[ad_1]
As public health experts debate the wisdom of California’s move to ease coronavirus restrictions, they are warning residents to take precautions now that highly contagious variants and a consistently high positive test rate have emerged. combined to create “a more dangerous world”.
“We will need to make a major educational effort to make sure people don’t misinterpret the removal of the regional stay-at-home order and think they can live their lives as they did before COVID.” said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, medical epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist at UCLA.
“Otherwise,” he said, “we’ll see those numbers go up right away.”
Experts who believe that looser restrictions were warranted point to positive trends.
New cases and hospitalizations dropped from the December peak, and no holidays approaching that will put pressure on people to come together, they note. Many mask scofflaws may have already been infected and gained some immunity, which is safer for others, and the vaccines continue to spread, albeit slowly.
But cautious optimism remains tempered by the spread of the virus in California, complicated by new variants found here and elsewhere in the country. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted that a variant from the UK, which is significantly more infectious and likely more deadly, will become the dominant US strain by March.
Dr John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, believes California ended the regional order too soon.
“If the issue is to save as many lives as possible, projections suggest that we will suffer far fewer deaths by June if we persist in the lockdown,” Swartzberg said. “I’m not talking about an extended lockdown. Even a few extra weeks will make a big difference in terms of the lives saved. “
Swartzberg said the state’s Jan.25 decision to end the regional order, allowing restaurants to offer outdoor dining and other venues to reopen, followed a now familiar pattern.
“Every time we have a power surge we get stuck, the surge soars and then starts to decline,” he said. “We open things up too early (think May and early June followed by the summer surge, and September and October followed by the winter surge), we accept a stable state of new daily cases which is significantly higher than before the outbreak…. By opening too early, we will be building on a very high daily case base. “
In the meantime, he and other experts say residents, when near other people indoors, should wear more protective face coverings – not just single-layer masks or gaiters – and consider protecting their eyes with face shields or glasses.
Trips to the grocery store should be limited and made quickly, Swartzberg said.
“This advice is not very suitable for people who have to go out every day and work in the grocery store,” he added. “For these people, the world has just become more dangerous.”
The online MicroCOVID project, which measures and reports viral risks, says the British strain has increased the risk of infection by 50% on a single encounter with another person. The strain has already been detected in southern California.
In-store shoppers should only use graded masks, such as the KN95, and people should wear face covers outside unless they are 15 feet or more from others, the site says, which is covered by many health professionals.
But this advice assumes that the British strain is already widespread in California.
Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and director of the medical department at UC San Francisco, remains skeptical.
If the British strain were more prevalent in California, he said, cases would not have dropped so quickly in the past two weeks.
Governor Gavin Newsom established the regional stay-at-home order in December for places where intensive care units were approaching full capacity. With cases and hospitalizations declining, Wachter said, it made sense to relax the rules. He and other experts noted that most of California remains in the purple level, the narrowest category for communities where the virus remains prevalent.
As for people who think they can let their guard down with the relaxed restrictions, Wachter said, “I think most people are smarter than that.
“We’re a year away,” he said, “and if people don’t understand what this virus can do and how to protect themselves, it will be difficult to understand which message is going to work.”
The British strain is not believed to travel any further in the air or stay on inanimate objects longer, but it attaches better to human cells to get inside and multiply. Infected people are likely to spread more of the virus, and those exposed are more likely to be infected.
The vaccines currently distributed protect against the British variant, but a strain from South Africa appears to be more resistant to certain drugs. Moderna, one of the vaccine makers, is currently working on a targeted recall on this mutant. but other strains detected in the United States appear to be more resistant.
Wachter said wearing face shields or glasses inside stores was a “reasonable” precaution. “It kind of depends on the level of risk tolerance of each individual,” he said.
Doctors at UC San Francisco who treat patients are required to wear glasses as well as masks whether or not they are treating COVID-19 patients, Wachter said. He noted that a study in China found that people who wore glasses were less likely to be infected.
Even if he would be “a little more careful” now if he were not vaccinated, he remains hopeful that compliance with health rules, vaccinations and the immunity of people already infected can still save the State the massive contagion that has hit the UK.
“At this point, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to completely change your behavior based on the variants,” he said. “It makes perfect sense now that there are variations to make sure you don’t let your guard down.”
If the variants become more dominant, the calculations change, he says. The new strain in the UK accounted for 70% of infections two months after its detection.
“We have to be humble about it,” Wachter said. “This thing is constantly throwing curved balls at us.”
In addition to the British variant, other strains from South Africa and Brazil have been detected in the United States Another new variant found in California accounted for 24% of about 4,500 virus samples in California at the end of the last year, according to researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The strain was barely detectable in early October.
A separate analysis of 322 samples mostly from northern California in late November and December found 25% of the same type. Researchers are currently studying the new strain.
Many infected say they followed all health rules, but Swartzberg said further investigation usually reveals there are gaps. He cited the case of a person who forgot to wear a mask indoors while surrounded by other people or another person who wears a mask while walking but is joined by outsiders to his home.
Vaccines represent the light at the end of the tunnel, but “the tunnel has become very ugly,” said Kim-Farley of UCLA.
Southern California is recovering from a viral tsunami, its “New York moment,” and many residents are aware of others who have fallen ill or died, he said. This frightening chapter, he added, probably made a strong impression that will not be quickly forgotten.
“Better to double down now and make sure our whole family lives, rather than being lax now and maybe losing family members,” he said.
[ad_2]
Source link