want to make modifications to capacity limits and to occupancy stuff, like I get that you can have the conversation in a tiered, strategic way. But if we don’t get ahead of the variants by boosting our daily vaccine rates, we, we are at risk of having a fourth surge.

 

00;32;39;29 – 00;32;54;17

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And I don’t want that to happen. And I do feel confident, especially now that change is in the pipeline, that we can start vaccinating kind of 3 million plus a day if we start doing that. I really think that the next 4 to 6 weeks are going to tell us what the next 4 to 6 months are going to be like.

 

00;32;54;17 – 00;33;01;14

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And I’m hopeful that, you know, because our increase in vaccinations, we will essentially outpace the variants if we can.

 

00;33;01;16 – 00;33;17;25

Dr. Mona

That’s great. Oh, I hope so. I mean, you’re right, though. I mean, the mask mandates being dropped in many countries and it’s so frustrating. And I, I live in Florida where right now we have mask mandates indoors in terms of grocery stores and any indoor establishments. Right. If you’re walking down the street, you don’t need a mask. That’s the rule right now in Florida.

 

00;33;17;25 – 00;33;35;07

Dr. Mona

But I am afraid that they’re going to get rid of those mask mandates in those grocery stores and in these other places where I live in Florida, because I’m watching other places. But thankfully, our mayor is really good, that we haven’t been, you know, listening to our governor so much. So I guess that’s okay. But that’s beyond the point.

 

00;33;35;09 – 00;33;52;01

Dr. Mona

But no, this is really important. I think this is so great to hear. The cautious optimism. I know that that phrase you’ve mentioned many times on your social media, and it’s so important that we keep that with every different change that’s made with the CDC, remembering to wear that mask is the bare minimum. And it’s so easy.

 

00;33;52;06 – 00;34;04;11

Dr. Mona

I mean, I actually like I’m like so used to it, I’m like, oh, here’s my mask. Like it keeps my nose warm. It’s like it’s fine. Like it’s part of my life. And people have said, like, I probably will wear my mask after this pandemic is done in like flu.

 

00;34;04;11 – 00;34;05;07

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Absolutely.

 

00;34;05;11 – 00;34;18;27

Dr. Mona

And I, I’m actually really happy because as a pediatrician, I’ve always wanted to wear masks in my visits for sick visits. But I’ve been told, you know, it scares kids. And I’m like, now we’re normalizing masks like, yeah, I think it’s great because it really does help.

 

00;34;18;29 – 00;34;42;18

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah, people really want to like kind of be done with masks. But I love seeing kind of this adoption in our individual public public health behavior that, you know, come flu season, if you’re actually sick with flu or actually sick with something else or have a cough and you have to travel, that to me seems like a really good courtesy to do for your fellow Americans, you know, to just be mindful of your health and to prevent, potentially being a risk to others.

 

00;34;42;24 – 00;34;52;08

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I think that that is something that we will consider for the rest of our lives, at least. I will always have some, you know, stash of surgical masks on the ready, just in case.

 

00;34;52;10 – 00;35;13;14

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And I, I was talking to, a friend earlier, and we were talking about how if we could just do all the basic principles that we’ve learned this year in the pandemic. Right. Better hand-washing, staying home when we’re sick. Yes. You know, keeping our kids out of school if they’re sick, if we can just continue to do that, which is what we learned in this pandemic to do, we could really reduce the spread of just random other viruses too, right?

 

00;35;13;14 – 00;35;30;22

Dr. Mona

I know, yeah. And it’s not asking a lot. You can still socialize after this pandemic is over. Right? But I’m talking like how to reduce the spread of these illnesses and just really get back to allowing our kids to be in school without having to stay home because everyone’s getting some virus. Like, these are just basic principles. And I agree with the mask, like it helps.

 

00;35;30;27 – 00;35;48;29

Dr. Mona

It’s part of that puzzle piece of just getting protection, right? Masking, distancing, it’s all stuff we do together. The vaccine. Wearing a mask on top of the vaccine is even more protection. So this is all stuff that, you know, it’s not it doesn’t have to be while I do this and it’s all done, it’s going to be a gradual removal of all of these things.

 

00;35;48;29 – 00;35;53;03

Dr. Mona

Right? It’s not going to be like one day life is back to normal. It’s stepwise.

 

00;35;53;06 – 00;36;13;27

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that like, you know, if this has been such an amazing opportunity to teach my kids about how to care for others. You know, my daughter is four and she will remind us when we’re walking, I think we need to wear masks so that other people don’t love it. And I love that that is become a part of her understanding.

 

00;36;13;27 – 00;36;35;03

Jessica Malaty Rivera

I love that it’s not fear. I love that she doesn’t kind of shudder when she sees people. She’s mindful of the fact that we’re trying to care for other people. And you know, I know that there this also comes with a lot of cost, emotionally and mentally, for kids and for adults. We have all experienced, at various stages of this pandemic, very kind of, deep emotional impact of this.

 

00;36;35;03 – 00;36;56;07

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And I think that that’s something we should also consider. I’m not at all trying to sugarcoat this and say it’s been just a great learning lesson, like the pain of this is also major. And I and I look forward to kind of, even the normalizing of talking about how hard it is to have gone through this and how we can even teach our kids that, like, this was a, you know, we learned a lot, but it also was very painful.

 

00;36;56;07 – 00;36;59;24

Jessica Malaty Rivera

And we can move forward from this, hopefully better.

 

00;36;59;26 – 00;37;07;05

Dr. Mona

Yeah. What a great message. I was going to ask you what would be your final message? I mean, that’s part of it, but is there anything else you wanted to add today for everyone listening?

 

00;37;07;09 – 00;37;30;19

Jessica Malaty Rivera

You know, I say this a lot when I’m asked this question, and I believe it wholeheartedly that all of these sacrifices that we’ve been making, all of these, plans that we’ve had to defer, the celebrations that we’ve had to postpone, they’re just they’re not in vain. They have all had meaningful impact on the trends that we are now seeing in the data that cases are dropping, hospitalizations are dropping, deaths are dropping.

 

00;37;31;07 – 00;37;58;03

Jessica Malaty Rivera

All of those things are because of individual choices, individual sacrifices, community choices, community sacrifices that have had a collective, collective impact on the kind of improvement that we’re seeing. And I think that, I just want to commend people for making those choices. I want to commend people for those sacrifices, knowing that you may not be able to see what you prevented, but that is kind of the, the point of public health.

 

00;37;58;07 – 00;38;02;22

Jessica Malaty Rivera

You don’t really see what you don’t see because we’ve stopped it from happening. Yeah.

 

00;38;03;03 – 00;38;21;06

Dr. Mona

Jessica, thank you so much. I so appreciate you taking the time today. This was such a great conversation, so helpful for me as well as I’m sure all my listeners will also agree. Remember, everyone to follow her. Jessica melody Rivera on Instagram. I’m going to attach her handle to my show notes. She share so much information regarding all of this.

 

00;38;21;06 – 00;38;31;20

Dr. Mona

I’m sure when more data comes out on the on children, maybe I’ll have her back with all the studies. We’ll do a live something because I really think, her information is so important to this world. And thanks again for joining us.

 

00;38;31;27 – 00;38;33;18

Jessica Malaty Rivera

Oh, thanks for having me, I loved it.

 

00;38;33;21 – 00;38;49;12

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review. Share this episode with a friend. Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel. PedsDocTalk TV. We’ll talk to you soon.