As the Delta variant did last year, the new subvariant of the BA. 5 coronavirus curbs the pleasures of summer, and experts say it will be difficult to avoid it in the coming weeks and months.
“Those of us who escaped for 2. 5 years? It’s going to be escaping this one,” Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease physician at the University of Michigan, told Insider.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, is pretty much the same.
“You can’t avoid a respiratory virus like this unless you absolutely avoid interacting with all other humans,” he said.
COVID-19 reinfections are expanding internationally; in some cases, even other people who became inflamed a few weeks or months ago are affected by COVID again.
“If you’ve become inflamed with the original Omicron, or even with BA2. 12. 1, immunity to those infections doesn’t oppose BA. 4 and BA. 5 very well,” Dr. Brown said. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert and editor-in-chief of Public. Health at Kaiser Health News, said Insider.
The news is that vaccines still work very well in preventing serious illness in most people, and there are now evidence-based remedies (such as Paxlovid) that work well for vulnerable populations, especially when taken early.
But it’s pretty complicated to completely avoid a COVID-19 infection, so it’s smart to expand your own BA. 5 action plan.
Here’s what you want to know and how to take the risk, according to Gounder, Malani, Adalja and 3 other experts.
Public fitness expert Katelyn Jetelina, who runs the popular blog “Your Local Epidemiologist,” told Insider that she wears a mask in “crowded public indoor spaces” and that she prioritizes doing a quick check “before seeing vulnerable people, like my 92-year-old grandfather. “
Malani said about a week before a recent vacation with his family, he told everyone to “strengthen” their precautions.
“That means dressing in your mask at work,” he said, and avoiding “slumber parties. “
“We can all make our effort to protect people, but we also want to find tactics to do the things that are important to us,” he said.
Caroline Zeiss, a professor of comparative medicine at Yale, told Insider that she will “always pay attention” when she’s in crowded indoor spaces.
While Zeiss doesn’t have “that kind of genuine concern he had” about contracting COVID, now that vaccines and remedies are widely available, “it turns out that everyone around me is catching it now. “
“This is to be expected, as we are gradually more immune, the virus escapes immunity to maintain its physical shape,” he said.
Experts agree that outdoor gatherings are a good idea, as it is difficult for the virus to spread among other people when there is new air circulating everywhere. But given the transmissibility of BA. 4 and BA. 5, some professionals are now contemplating putting masks outside, especially when they are in a crowd.
“The chances of being around someone outdoors or indoors excreting the virus are very high,” Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, Berkeley, recently told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“If I piled up with other people where I couldn’t keep my distance, or if someone close to me spoke out loud or sang, I just put on a mask and put it on if I felt uncomfortable. “
Because vaccines are less protective compared to BA. 4 and BA. 5 infections, it is especially for those most vulnerable to COVID to make sure they are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines.
Adults over the age of 50 in the United States, as well as any immunocompromised over the age of 12, have gained two boosters now to better protect themselves from the serious consequences of the disease with BA. 5, Gounder said.
In addition to vulnerable populations, Gounder is concerned about other people who are not vaccinated at all, as federal data on hospitalizations and deaths suggests that past infections protect less than vaccines against worse COVID-19 outcomes.
“The counties that have the highest backlog of hospitalizations are counties that have lower vaccination rates,” he said.
Zeiss recently wrote a suggestion that we still have at least two years of “repeated waves of infections” until things stabilize. “So we’re all going to see the virus several times. “
Fortunately, their new model also suggests that proceeding to vaccinate through those new waves may be too much.
“What vaccination does is provide you with a consistent dose, and we know from clinical trials how much immunity it will cause, and we know it’s protective,” he said. Autumn, will drive our progress.
If you’re someone who has a known threat from severe COVID, it’s imperative to be “aware that cases are increasing,” Adalja said. Have a plan to get Paxlovid (available loose in the US). USA) “as soon as possible if your check is positive” and know where you can access monoclonal antibodies.
No matter who you are, it’s vital to be outdoors, respect social distancing, and wear a mask at critical times. Consider staying home if you feel a little sick.
“A little tingle in the throat? It may just be COVID,” Malani said. “If you’re with other people, put on a mask. “
In addition to masking, vaccination and treatment, indoor air quality, through ventilation (such as open windows), filtration and UV germicides will be essential, Gounder said.
“Because fewer people are willing to mask themselves, I think it’s even more vital that we look for indoor air quality,” he added.
A “post-pandemic world,” the Mavens agreed, is one in which COVID-19 is present, but it is much more manageable.
“I don’t think a lot of other people perceive that,” Adalja said. “They think one day COVID-19 is going to happen, like a hurricane, it’s going to happen and it’s going to disappear, and it’s going to be 2019 again. “
Unlike 2019, we now perceive what works well to combat COVID, and the same lessons learned over the past two years are still valid.
“Honestly, I’m not doing anything different,” Gounder said. I did the same thing I did, which is: mask myself in closed public places, mask myself on the plane, check if I’m going to be inside a smaller organization with people. “