BA.2 Need to mask during wave?

Well, I’m here again. After a brief brush under normal conditions during Omicron’s retreat, another highly contagious new version of the coronavirus is on the rise.

Omicron’s sect BA.2 is now Dominant variant All over the world and in the United States.number of cases Rising in many states..It’s too early to determine here if BA.2 causes a big spike in the case Like I did in Europe recentlyHowever, that possibility is worth preparing by having a good mask at hand and mentally preparing to wear them again.

If the idea of ​​remasking feels annoying to you, you are not alone.As Catherine J. Wu pointed out AtlanticMany people Don’t worry too much about COVID-19, not to mention BA.2... Most Americans no longer need to wear masks in indoor public spaces ( Some places, Masks are still a must in crowded environments such as hospitals and prisons). Vaccinated and boosted people are greatly protected from severe illness. Taking full advantage of this recent grace, I did what I had dreamed of since the pandemic began. I shouted my lungs in a small karaoke booth with my unmasked friends and never thought about it again. It was amazing.

Read: America is the first wave staring at “So what?”

But as much as I want to stick to that freedom, I too TRUE I don’t want to get sick again. As I learned directly Having a COVID can be disastrousWhether you are healthy and vaccinated, or have a long COVID, you can inadvertently infect older parents, which can be frightening. Masking continues to be an effective and easy method whenever the risk of getting infected with COVID increases. This is due to menacing new variants, an increasing number of cases in town, or thousands of unmasked strangers sharing the concert venue. So how do you know when to resume?

The answer depends on the person. “I think people are tired and annoying,” George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told me. But people need to make decisions based on their risks, which can vary greatly depending on who you are and where you live, he said. I agree with Tom Murray, an associate professor of infectious diseases at Yale University School of Medicine. “Like everything in COVID, it’s not a simple yes or no answer,” he told me. “It’s an individual decision.”

Read: The Biden administration killed America’s collective pandemic approach

All the increased risk at the individual or community level is a debate about wearing a mask. In general, the chances of getting a serious illness with COVID are high if you are old, immunocompromised, have a specific medical condition, are not vaccinated, or are not boosted. Community-level risk increases as the number of cases, hospitalizations, and test positive rates in the community increase.

The latest CDC guidance on masking from February also depends on both individual vulnerability and community COVID levels.agency Calculate community risk for each county in the United States daily Based on local COVID-related hospitalizations, bed occupancy, and new cases, its rubrics are much more generous than last year. Green low-risk county people at CDC Color-coded mapYou are not instructed to mask, or not to mask — they can do whatever they feel is right. Yellow means that people at high risk of serious illness should consult their healthcare provider about wearing a mask. Indoor masking is fully recommended in the red county. At the time of publication, the map is mostly green (95.6% of the county) with yellow spots (3.8%) and red spots (0.6%).By Old metricUniversal masking would have been recommended in at least 22% of counties.

The new system has received various reviews from epidemiologists and public health professionals. Murray praised the color-coded maps, and Rutherford called the new guidance “simple advice to get to the heart of it right.” However, there are drawbacks.Agency formulas may be underestimated Risk of a particular county, for example. Jonathan Glad, an assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told me he was worried about being dependent on the number of cases and hospitalization. The former is because many people do self-diagnosis and do not report the results to the local community. Health authorities, and the latter, because hospitalization reflects how the virus spread a few weeks ago instead of now. (CDC did not respond to request for comment.)

Other experts have announced new guidance that focuses on individual behavior rather than collective behavior. Put an additional burden Especially for people at high risk of being vulnerable if others around them choose not to mask.In light of this, high-risk people should especially use the N95 mask Designed to protect the wearerMurray pointed out.

Read: One-way masking works

The CDC recommendations are a useful framework for thinking about masking when broader policies aren’t enabled, but in the end, the masking decision is personal, experts say. I told you. Regardless of the county’s risk level, Murray said: “If you feel that wearing a mask is the most comfortable and safe, you should always wear it. No harm.” Grad says masking by making high quality N95 masks widely available. Claimed to be as convenient as possible. (For CDC Online tools To find the free one. )

However, the decision to mask can still be unpleasant. You may try to match your personal masking preferences, but in reality, people’s perceptions of risk can change depending on the social situation. I appeared at a party wearing a mask, and no one else was wearing it, so I secretly removed it from it. On the contrary, even if I felt safe because the vaccination card was checked at the door, I generally felt pressure to wear a mask at a concert where the crowd looked more cautious. When deciding whether to wear a mask is stressful, it is one of many precautions that can be layered to reduce risk and choose to test and socialize outdoors before gathering. I remember.

This is not the last time a surge in COVID risk has increased uncertainty about masking. Many epidemiologists believe that risk levels fluctuate year by year as new variants emerge and the number of seasonal cases of respiratory virus surges with colds and flu. As the likelihood of ordering seems less and less likely, Americans need to get used to making informed decisions about masking for themselves. It will take time. “I think we’re seeing a transition from a pandemic to endemic COVID, and policies are actually starting to reflect that,” Murray said. However, as long as the COVID remains unpredictable, “there may be situations where a broader masking policy makes sense again,” Grad said.

Read: Mask obligations are illogical. so what?

As with all transitions, this is a daunting transition and you may have to endure many moments of masking fakes before fine-tuning what is comfortable for society. According to Glad, masking “needs to work on normalization so that people are free to decide on a mask when they feel it is important to them.” This would be a difficult order in the United States, where masking is unnecessarily polarized. However, in many parts of the world, people wear masks for each season of the virus without prompting from the authorities. Perhaps again, the reason, or at least the desire not to get sick, will ultimately prevail.