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Bay Area health workers are likely no longer willing to order restrictions that will impact business takeovers, but there appears to be pressure being exerted to make a mask recommendation plus a warrant.
“We’re going to have a pretty big increase over the next two weeks and one that really surprises me,” said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine, speaking to ABC 7.
Wachter says it’s “100% likely” that the same coalition of Bay Area health workers that released the new mask guidelines for vaccinated and unvaccinated people two weeks ago will issue a new one. mask mandate in the coming days. “I think their health-responsible fingers have to be pretty close to the trigger on this one,” Wachter said.
It comes a day after the CDC released its recommendation that vaccinated people resume masking in all indoor public spaces – due to evidence that vaccinated people are capable of becoming infected with the Delta variant. The CDC also places San Francisco and three other Bay Area counties in the “high” viral transmission category, the rest of the region in the “substantial” category, with masks for the vaccinated recommended for both categories.
Most infectious disease experts say masking shouldn’t be seen as the big emotional issue that some treat it as – and that’s probably another temporary drawback.
Evidence from the UK and the Netherlands, where the Delta variant rose a few weeks before ours, suggests that in places with relatively high vaccination rates, the daily number of cases drops off a cliff afterwards. a limited period of time. As reporter David Wallace-Wells for New York Magazine explains today, “we may be just weeks away from a peak in cases” and “a few weeks later Delta may well be behind. us, “then the supplement precautionary measures like masks for the vaccinated can potentially be dropped again.
Wallace-Wells also suggests that we should exercise restraint in going too far in the CDC chief’s statements regarding contagiousness in those vaccinated, infected and / or asymptomatic. “None of this evidence on its own is perfect or authoritative; indeed, there are limitations and gaps for every data point. It is possible that the collective picture they paint is also too much. dark, ”he said.
Dr Wachter told ABC 7 he was “cautiously optimistic” that we won’t see any new lockdowns here in the Bay Area, thanks to our high vaccination rate, and that the tide will subside.
“I think we’re catching this early enough and the percentage of people vaccinated is high enough that the likelihood of us seeing an increase that threatens to overwhelm our hospitals is very low. But it’s not zero,” said Wachter.
As of Wednesday, San Francisco has an average of seven days of daily new cases was 191, a five-fold increase from the July 13 average. Additionally, the number of suspected and confirmed COVID cases in SF hospitals rose to 81 on Tuesday. , which represents an eight-fold increase from the minimum of 10 at the beginning of June and a four-fold increase since June 30. It is not known how many of those cases are from people who have been fully vaccinated, but as of last week not all of the COVD cases at SF General were vaccinated.
Overall, the data suggests that the Delta variant produces mild symptoms in vaccinated individuals.
But for various reasons, you still don’t want to get it, and masks are the easiest way to prevent the spread.
Update: … aa and barely have we published this, but the California Department of Public Health, headed by former SF health official Dr Tomas Aragon, has just released new guidelines reversing its stance on masks from June 15 and recommending that vaccinated people re-mask indoors.
Related: CDC confirms viral loads in people vaccinated with Delta can be infectious, so masks are needed
Photo: Leohoho
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